Have you spent your whole life planning for your retirement and then having it all go pear shaped? This is the story of how this happened to me, and how I made lemons into lemonade.
Shortly before retirement I was left alone when my husband passed away. All the plans we had for our retirement were gone. When my son suggested going on a world trip I jumped at the chance. This article is about my first long term world trip and how my son and I didn’t end up killing each other or leaving someone at an airport.
The Inspiration
How did this all happen you may ask? Well after moving from the family home to live closer to friends and family I found myself at a loss for what to do with my newfound retirement. My youngest son had been in a job for 4 years and working very hard, and whenever he tried to take holidays he had some work trip come up.
This left him with 4 months holidays up his sleeve and he wanted to go on a trip around the world. While he traveled a lot with work it was mainly hotels and airports. We both decided to go on our first long term trip together for a little over 3 months.
Dealing With Travel Agents
I decided as this was my first world trip I would book my trip through a travel agent. I hunted around and picked the travel agent that didn’t necessarily give me the best price but the one that I felt the most comfortable with.
She has been on trips like me and my son wanted to do and was very knowledgeable. It didn’t help that my son’s work kept him very busy. Meaning, he had little time and he dumped it in my lap. I was so out of my element.
After finally nailing my son down to have a chat about what we both wanted, we decided on a European Bus Tour and a World Trip Ticket. We decided on the World Trip Ticket because it was the cheapest and we could have as many stops as long as we kept going the same way around the world.
Our choice for a bus tour was the booze cruise contiki tour. Which as you can imagine is not really my scene. Plus as much as I think I look that young in the mirror, I don’t think they would have let me in. The next choice was the fogies tour like Trafalgar, or so the travel agent told us. My son was dead set against travelling with the elderly and infirm. So we finally decided on the Cosmos 28 day tour.
We both wanted to add some extra tours along the way. On my list was Martha’s Vineyard, India, Hong Kong and a car trip around the UK. My son had been to America before but wanted to see San Francisco, New York and India as well.
We planned this trip like it would be our first and only ever trip overseas. I felt like I needed a day by day calendar to keep up with things. As with all plans they are really exciting until the trip starts. Don’t get me started about volcanoes, you will hear heaps of that in the Washington DC post.
The reason for so much planning was that even though my son travelled a lot for work, this was completely new to me. The only trip I had taken outside Australia was a holiday in Tonga as a 20 year old. My biggest plan for travel was with my husband and had been the usual caravan around Australia that makes your kids groan.
The travel agent booked every single night of our accommodation for the whole trip ahead of time and I needed this to feel secure about the trip. Over the last 10 years travelling I have learnt many lessons and grown so much in my knowledge about travel I would never do that again. Mainly due to cost and being locked into a plan that you may want to change.
The Detailed Plan
Once we finally got through with the travel agent and my son had booked some of the smaller things we were ready to go. Or, almost.
Here is what we had planned:
- Los Angeles
- Las Vegas
- San francisco
- New York
- Martha’s Vineyard
- Washington DC
- European Bus Tour
- Barcelona
- Monte Carlo
- Pisa
- Florence
- Rome
- Pompei
- Isle of Capri
- Sorrento
- Cruise to Greece
- Olympia
- Athens
- Greek Islands
- Cruise to Italy
- San Marino
- Venice
- Innsbruck
- Licktenstien
- Mount Titlis
- Germany
- Amsterdam
- Paris
- Monet’s Garden
- London
- India
- Hong Kong
- Kuala Lumpur
Packing Carry On Only
Carry On Luggage Only, how naive I was! This was my son’s idea and I wasn’t very happy about it. Never having travelled this long without my own car was a strange thing for me. I was so used to driving around Australia and packing everything including the kitchen sink. I was not sure how I would ever do it.
Three months with a very little bag even though it had wheels, wasn’t my idea of the ideal long term holiday. So the frustration that was packing commenced. I must have scoured the internet dry on articles about how to pack light. One saving grace was that we were going to travel from March to May so the weather would be warming up in the northern hemisphere.
Here is what my life boiled down to in the bag:
- 1 pair of jeans (which I wore on the plane)
- 1 pair of sandals
- 1 pair court shoes
- 1 pair of joggers (which I wore on the plane)
- A weeks underwear and socks
- 2 full outfits and 3 spare shirts
- Small makeup bag
- Travel toiletries
- A small backpack with my tablet (bulging at the seams)
It was at this point I decided that this son was not my favorite one anymore!
Now the list above was the final tally of what I took but I did try for more. ONLY 7 KGS was the allowance so upon arriving at my son’s place in Brisbane the first thing he did was, weigh the bag. To which he promptly said, “Empty your bag”.
He then proceeded to make two piles saying “You won’t need that, or that, or that”, while I gave him ten adamant reasons why I did. After much squabbling and almost disowning him, we finally got it under 7kg and were ready to fly.
Believe it or not I still have and use that trusty old 7kg bag to this day 10 years later.
LESSON LEARNT WITH CARRY ON LUGGAGE
- Just walked straight off the plane, no waiting for baggage.
- No back problems dragging 20 kg suitcases around.
- AND YOU CAN BUY ANYTHING YOU WANT anywhere in the world, wherever you travel.
The Beginning Of The Journey
The first leg, which is in the next article, was Los Angeles departing from Brisbane Australia. I stayed at my son’s house where his partner was very envious as he was being left behind. We had planned the trip before they had met and I was a little concerned when they had moved in together that my trip was out the window.
He assured me it was still on but you never know until the plane takes off. We woke early and hadn’t got into our routine yet so the fight for the bathroom would have been on if he didn’t have two bathrooms. We arrived early having been dropped there by my son’s partner to start bouncing off the walls with excitement.
We had an easy time through customs and security even though I was really concerned that they would ask me to pull everything out of my bag for everyone to see. Remember due to carry-on only everything went through security. Much to my relief I was not strip searched or asked to pull out my underwear.
Due to my son’s travel he was part of the frequent flyer clubs and we had a nice little breakfast there, back in the days when they had bacon, eggs and sausages. I felt like a million bucks as I had never been in a lounge and I wasn’t a wealthy retiree or living the high life. We had a glass of champagne each and started to get a little buzz to go with our heightened mood.
On the advice of my son to always get a bit of walking in before a long flight, we left the lounge and went down with the riff raff. We lapped the airport a few times before ending up at the gate.
The gate staff eyed my bulging carry on and made me weigh it. Thank god my son had been thorough in making sure I was at the right weight or some personal items may have ended up in the bin.
General Tips And Tricks
- Always buy comfortable walking shoes and sandals. I love EARTH WALKERS and PLANET SHOES. So comfortable and you get so many kilometers out of them.
- For joggers, you can’t go past SKETCHERS with memory foam.
- Make sure you waterproof your joggers before you leave.
- Another thing that I found so good was a windproof / waterproof jacket with a hood. So light, but make sure the seams are sealed. I love my Regatta jacket.
Now we were ready it was time to leave Australia for the first time in over 40 years. To read more click the link below!