With just one night in Taupo, today was another travel day.

Bee and Graeme offer bread and spreads for guests to have a light breakfast, and I took advantage of the opportunity to try Marmite for the first time. It’s a salty brown paste that is kind of like soy sauce in spreadable form? With cheese on top, it’s a pretty tasty savory version of toast.

Bee and Graeme have only been hosting for four months and have been nearly booked solid since, so they shared some guest stories. Bee brought up the Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets in my room as a means of sharing a story about an hour-long discussion/debate she had with a guest who is a missionary. Different interpretations of the Bible and such. I was prepared to fend off any questions about my beliefs and was relieved when they didn’t come.

I packed up, and Bee said she would take me to a breakfast place with a view of the lake where I would have two hours before boarding my bus. So nice to have rides from hosts with my bags!

Graeme was working on the deck, and I went out to say goodbye and thank you. He asked me, I guess because I work for Airbnb, what they should do if they receive an inquiry from a gay male couple. He would want to put them in the room with the twin beds, and I replied that they’re going to want to stay in the queen bed together. He then said he’d prefer to take them out back and shoot them.

I dismissed the racist comment he made yesterday when we were up at the Dam — he characterized Asians and Indians as rip-off artists — as the backward mentality of a 75-year-old man. I understand it is the responsibility of the privileged to speak up for the oppressed, and I’m learning how to do that back home. I’m an American in New Zealand. Racism is racism, but it didn’t feel like my place to challenge this man on his beliefs. Which feels like a cop-out as I write this.

The racist comment was a hurtful generalization. The anti-gay comment this morning was hateful, and I said, “Come on now. Love is love. People love who they love, whomever they may be.” He grunted and changed the subject. That was all I had in me on my way out the door.

In the hours since I left, I have really been struggling to reconcile Bee and Graeme’s generous hospitality with Graeme’s bigotry and how to confront it. I have been really heartened by the friendly spirit of the people of New Zealand, and I thought I was getting the same here, until I wasn’t.

I decided that my public Airbnb review would reflect both the unapproved change in rooms and how much I appreciated the car rides I received. Privately, I emphasized to Bee and Graeme the importance of welcoming *everyone* from the global community to which they’d opened their home. I hope they give my feedback some consideration.

I awoke at 7:45, an hour before my alarm, after 8 hours of sleep (most of the time, if uninterrupted, I will sleep 9 hours, so I’ll set an alarm to make sure I don’t go past). This was a good thing, as I had prioritized blog posts over Facebook posts during the last few days of laptop time. I wanted to share photos of my adventures, and it took a while to choose, arrange, and caption them.

I was a bit sad to leave my listing in Rotorua. It was a very comfortable and private space, and my hosts Diane and Mike were lovely. I packed up and used a free pass for the city bus that Mike gave me to get back to the InterCity depot and took the one-hour bus ride to Taupo.

Like Diane, my hosts Bee and Graeme were very accommodating of the fact that I was arriving by bus and getting around mostly on foot, and they offered to pick me up. I walked to a local bakery for a small sandwich and Graeme met me there and gave me a ride back to their house.

They have two spare rooms in their house, one with a queen bed and one with twin beds. The queen bed is the one they’ve listed on Airbnb, with the optional use of the room with the twin beds. When Bee showed me to my room, the one with the twin beds, I didn’t think, “Wait, what” right away. I guess in the moment I thought that I’d booked a cheaper room to stretch my Airbnb credit as far as possible.

I even saw the queen bed unmade in the other room, and Bee apologized that she usually has a tidier house but she has been fighting a chest cold for 3 weeks and gave in to her lack of energy. I didn’t put it together that that was the room I’d booked. I later realized when I looked at the Airbnb itinerary for tomorrow’s checkout time. I’m too tall for any twin bed, but I’d already gotten settled where there was much more floor space for all my stuff, so I didn’t ask to switch. I did provide the feedback, from the perspective of someone who understands Airbnb host responsibilities and guest expectations, that the room listed and booked is the one that should be delivered, and they appreciated that.

