Don't Believe in Rainy Days

Despite being raised better, I am not much of a planner or a saver. I eschew planning because my spirit prefers spontaneity and serendipity. And saving? Well, I'm more of a live in the moment and there are no guarantees type of girl. Who says I'll still be alive at retirement age? Why put all my eggs in that basket? The only real basket is the one I'm holding right this very moment.

Side bar: if you are reading this and you are my mother or father, yes, I still have a healthy 401K. I just give it the stink eye.

As I said a post or two ago, I've known for just about 6 years that this sabbatical would be mine if I hung in there. And, I'm really good at hanging in there when I choose to. So, I decided to put aside my normal lack of saving ways and start hoarding airline and hotel miles and points.

I travel regularly. It's easy for me to always fly American, because I quite literally live across the street from DFW airport, which is an American hub. They also fly non-stop to San Jose, which is my most frequent place to visit. It is also quite easy for me to always stay at a Hilton. And so, I do both at least 1 time per month. Sometimes 3-5 times. Repeat every month for years. Next thing you know, there are hundreds of thousands of points and miles available.

Imagine our delight, if you will, when we finally started booking everything a couple of weeks ago. Not only did it finally start feeling real, but it is also feeling free. We are able to fly first class on every single flight for absolutely $0. As of now, there are at least 7 flights within this trip. We are staying at, surprise! Hiltons on numerous occasions, including the 4 days in Honolulu coming and going, Auckland, NewZealand, and possibly the Great Barrier Reef for a total of $0.

Then, as luck would have it, I recalled that Jason's awesome parents had offered us a timeshare week they wouldn't be able to use...in October! I hopped on line and found I could trade it out for a week's stay at one of the top hotels in Adelaide, Australia. For just a change fee of something like $79.

Our luck continued in that Jason has a wonderful friend who is currently living in Brisbane, Australia and has invited us to join her and her hubby at their place. So, there is another week of housing without cost.

We couldn't find a way to make the 31 day cruise free, but we watched the price on it fall the last 7 months (seriously) and finally booked for fear that the balconies would sell out. When we went to book, Jason had another stroke of brilliance and he (somehow!!!) thought to look at American Airlines Cruises (which, I promise you I didn't even know was a thing). Sure enough, the very cruise we wanted was there. So while we paid for our balcony cabin, we got plenty of other perks including triple miles!! Boom! Another free flight has been born. Another plus, American Airlines Cruises also offers shore excursions -- so we now can compare the ones offered directly from the cruise and the ones offered from AA. We're picking and choosing between them and it is awesome.

In a sea of approximately a gazillion, one thing I love about Jason is he travels like I do. We don't get bored. We can just grab a drink, sit outside, and watch. We can take walks around. Just be. And you know what? Just being is often free.

So while I often hear people mumble about how much a trip like this would cost...and it, of course, costs, I hope you'll get some encouragement from reading this. With not too much effort, I was able to weave together something incredible for very little. I do realize that not everyone can rack up the miles and points I did -- at least not in the way I did. But, there are plenty of ways to earn miles and points without having a traveling job:) I follow several travel hacking websites, take full advantage of miles/points based credit cards, etc. It all adds up to making big dreams happen.

At the end of the trip, I'll share the real costs. I'm always very open about it. This is not to brag or boast. This is because as a traveler, I spend a lot of effort trying to determine these sorts of things and always wish that someone would share their trip expenses so I could make a decent ballpark guess at what my own trip might cost. If there is something in particular I don't mention that you're curious about (cost-wise) please ask. I will tell you unless it is something I've purchased as a gift for someone who might be reading:)

Itinerary that Dreams are Made of...literally

If you are even remotely like me, you daydream of various St. Somewheres and limitless time to explore. I would go so far as saying there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not thinking about a future adventure of some sort.

And so, it caught me by surprise when it came time to be serious about planning this sabbatical that I absolutely could not figure it out. This has been an unending struggle for all of 2017 and some months of 2016. Also, just a couple of years ago, I offered my brother a free trip to Anywhere for his 40th and he struggled to pick a place... and that surprised me. Little could I have predicted that in short time, I'd find myself in his shoes. (By the way, I chronicled that adventure earlier in the life of this blog, should you care.)

