Celebrating one hundred days of travelling !

We’ve been travelling for 100 days and to celebrate, here is our Top 10 guide to traveller life (so far…!)….

1. If you need to find something / somewhere / some-one, be brave and ask a local for help. If you ask in a friendly and polite way, with a smile; 99% of the time time, even if they’re trying to sell you something and you don’t buy anything, people will help you.
2. You meet the nicest people staying at Youth Hostels. There is real camaraderie and we have had some great conversations and learnt some fantastic traveller tips by chatting to those around us whilst washing a mug or cooking dinner!
3. You don’t need to hire a top of the range car to get around. Our memories of the hire car in New Zealand, AKA ‘the beast‘, are just the greatest, even though it was a heap of sh*t! In it, we learnt to drive an automatic gearbox- something we had never done before!
4. It’s worth being brave and hiring a moped / car / bicycle if you can. This way, you will see so much more of where you are staying and it will usually work out much cheaper than an ‘organised tour’, especially if you’re travelling in a group or family.
5. Invest in good luggage and travel as light as possible. When you’re packing up, moving around every few days and sometimes travelling long distances, it makes such a difference!
6. Long-term travelling makes you relax about the little things: We are no longer freaked out by a slightly grubby bathroom, by not arriving at places on time, (most) bugs, having dirty, black feet, taking cold showers, and will try almost any food- even if it looks ‘weird’!
7. Keeping in touch with family and friends back home isn’t difficult, even when you’re thousands of miles away. With the help of Skype, FaceTime, WhatsApp, email, FaceBook and via the blog, we have managed to catch up with all the news back home and seen the friendly faces of the people we love most weeks. We’ve even made new friends along the way- just through connecting online!
8. Booking accommodation and making travel plans on the fly works really well. We normally book places about a week ahead (using booking.com or airbnb), but sometimes it’s just a few days before we arrive somewhere new. So far, we have always stayed in nice places (apart from 1 unpleasant motel in NZ…) and have never been caught out without a roof over our heads!
9. Kids adapt well to travelling, . Things we thought they would find tricky have been a breeze… some of the things we guessed they would embrace, they have struggled with… but generally, we have had a lot of fun!
10. Of course, we all miss things from back home – I miss reliable, working internet! To be honest, I am now pretty relaxed about it. If we have it, great! If not, I’ll read a book instead – no biggie (I’ve read over 10 books so far…!). Rosie misses Western food – she is looking forward to a home-cooked spaghetti bolognese on our return. Ruben is missing chatting to his friends and playing games with them online. Aaron misses walking Domino the dog and riding his bike. All these things we’ll get to enjoy when we return home, and perhaps we won’t take them quite for granted when we remember the days when they weren’t quite so accessible… Thats the plan, anyway!