With my one day in Taupo, I knew I wanted to see Huka Falls. What I didn’t know about was the opening of the spill gates at Aratiatia Dam, with a viewpoint overlooking the resulting rapids. Graeme is 75 today and spending his birthday building a deck outside his home with Bee. He needed nails, and as much as he wants to keep moving, he recognized that he needed a break, so before going to the hardware, he drove me up to the dam and walked me out to the viewpoint to watch the opening of the gates and the rapids come down. Beautiful! He doesn’t make much of his birthday, but he said it was a treat to both see something he himself has been wanting to see and to share it with a traveler too.

Our next stop was a lookout point over Huka Falls and then he dropped me down at the Falls so I could first enjoy the view and then walk the hour-long trail path along the Waikato River and back into town. The trail ends at Spa Thermal Park, where you can park your car, walk a little ways through a park path, and find yourself in some free hot pools. There is construction going on there now to build a coffee shop and bathroom facilities and benched seating into the rocks to enjoy the pools. Seems a bit of a shame to commercialize the spot, and a dog walker in the park said as much.

It was another half hour through the park and back to the listing, and after an hour and a half of walking, I was pooped (my back in good shape, though!). I rested in my room until I got hungry.

As has become my custom over the last week, rather than go out to eat in a restaurant, I walked to a local takeaway for a veggie burger to bring back to the listing. Bee showed up while I was waiting for my order as she and Graeme had decided on a takeaway night. I ate and chatted with her while she waited on her order and rode back to the listing with her (it wasn’t far, but I had walked a lot!).

I chatted with Bee and Graeme a bit but spent most of the evening resting in my room and taking care of online business: bill-paying (regular life carries on…) and more Facebook photos of today’s sights.

Another 6:45 rise. No time for sleep while adventuring!

I walked 20 minutes into town and caught the 8:00a tour bus to the Hobbiton Movie Set. I’m not an adoring fan of that world, but I read The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy and saw the movies, and I knew about this tour stop from seeing it in other travelers’ photos and thought it would be pretty cool.

It was amazing! The Hobbiton set for the Lord of the Rings trilogy had been made of polystyrene and was dismantled after filming concluded. When Peter Jackson began production on The Hobbit movies, he wanted to return to the gorgeous land of the Alexander farm and approached the family about building a real village out of stone and wood. They agreed and are still business partners on the tour site.

The care and effort put into the details give it a truly special feel. There are 44 hobbit holes and each is distinct. They get bigger and more elaborate the higher up the hill you go in accordance with hobbit prestige. The doors open, the surrounding orchards grow real vegetables, there is laundry strung about here and there. It’s all very adorable and charming, a word I can’t stop using about New Zealand.

Our tour concluded with a drink at the Green Dragon Inn. We were offered beer or cider, and I chose cider to drink by the fire. Cozy and charming!

After the hour-long ride back into Rotorua, I ate at Eat Streat, a covered central walkway between a cluster of local restaurants and bars. I chose Mac’s because they were still serving breakfast, and I have a bit of a breakfast fetish. Avocado toast with salmon and a hard-boiled egg and some greens and a mushroom sauce thing. Om nom.

While eating, I looked up nearby caches and saw that there was one overlooking Lake Rotorua nearby. Beautiful spot! And I found the cache, so that was a bonus.

I walked back to my Airbnb listing to regroup and take care of some business. Among other things, as I mentioned in a previous post, I was supposed to call InterCity for a refund on the canceled dolphin tour due to weather conditions. When I finally did this afternoon, I was surprised that they issued one!

I headed back out, swimsuit and towel in hand. Since I arrived in Rotorua, I’d been looking forward to visiting the mineral pools at the Polynesian Spa as they overlook Lake Rotorua. Yes, please.