What began as Europe for sure with possible tack-on's to tangential places has ended up on the far side of the world. My brilliant husband finally reasoned that we could go to Europe in shorter stints (that didn't require a sabbatical) but couldn't go to the farthest ends of the world without the longer time period to work with. And just like that, Australia and New Zealand were on the map.

Interestingly, although I have always wanted to go to both places and secretly know, in advance, that part of my very soul is likely waiting for me in New Zealand (can we have spirit countries?) at first, I wasn't any more excited about this plan. I've finally realized, it's because it's just too unreal.

We've been cobbling together an itinerary. There are a few things left to figure out so there are placeholders for now. But, here's what we're expecting to happen. We're also expecting life to happen over these 50 days...so we'll see where reality lands.

Day	Location	Getting There	Plans
1	Honolulu	Plane	Buy stuff
2	Waikiki Beach
3	Honolulu Cruise terminal	taxi	Go aboard
4	At sea	boat
5	At sea	Boat
6	At sea	Boat
7	At sea	Boat
8	At sea	Boat
9	Pago Pago, American Samoa	Boat
10	International Dateline	Boat
11	Suva, Fiji	Boat	See Dramea!
12	Lautoka, Fiji	Boat
13	At Sea	Boat
14	Lifou Islem New Caledonia	Boat
15	Ile Des Pins, New Caledonia	Boat
16	Noumea, New Caledonia	Boat
17	At Sea	Boat
18	At sea	Boat
19	Sydney, Australia	Boat
20	At sea	Boat
21	Melbourne, Australia	Boat
22	At sea	Boat
23	Tasmania, Australia	Boat
24	At sea	Boat
25	At sea	Boat
26	Cruise Milford Sound	Boat
27	Cruise Fjordland National Park	Boat
28	Dunedin, New Zealand	Boat
29	Christchurch, New Zealand	Boat
30	Picton, New Zealand	Boat	Wineries!
31	Wellington, New Zealand	Boat
32	Napier, New Zealand	Boat
33	Rotorua, New Zealand	Boat	Kayaking and glow worm caves!
34	Auckland, New Zealand	Boat	Waiheke Island
35	Auckland, New Zealand	Boat	Exit the cruise ship and find our “land legs” again
36	Auckland, New Zealand	Land!
37	Adelaide, Australia	Plane
38	Adelaide, Australia		Wineries!
39	McLaren Vale, Australia		Wineries!
40	Barossa Valley, Australia		Wineries!
41	Brisbane, Australia	plane
42	Brisbane, Australia
43	Great Barrier Reef	Plane	Stand in awe
44	Great Barrier Reef		Be amazed
45	Brisbane, Australia	Plane
46	Brisbane, Australia
47	Brisbane, Australia
48	Honolulu	Plane
49	Honolulu
50	DFW	Plane	Jet lag

Curiosities of a Very Long Trip

So, we'll be gone about 50 days. I will post our agenda soon. We're still working on it after the world's biggest DUH the other night when I realized we were going to completely miss the Great Barrier Reef without making some adjustments. DUH.

But that's not the point. The point is, I've never traveled that long at one stretch. Now, I have spent 3 summers out of the country but in each instance, I pretty much went to one place and stayed there the whole time. I had access to things. Plus, I was younger. This is important because medicine.

Being the smart person I am, I started asking around to my well traveled pals to find out all their tricks. Learned good stuff.

Mostly, take about one week's worth of clothing. Somewhere between 5-7 days worth will do it. You can find a way to launder within this time. We're not going to the Sahara, for crying out loud. Take things that serve multiple purposes. This is no time for the red sequined blouse (disclaimer -- I don't actually own one.).

Another interesting tip -- Try to buy all your toiletries when you arrive rather than bringing them with you. This lightens the load and significantly decreases the likelihood of things leaking:) Like, to 0%. This will work for us because we've got 2 days to kill in Hawaii before we get on the cruise ship. Plenty of time to buy the large shampoo and sunscreen rather than the under 3 ounce bottles if we traveled with them.

But, we're left with a few things we can't really avoid.

