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1 mum, 1 son, 3 destinations, 18 days, 1 big backpack, 1 smaller one and a kids one. There was 15-20C in Hong Kong & Macau, over 30C in the Philippines and under 0C at home when we left. Meaning we had to pack a little bit of everything – light jackets, long sleeves, but also flip flops and swimsuits. How did we manage to pack all that and more into just those 3 baggage items? Easy peasy!
Seriously, you are going all alone? Well no, I´m not going all alone, I´m going with Lu, he is actually a person, even though he is 5! I heard this question so many times when I told people what we´re about to do. See, we´re going to Asia in just a couple of days – but this time it´s not going to be the usual 3 of us. This time, we are leaving Gin at home. One of us has to work haha. Jokes aside – sometimes it´s really not easy for us to synchronize our holidays due to work and this year it just so happened that we would have to wait the looong 6 months until summer before we went somewhere together. This seemed like eternity to me, so I started searching for plane tickets, more for fun than real. After all, as long as Lu still goes to the kindergarten we can go where ever when ever. Want to know how are we doing this?
This trip came up totaly unexpectedly and i have to confess, we were quite sad about it at first – because it meant we were cut of our RAROTONGA visit for about 5 days. As we only found out about this plane connection change like 3 weeks before we left, we had very little time to organise everything, rent a car and book places to sleep and most of all – to DECIDE WHERE TO GO. The other option would be the Coromandel & Bay of Plenty area, but due to summer school holidays and New Years, everything was already booked out. So we were left with NORTHLAND PENINSULA – and we loved it! Seriously, we were really happy everything happened like it did, because we ended up having a great time in New Zealand and were absolutely blown away by its beauty and the friendliness of the locals. Seems like everything does happen for a reason. Here´s a long post with lots of photos about what we did and where we went.
Imagine a place so close to the sea you can HEAR THE WAVES hit the reef edge at night, a place only a few steps away from a DREAMY SANDY BEACH which you visit every morning with a coffee in one hand and a book in the other one. Imagine a place surrounded by lush tplants and wonderful FLOWERS. A place where it´s easy to forget which date it is. A place where your kids have enough space to run around and PLAY. And now imagine a beautiful fully equipped and tastefully decorated VILLA with a wonderful spacious porch. And it has two bathrooms! And it´s located on one of the world´s best little paradise islands, AITUTAKI. We know this place. We´ve just been there last month :). Want to see how it looks?
Not being quite sure what to expect from THE LARGEST AND THE MOST POPULOUS of all the Cook islands we landed at the foot of its beautiful mountains in a stormy morning and immediately felt ready to explore! As we were coming from the surreal AITUTAKI, where we were enjoying our relaxed and well-deserved holidays on some of the world´s best beaches, we thought – Rarotonga can never beat that! And honestly, it really can´t. But nonetheless it is an amazing island and we LOVED ITS HILLY INTERIOR which we sadly did not have time to really explore this time. Rarotonga is definitely not much behind on the awesomeness scale! Due to a series of events we only had 2 days, but I think we used them really well ;). Read more about what we did!
Finally, we were here! In case you are wondering – yes, it was just as beautiful and amazing as it looks in the magazines. We planned the longest stop during our recent New Zealand / South Pacific trip right here on Aitutaki, one of the stops on the notorious Coral route. Although it looks like a tiny dot in the middle of a big ocean on Google maps, it has much more to offer besides perfect sandy beaches and colourful corals on its 15 uninhabited islets in the turquoise Aitutaki lagoon. How does this little paradise in the Cook islands look like? Keep on reading 😉
Endless white sandy beaches, palm trees and fresh coconuts, tropical fish and a coral reef. Does this sound like paradise? It does, but we think it´s for some other reasons than these same white sandy beaches. After spending a little less than 2 weeks on Cook islands, we believe in what we´re saying ;). Read on if you are interested in how our day in paradise looked like!
Touchdown in Auckland – our FIRST TIME IN NEW ZEALAND. Sounds amazing right, but at that moment it was not – we were tired and our feet were smelly. Having had 2 flights behind us, each being well over 10hrs long all we wanted to do is shower and sleep. We completely lost track of time and were not even sure which date it is. Luckily we realised it was midnight already so going to sleep felt like the best thing to do anyway. Read more about what we did in Auckland once we got over our tiredness.
RAINFORESTS, sandy BEACHES, VINEYARDS and top end RESTAURANTS – all on one island which you can circle in just 1 day? Yes please! Before we flew further to Cook islands we had a couple of days to spend in Auckland and were determined to visit one of the islands close by as a day trip. And so we landed on WAIHEKE ISLAND a day before Christmas and were blown away by its unexpected beauty and diversity. Here is a post about what we saw and did.
Singapore is without a doubt one of the best places you can think of for a layover between flights. The city itself of course deserves at least a couple of days of your time, but in case this is not possible, A LAYOVER IS A GREAT INTRODUCTION into what this modern Asian city has to offer. So how is it done and what can you actually see & do in 1 day? Check out our TIPS AND ITINERARY SUGGESTION.