It was a very windy day, and when I arrived at the spa, the power had been out for about 20 minutes. The staff estimated that the pool heat would last another hour or so if the power didn’t come back on. They also couldn’t run my credit card, and the $30 NZD ($21 USD!) entry would take up most of the remainder of my cash. It being my last day here, I went for it. Good call. The power came back on not long after I began soaking and the pools hadn’t lost any heat and I would later retrieve my cash and pay by card upon exit.

There were 7 or 8 pools of different temperatures and depth. I sat only in the two facing the lake until the sun had gone down! What an embarrassment of riches, sitting in 104 degree mineral water with a sunset view of a lake. Making my way around all the pools, I spent two hours total soaking. So relaxing. So luxurious.

Whakarewarewa – The Living Maori Village

There are several attractions here for tourists to experience Maori culture, some of them outside of town where people pour in by the busload. Two of them are in town, within walking distance of my listing, and both centered around an active geothermal area.

As described in the first comment of this TripAdvisor post that helped me decide where to go, Te Puia is supported by the New Zealand government and operates in conjunction with local Maori tribes. They have a kiwi house, which my InterCity bus driver yesterday got me interested in seeing (they are nocturnal, so in order to see them, night is simulated in an enclosed space). Whakarewarewa Living Village is an actual Maori village, with about 25 families or 60 people calling it their home. There is no kiwi house, but the tour includes a performance of the haka, a traditional Maori war dance that I have wanted to see in person for years, so this made for an easy choice (also, Te Puia’s website is pretty slick and Whakarewarewa had a more authentic feel for me, also echoed in the TripAdvisor post).

I walked about 20 minutes to Whakarewarewa and arrived early enough to sit front and center for the 30-minute cultural performance. I was so close to the performers that it was difficult to capture the experience via photos and video, which was simultaneously a relief because I wanted to be immersed in it and disappointing because OF COURSE I wanted to savor it forever.

An audience participation section got us on our feet and singing, a song about forbidden love between two ancestors of the performers brought me to tears, and the haka came and went too quickly. My friend Kristina attended a haka about 10 years ago and said the performers went through the motions perfunctorily, as if they’d done it for a million tourists, because they had, and I was so happy that this troupe committed. And then they generously posed for photos with every audience member.

Following the performance I went on a guided tour of the village, learning about the hot pools and seeing food cooked and how the villagers bathe.

Lunch was a traditional hangi meal, meaning it was prepared in a geothermal oven. Apparently, meat cooked this way just slides off the bones, making it ultra tender, but of course I’d asked to exclude the meat, leaving plenty of vegetables: corn, carrots, and sweet potato, some salad greens, stuffing (sans gravy), and bread pudding for dessert.

I considered following one of the nature walk paths around the village, but at this point, I’d already walked 8,000 steps and I’m being mindful not to push my back too far on any given day since I still have a long trip ahead of me!

Redwoods Treewalk

My next stop was seemingly nearby, but the map is deceiving as the most direct route is not actually accessible to the public by car or on foot. I was looking at a 50-minute walk on the main roads, so I asked the staff at Whakarewarewa to call me a taxi.

The treewalk is a loop of 23 platforms surrounding redwood trees and connected by suspension bridges. They offer daytime entry, a “Nightlights” experience, and a combo ticket in between at dusk. The in-between ticket costs $10 NZD more than either of the other two, which makes sense because optimal viewing is when the lanterns are illuminated and there is still enough daylight to see the trees around them.

I’d looked up today’s sunset and found it was at 5:30pm, so I was aiming for a 4:00 or 4:15 start, figuring I’d walk the platforms and bridges slowly (the whole thing only takes about 40 minutes at a normal pace). However, by foregoing the walks around Whakarewarewa and from Whakarewarewa to the redwoods, I’d arrived a bit too early, at 3:30pm.

