Like many of you, we have not ventured overseas for awhile. It is 2 years and 8 months since we landed back home in Australia after living in Europe for almost 15 months. Of course we have not been able to travel overseas for most of that time, but even when restrictions eased, we were concerned about getting sick a long way from home.

So, this will be our first overseas holiday since COVID.

Although we have spoken about going to this place often, we have never been. It is relatively close to Australia; with the flight time from Sydney to our first destination around 9 hours. To Mick and me, that is short, as our usual overseas trips are to some destination in Europe.

So, this will be our first visit to this country.

Mick and I are used to travelling on our own.

Twice though, I organised holidays in Italy for the two of us and for Mick’s mother Kath. The first time we holidayed with Kath in 2009 she was 81 years old, and the last time, where we spent three weeks in Sicily with her, she was 90 years old. We also travelled with one of our sons from Australia to Canada in 2016 to watch him defend his doctorate at Ottawa University.

We have met family and friends part-way during our house sits or on our holidays, and we have always enjoyed those experiences. This holiday coming up however, we have accepted the kind offer from one of our sons and his fiancée to join them as their guests. While we will go our separate ways around Day 9 of our 3 week holiday, it will make for a big change.

So, this will be the first time we will travel overseas on an invitation.

One of my favourite pastimes is organising our holidays. I’m very lucky that Mick has been happy for me to come up with the plans for our trips. It suits my bossy nature to have control of what we will do and where we will go. Mick on the other hand is happy to take part in and enjoy the holidays and house sits with me, but usually he has little to do with the details of the house sitting assignments or other travel plans. And, that is how I like it.

This trip, neither Mick nor I have organised the flights or the details for the nine days we will spend with our son and his fiancée. Our son has good local knowledge of the places he will take us to, as he lived and worked in this country for many months, prior to COVID, and fell in love with the place. He also learnt the language and made quite a few friends we are set to meet.

So, this is the first time an itinerary has been organised for us.

Mick and I first travelled overseas together in 2007, and I commenced this blog in 2012 as a way of documenting our adventures so we could refresh our memories and relive some of our experiences .

This upcoming trip will be our seventeenth abroad, with thirteen of those trips taking us to Europe and involving lengthy flights and sometimes stop overs in mostly Asian countries. Each trip we have travelled in Economy Class. Each trip, Mick has asked me to book flights in Premium Economy (or better), and each time I have told him that the money we saved by flying Economy was better spent at our destinations. This trip however, our son has bought the tickets for us for all of our flights, and Mick is going to be thrilled.

As, this will be the first time we will be flying Business Class.

Because our son is worried about luggage going missing and of the possible delays we have all been reading about to do with luggage being unloaded from planes, we have been asked to consider only taking carry on luggage. While we have done this for short-stay domestic flights, we have not been so brave on long haul flights. I was very surprised to read the luggage requirements available for Business Class passengers, and both Mick and I feel as though we are up for the challenge.

So, we will undertake international travel with only carry on luggage.

We will spend a night in Sydney the day before our flight to our holiday destination.

The countdown is on – we have three ‘sleeps’ to go before we leave Brisbane for Sydney.

But, to where???

More next post.