Tomorrow we travel to New Zealand.
We head from Minneapolis to Los Angeles (where we have a 3.5 hour layover) then switch airlines and board an Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. The flight from LAX to Auckland is 12 or 13 hours long and leaves LA at 10pm. I share this because numerous people have asked me how long the flight is.
I’m curious to see how a flight of this length feels. The furthest I’ve previously traveled is to St. Petersburg, Russia – but I had a 3 day stopover in London. And the flight from London to St. Petersburg was about 8 hours long. Similarly, when we went to Argentina the flight from Miami to Buenos Aires was about 9 hours. To be honest, both of these flights were a tough length, and arguably too short. It’s difficult to settle in, sleep for 7-8 hours, and eat a meal (or 2) in that short of time.
My hope is that our air travel to New Zealand will involve a good night’s sleep, a meal, a movie, and a lot of on board guide book reading. 12 hours seems to be the perfect length of time for this. (I just hope Air New Zealand has more leg room than some overnight flights I’ve been on!)
We will definitely need the travel time to do some planning. This is, by far, the least amount of planning I’ve ever done for a trip. We have a campervan booked for the first 7 nights and a hotel in Auckland for the 8th night. That’s it.
One last thought about our travel to New Zealand. We’ve taken a little flak about our trip — Why such a short time? Why the North Island only? Why go in (their) winter when it’s going to be 80 degrees and sunny back home?
As previously mentioned, we are heading to New Zealand courtesy of Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand (thanks again!). It’s not too frequently a trip just lands in your email box, but when it does it requires some tough decisions.
You see, I had always imagined a New Zealand trip as a big 6 week excursion to both Australia and New Zealand. The folks at Air New Zealand would have let us stay for 6 weeks, but we just aren’t able willing to commit to that sort of trip right now.
We’ve taken extended trips before (Eastern Europe for 10 weeks and Argentina/Central America for 4 months) and would consider doing it again someday. But I found that, for me, being location independent isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Many people dream of packing up and taking a year or two or forever to travel. I no longer have this dream. I like my house, my dogs, my friends, my family — life in Minneapolis is pretty darn good at the moment. So, we’re taking 8 nights/9 days (not counting travel time) to see a country we’ve always dreamed of visiting. We won’t see it all – but we’ll have some amazing adventures and new cultural experiences. We’ll have some laughs and great memories. Maybe even make a few new friends. And in the end, we’ll return home – happy to be back somewhere familiar. We won’t be thinking about what we didn’t see or do. Or what a short trip it was. But we’ll remember everything we did do. And I know I’ll be grateful for not only the opportunity to get away and take a vacation, but also the opportunity to return home. Back to a place where there are still plenty of sites I have yet to see and unknown adventures I have yet to take.
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One of my favourite countries… safe travels and enjoy yourselves!
Have a great time to the both of you!!!
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