I went in to get a ticket anyway and made the mistake of asking when the lights would come on without specifying that I wanted the dusk experience. The folks at the desk said the lights wouldn’t be coming on until 6:30 or 7:00. What?! One said I could view the lights at 5:30 but it wouldn’t be the same experience. I only realized just now upon writing this out that, due to my miscommunication, they were telling me when optimal viewing for the night experience would begin.

This led to me thinking I had, like, 3 hours to kill. I postponed buying the ticket to figure out what I wanted to do. I think perhaps most people (?) would have foregone the lights and just taken the day walk through the trees.

However:

1. Even those who don’t care to know and/or know very little about astrology (myself included) can probably tell you the defining characteristic of a Taurus: they’re goddamn stubborn (bull-headed).
2. I really love pretty lights at night. It’s my favorite part of Christmas. I always hang string lights in my home.
3. A thing I am particularly skilled at is passing time. Generally speaking, the pace at which I move through life is pretty slow. When I was a kid, my mom used to say I had two speeds: Slow and Stop. This hasn’t changed a lot in my adulting.

There are several forest paths surrounding the treewalk, and at 4:00, I headed out on the 30-minute loop. I hit my 10,000 steps not so far in; given that I was in the opposite of a hurry and being mindful of my back, I walked reallllly slowly. When I came to a crossroads where I could head back to the starting point or continue on the 1-hour loop, I decided to continue on to pass some more time. I enjoyed the fresh forest air and crossing paths with locals on their afternoon runs.

I managed to turn a 60-minute loop into 90 minutes, arriving back at the ticket office at 5:30. The lights around the trees had started to come on, and I thought the desk staff had really gotten things wrong! It seemed like a good time to start the walk, so I bought my ticket and walked up the spiral ramp to the first platform. The first few platforms were perfect dusk light. And then, dusk was gone and night fell. The lanterns were really beautiful. And… the scene would have been much prettier with the trees in view around them. I’d passed too much time! Alas.

Once I completed the treewalk, I wished for the second or third time today that they operated a shuttle for non-driving people like myself. I walked about 15 minutes to a nearby Turkish joint. As I went to place my order, I realized how completely knackered I was. The sun and the walking had done me in. I ordered a takeaway falafel kebab (like a Mediterranean or Middle East burrito) and asked them to call me a cab.

And I’ve just spent way too much time writing this post. It’s after midnight and I have an early morning. To bed, to bed…

Today was another travel day.

My alarm was set for 6:30 as I needed to be on the InterCity bus at 7:30. Similar to waking early or not sleeping well for fear of missing a flight, I was awake before 6:00 (slept fine, though).

At 10:00a, we visited Waitomo Glowworm Caves. I was really looking forward to this tour stop, and I ended up…. underwhelmed. The glowworms were indeed beautiful, but they were neither as plentiful nor as vibrant as the photos on the site, plus our group was in and out of the tour in 40 minutes, so I left feeling like, “That’s it?” Which kind of makes me feel like an asshole tourist, but there it is.

After a few more stops for some folks on the bus to do other tours, I arrived in Rotorua at 2:00pm, and my Airbnb host graciously offered to pick me up to take me to her listing.

I thought I might spend the evening at the Polynesian Spa, but as the afternoon went on while I got settled, I was feeling pretty burnt. Out of my 4 full days here, 3 have been InterCity bus travel days. Which is how I arranged my trip.. it’s just caught up with me now. And while I slept well last night, I didn’t sleep enough.

I opted for takeout (again!) from a nearby joint called, appropriately enough, Uncle Lee’s Takeaway (how they say it here, as in the UK). As I walked from my Airbnb home away from home through a residential neighborhood in Rotorua, New Zealand, to pick up my dinner, I smiled with giddiness at my independence and wanderlust.

I’m staying a luxurious 3 nights here. I look forward to a restful evening and 2 full days to explore Rotorua.

