Two Augusts ago, we sat on a crowded linoleum floor at LAX waiting to board our flight to Sydney, which would be our home for the next 5 months. Of course our plane was delayed til 1am, which is never ideal with a 2.5 year old travel companion. But we finally boarded our 14 hour flight (and against my will, had our well-chosen seats moved to the back row after my daughter was asleep because Quantas doesn’t believe in flying with car seats), and embarked on a 5 month journey to Sydney, Australia and beyond.
Technically, we were there for my husband to attend business school at UNSW for a semester and expedite his degree from NYU. But we were also there for a life adventure, for a temporary cure to my endless wanderlust, and for a pause in our regular lives that we knew would be impossible when my husband returned to work and my daughter started school. Trading NYC pavement for Coogee Beach sand couldn’t be a bad thing either. As we had hoped, the entire experience was beyond incredible. We logged 35, 751 miles in the air while traveling through 13 different airports, and drove many more miles up and down Western Australia and around both islands of New Zealand. It wasn’t all roses to travel with a toddler, and I wrote a bit about that after our first three weeks and later about her homesickness and (insane?) desire to get back to NYC. But it was worth it–I aim to raise an adaptable human being!–and I’d do it all over in a heartbeat.
As you can imagine, I took my camera everywhere. To the rice fields in Bali, down a remote red dirt road to a sketchy crocodile farm with short fences in Broome, on top of a camel while riding along 14 mile long Cable Beach, to the bungee jumping platform in Queenstown, in a kayak to the middle of a foggy magical lake near Arthur’s Pass, NZ, and many more unique places. I also used it to record my daily life in Sydney–hello coffee, hello ocean pools. Yet I haven’t shared most of these images…life and travel were surprisingly busy, the internet/wireless situation there is HORRIBLE, and things got even busier when we returned home (thank you baby 2!).
So…in honor of the two year anniversary, I’m finally posting about my 12, yes 12–I couldn’t narrow it down any more–best experiences during our travels. It’s no surprise that many of these are visually moving moments that even my camera couldn’t do justice to.
Starting this week, you can travel along with me for a month as I’ll post three a week. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and if some of these are not on your bucket list, add them now! Stay tuned!
Field of Roos, Western Australia