I awoke at 7:45a after almost 8 hours sleep (I’ve suffered very little jet lag) and spent the first 3 hours of the day in bed on my laptop. I finalized and published yesterday’s blog post, deleted unwanted photos and videos from iCloud, reviewed my first two Airbnb stays, looked up geocaches to find today…

I’ve chosen several platforms to document and share my trip, primary among them Facebook posts and stories, 1 Second Everyday videos, and this blog. I’m struggling a bit to keep up with all of it, not so much in the classic dilemma of documenting vs. living in the moment.. more that I need to create moments to manage all of the content. I don’t want to let any of it go, both because I want to preserve my memories and because so many of my close peeps have requested to follow along with me.

Graham (from a previous post) gave many recommendations for my one day in Auckland. What I really wanted was to be on the harbour, and he suggested the ferry to Devonport, a quaint town with bookstores and such. Sold!

I chose a breakfast spot near the ferry terminal, a cafe in a hotel. I sat on their patio and enjoyed a turmeric vanilla latte (YUM) and salmon benedict over hash brown slabs (not shredded). Something in the egg dish did not sit right in my belly, but fortunately it passed without incident, which was good since I was getting on a boat!

The ferry to Devonport takes not even 10 minutes but affords nice views of downtown Auckland and the Harbour Bridge. Once docked, I walked the harbour for a bit, taking sit breaks so as not to aggravate my back. Still, around 3:00pm, my back was telling me it needed rest, and the sunscreen I’d applied was wearing off and I hadn’t brought it with me.

So when I happened upon the town theater with a showing of Avengers: Infinity War that had just begun, I surprised myself by spontaneously buying a ticket and taking a seat. Spend 2-1/2 hours in a dark theater on a mostly sunny day, my only day in this city? Yes. Even with the pause in walking around, my Fitbit steps for the day wound up being over 14,000, or about 6.5 miles. I benefited from the break far more than if I’d pushed myself to see more, do more.

This also meant I got to take the ferry back to Auckland at dusk, with the same view now ablaze in city lights.

I caught an Uber from the ferry building to Ponsonby Central, a collection of mini-restaurants and shops, very similar to Chelsea Market in NYC, where you belly up and watch your food being made. This was another recommendation from Graham. I wish I could tell him I took up two things he suggested. I was in the mood for some nourishing ramen, so I opted for Chop Chop Noodle House.

From there, I walked to New World, the grocery store from last night, to pick up a banana and granola bar for my 7:30a bus ride tomorrow (what I found instead of bars were something called wholefood balls). Then back to the listing for laundry (yay!) and…. more laptop time (this post, Facebook photos of the day…).

I had set my alarm for 7:45 but awoke an hour before that to the sounds of blustery rain outside the window. When I was still in Portland, I saw rain in today’s forecast, which was disappointing for the dolphin-watching cruise I’d booked (Fullers Hole in the Rock), but I didn’t know a full-on storm would roll in.

The cruise is from 9:00a to 12:00p. Checkout from the hostel is at 10:00a, so I’d asked Jake the hostel owner when I booked the room if I could store my bags. He agreed to both that and a late check-in last night since my bus arrived after he closes the office at 8:00p. Super nice. I later learned that the Fullers office will also store bags.

I brought all my stuff down to the hostel office to leave the key for checkout and found Jake on the phone with Fullers. Another guest had left her phone behind (I would die), and they were coordinating a way to get it back to her since Fullers is owned by InterCity, the bus operator.

Since he had them on the line, he asked on my behalf if the cruise would proceed, and they were in the process of deciding. They called back a moment later and said it was indeed canceled, which was a bummer and a relief. It would have been miserable. They said I should contact the main InterCity office to request a refund since I’d purchased the cruise as part of my bus pass. This surprised me as I’d assumed that weather cancellation would be non-refundable. We’ll see.

With 5 hours until my bus departure and no further need to store my bags at the hostel, it was time to take the 10-minute walk with all my stuff to the tour office/bus depot. But it was shitty out and my back was a bit unhappy from the soft mattress (my only very minor complaint with my stay), so I asked Jake about the prospect of getting a cab. He said something that seemed to indicate they are few and far between and said he’d just take me. Put the office phone on hold and everything. On the morning of my second day in New Zealand, I was in love with the kindness of strangers here.

I dropped my bags and wandered the town, stopping here and there for breakfast and WiFi, photos, a chai latte and WiFi to post those photos, geocaching, and finally, a Thai lunch before boarding the bus back to Auckland.

The scenery between Auckland and Paihia reminded me a lot of Ireland, with rolling green hills and lots of sheep. (No castles, though.) I tried to take some video but none of it came out very well.

Yet another 10-minute walk from the bus station, I arrived at my Airbnb listing for the next two nights, a beautiful home filled with plants and windows and light. My loft bedroom has views of the Sky Tower from the main windows and the Auckland Harbour Bridge from a porthole window. Utterly charming.

The storm from Paihia was even worse in Auckland, with many homes here losing power. I was tired and not dressed for the places to eat nearby. Thanks to my hosts’ Airbnb guidebook, I found a grocery store nearby and opted for frozen pizza and a bottle of wine.

Perfect!

​I hit the pillow at midnight and slept solid until 5:30. After a bathroom break, I grabbed my eye mask but had a hard time falling back asleep as it was 10:30 my time. (On the day before, but my body didn’t know that, so I suppose a 19-hour time difference across the international date line is really only a 5-hour change.)

At various points over the next few hours, I realized I’d managed to mostly get back to sleep, meaning it wasn’t deep but it was certainly welcome and better than being wide awake. This was despite construction work on a massive building immediately outside my bedroom window. Earplugs FTW.

I showered off the travel and took a 10-minute walk from my listing to Karangahape Road, or K Road, a shopping and business district. Through a Google Maps search, I found an adorable cafe named Revel. I wish I’d taken a photo of the cashier/server as he embodied the reputation of the New Zealand people for their friendliness. Huge smile, very welcoming, somehow knows about the Trailblazers.

I packed up at the listing and walked with my bags about 10 minutes to the SkyCity bus terminal to catch my first InterCity bus to Paihia in the Bay of Islands, about 4-1/2 hours north with stops.

I took my third 10-minute walk of the day to my next Airbnb listing (I booked my accommodations strategically) and the only hostel on the trip. My first hostel ever! Knowing that hostels often have bed bugs and what a nightmare they are to get rid of, I couldn’t help but worry, but this place is super clean and well-run.

After checking in, I went across the street to a burger-and-brews joint and enjoyed a Hawkes Bay Ginger Fusion and a fish-wich.

This is Daryl, Graham, and Ian:

Graham saw me taking photos and came over to ask if I wanted him to take one of me (I didn’t.. there will be plenty of photos of me in more picturesque locales) and also invited me to join their table since I “looked lonely”, which I prompted him to correct to being alone, since there is a difference 🙂

Daryl and Ian are brothers and they’ve known Graham for about 5 years and they’re motorcycling buddies. They live about 8 hours away and rode up here today. They celebrate birthdays with long rides; the birthday boy gets to pick the destination, and it has to be somewhere they’ve never been.

I was embarrassed to tell them I am only staying in Paihia for 1 night. I knew this would happen when I booked my schedule this way, but there’s just so much ground to cover here.

When booking my flights to New Zealand on Hawaiian Airlines, I researched their “Extra Comfort” seating and opted for it to minimize the impact of flying on my back as much as I could.

Rows 11 and 12 are in their own tiny section behind First/Business Class and in front of Economy. Row 11 is a 2-4-2 configuration, while Row 12 is just 4 consecutive seats in the center. Row 11 has no seats in front, so belongings must be stowed overhead during takeoff and landing, and both the tray table and entertainment console fold up and out from the arms of the seats, with the trade-off of more legroom.

I didn’t know what my experience of more legroom would be (does pitch length really give anyone an idea?), so I chose one of each for the two legs.

I know that I prefer to have the screen, tray table, seat pocket, and handbag storage in front of me, but open space was appealing too. I flew last year on LEVEL in a seat I thought was similar to Row 11, and there was a fairly good-sized area at the bulkhead in front of me where I could stand and stretch frequently with ample space. So I chose Row 12 for the 6-hour flight to Honolulu and Row 11 for the 9-hour flight to Auckland.

PDX -> HNL

Score! The legroom in Row 12 is comically large. I could get up from my seat without closing my tray. My aisle seat (STRETCH!) was right in front of both the lavatory and galley, which I found more convenient than disruptive.

I additionally won the airline lottery on this leg. The passenger in front never reclined, no crying babies (!), and no seatmates. The other aisle seat was occupied, and the two between us remained empty.

I watched Wonder, a movie about kindness that hits all the right notes and made me cry happy tears I don’t know how many times (although that could be for a lot of reasons}. I tried for a moment to sleep, unsuccessfully. And I started re-watching S01 of Westworld so I’ll be ready to catch up on the new season when I get home.

My back did pretty well! I got up and stretched a lot, and I was no worse for wear upon landing than I imagine most people are after a flight of 6 hours. Excellent use of $80.

HNL -> AKL

On the first flight, I could see what would be my seat on the next plane, and there was no empty bulkhead area. Rather, it was the back wall of the front section. Still more space than with a seat in front, though.

I was less optimistic once I actually boarded and sat down. The extra space was insufficient for the trade-offs, the aforementioned oddly located seat amenities and lack of place for stuff to keep handy.

I asked a flight attendant if I could move to Row 12 if a seat remained empty and he said “Sure” so nonchalantly I should have expected it was pretty unlikely. Those 4 seats remained tantalizingly empty for a good chunk of boarding, but alas they filled in. I might have gazed a little too long at the folks getting settled there.

I hadn’t put my backpack and messenger bag up above yet since I was hoping to move, and just as I was figuring out I needed to get settled where I was, my seatmate arrived and took up the whole bin space.

I put my bags in the next bin over, which was above a First Class seat so I braced myself for a tsk-tsk (none came), and sat down to my seatmate having removed his shoes and airing out his stinky feet.

I wasn’t resentful about either of these things. I disturbed his sleep by getting up a lot to stretch. It is what it is.

Once in the air, I got both my bags down and kept them in front of me because I wanted/needed different things at different times and it wasn’t feasible to continually access them from the overhead bin as I’d done on the first flight. This compromised the extra space that was the point of sitting in this seat! Terrible use of $125. Win some, lose some. Certainly not the worst in travel fuckery.

My back didn’t hold up as well on the second leg, but no lasting damage after a good night’s sleep.

AKL to Airbnb listing

I deleted the Uber app in 2014 after reading this piece by Sarah Lacy, whom they threatened. I restored it a few days ago because I unfortunately needed it.

The SkyBus into the city is $18 NZD ($13 USD) but takes 55 minutes and then would still be a short taxi ride to the listing or a 12-13 minute walk. Having landed at 10:00pm, after being awake for 21 hours, a door-to-door ride was in order. A taxi would have been $65-75 NZD ($46-53 USD), whereas an Uber was $45 NZD ($32 USD) and included the benefit of paying via the app, seeing who the driver is, etc.

I will delete the app again upon returning home, however.

I am fortunate enough to work for a company that sees the value in a sabbatical program for its employees of 5 years. A sabbatical is not only likely to result in a decrease in stress and increase in psychological well-being for the employee, but also allows the company to stress-test their organization (Harvard Business Review). Win-win, as they say.

To the 4 paid weeks off provided by the program I added 2 weeks of standard PTO for a total of 6 paid weeks off of work. Incredible. The last time I had this much time off work or school was in the Fall of 1998, when I thought I was building a network marketing business but I was really just blowing through 3 months of savings and establishing that I am not an entrepreneur.

Given that I finally figured out how to make travel a part of one’s life, I never considered doing anything other than seeing new countries with the extended time off.

And with that much time off, I wanted to go far.

I’ve been to Europe a couple times now and will continue to explore those countries for the rest of my life. I’ve been south to various beaches when one week off of work meant traveling no more than one or two time zones away.

I’ve never been Down Under or to Asia and those are good places to travel from the United States when one has a lot of time to spend there.

Hence:

• April 25 to May 8: New Zealand (North Island)
• May 9: travel from NZ through Australia with a 8.5-hour layover in Sydney
• May 10 to 17: Bali, Indonesia
• May 18 to 30: Japan

OH MY GOD. Look at that itinerary. I can’t even believe I get to do this.

While I am excited, what I feel more is total overwhelm. It took many, many hours of planning to book my flights, ground transportation, and accommodations.

Those have been complete for two weeks now, and here are some of the other things I’ve been working through before and since:

This site

I’d like to keep a travel log that extends beyond social media posts. I don’t know whether I’ll actually take the time to write here, but I did some updating with that in mind. Meaning, I revised the About page, published a very old draft, and am writing this post.

I wanted to choose a new theme and update the look but I just can’t with that. I got lost in the options and said ‘fuck it’. You’ll do just fine, Twenty Eleven theme.

Health

Last summer, I injured my lumbar back by… sitting too long. Yep, that is totally a thing.

I saw my trusty physical therapist, Kevin Schmidt at Pedal PT, until I was no longer in daily pain. I was anxious to be done with the appointments; unfortunately, I didn’t know I wasn’t ready to quit. I remained vulnerable to re-injury and went back in February.

After 2 sessions per week for 2 months, and armed with the proactive and reactive exercises to do, I am in much better condition for travel. Not superb, though.

I have good days and bad days, and I worry that long plane-sitting and bus rides and tons of walking and dragging bags around will impede my ability to see and do things.

Travel fuckery

I’m flying four different airlines, one of which I’d never heard of; I’m staying in 13 Airbnbs and 1 ryokan; I have scheduled legs on a hop-on, hop-off bus line in New Zealand; I’ve hired drivers in Bali; I have a Japan Rail Pass to ride the shinkansen (bullet trains); I attached an Electronic Travel Authority to my passport so I can leave the airport in Sydney and explore during my layover….

There is a lot of room here for things to go wrong.

I’m making an effort not to rehearse for disaster and to instead take things as they come. Better yet, to notice and give thanks when things are going right.

Schedule

I didn’t know how else to get around New Zealand than the aforementioned bus (no thank you, car on the other side of the road), which has a set route with flexible timing: I was able to choose when to board each of the legs. However, because I didn’t want to leave availability to chance for either the bus legs or accommodations, I had to choose how many nights in each place before I know how I feel about those places, and there is so much to see and do on the island that even with almost two weeks there, I’m staying mostly 1 or 2 nights in each place.

I worry that I’ve done this wrong. That I’ll feel rushed through my experiences. That I’ll spend my time in one place preparing to get to the next place.

A member of my family reminded me to make sure I take some down days to just sit in a cafe and people-watch.

I am writing this reminder to self now to live in the moment while on this trip.

Packing light

Errr… never done it.

In 2010, I bought a 3-piece spinner set of luggage and have used the middle size, 25″, on every trip I’ve ever taken since, even short work trips (about which my colleagues rightfully teased me).

Even if I thought I could swing to the other extreme and be a backpacker, my back isn’t about that.

So I will be carrying a light backpack and the small size of the luggage set, a 21″ carry-on, which even with packing cubes will probably be pretty stuffed.

I worry about packing too much and yet not enough at the same time. I worry about the roller being heavy while I walk it from the bus stop to the Airbnb and still not having enough fresh clothing before I get to the next place I can do laundry.

I have no idea how any of this works.

Only one way to find out 😄