• Contacts. I wear dailies, which means I'll have more than 100 of them with me at the start of the trip. Everyday, the amount of space these take up decreases. That's the good part. 
• Prescriptions: can't really get around bringing all this junk. The biggest annoyance is trying to get more ahead of time. So glad a few druggies ruined the entire system for the rest of us who just can't go to CVS on the 21st for 2 months in a row and need it all in advance. Yes, I am aware that some people can get a 90 day supply of whatever...I'm either not one of those people or the meds we take don't count. 
• Shoes. Shoes are an interesting conundrum. Everyone says try to limit to 3. 3 mostly works for me. That's flip flops, athletic shoes, and something that passes for a dressy/casual. But then, there are excursions that say must wear closed toe shoes. Suddenly, I now need 4 because I can't have my running shoes be wet for 3 days. Then there is hiking. What kind of hiking? The kind where you legit need hiking boots? Sigh. Then there is can everything I am planning to wear go with these shoes? I'm not much into fashion (ok, AT ALL) but I don't want to look stupid. 
• Makeup: I mean...I might be on vacation, but there will be a lot of pictures. I won't wear a lot, but I have to pack some.
• Hats: there are so many instances for hat wearing. Is it possible to pick one hat? Yes. I think it is. Which hat is a different story. 
• Shaving: let's be real. People have things to shave in a 50 day span. Can we pick one shaving implement that works for both people and all the places? And can be carried on? Remains to be seen.
• Lack of wifi: this is a mostly good thing except when it comes to things like managing money. We're trying to ensure that everything can be auto paid. The largest unknown is things like paying the credit cards that are being used to pay everything else. Totally able to work around this -- just need to stay alert and on it because a) we won't always have wifi b) when we do we might not trust it enough to log into a banking account. 
• Changing seasons. When we leave Texas, it'll still be hot as blazes -- still summer. but heading into Fall By the time we get to Australia it'll be spring. By the time we leave, it'll be more summer ish. When we come home, it'll be winter. All the seasons! This makes packing light more challenging. Especially as Jason is ALWAYS hot and I am most frequently cold.

Anyway, just sharing some of the more trickier aspect to traveling for many days in a row. When we finally get it all figured out and laid out to pack, I'll share what we came up with.

7 weeks Till 7 Weeks

Things are really starting to fall into place now. We have a mere 7 weeks to go before sailing away for 7 weeks.

How's this even possible for you? People ask me this all the time. This probably is because I can't stop talking about it. And I won't. I haven't been this excited about something in a very long time.

But anyway, how's it possible? Because I work for PayPal, which is an AMAZING place to work. When I was interviewing almost 6 years ago, I remember the recruiter telling me about this great perk -- a sabbatical every 5 years. Now, I hadn't been in one job for 5 years...well, ever...but I locked my sights on that and never looked back.

PayPal has been nothing but great to me this entire time. I truly love working there. But this sabbatical-- talk about the cherry on top! The way it works is, after every 5 years you get 4 straight, paid weeks off. If your boss is awesome, like mine, you can then also attach additional PTO time and keep on truckin'. PayPal actually no longer has us accrue PTO -- we're tracking free so you take time whenever and for however long you want (as long as you are performing well and your boss is cool, right?). So - boom! 7 weeks.

AND, in a way that can only be the result of God shining major love down on me - my sweetie gets to go along with me and has a way to be off work for the entire 7 weeks, too. I mean, he's not getting paid while we're gone -- this isn't a total sunshine, unicorn and rainbows thing. But, it's pretty darn good.

So, after going back and forth for pretty much my entire life, we've mostly arrived at our agenda. Which is good, because I need a vacation from sabbatical planning. I don't expect I'll muster any sympathy, but it really has been exhausting.

We're still finalizing all the many flights, hotels, excursions, etc. More on those later.

In the meantime, there is much more to do! Things like figuring out which shoes can do double or triple duty. Which clothes will dry the fastest. Whether the beverage package is cheaper in the long run. Whether trying to construct the same excursion on our own will actually work. Constructing a work out plan to not gain weight during the portion of the trip that is a 31 day cruise. Reading ALL the lonely planet books ever written. Trying to figure out why we stop in Samoa but there is nothing to do there (or if there is, no one is talking). How the heck much IS the wi-fi and why can't they just post it? How am I going to write if I don't bring my laptop? Resolving the utmost desire to unplug but keep up to date with posting stories, pictures and moments to enjoy for many years to come. How to get ALL THE BOOKS into my Kindle and how to stop reading them all before I ever leave.

Much to do.

And then, I also need time to just sit in complete awe that this is real and this is my life.

Yesterday, I booked a kayaking trip in New Zealand. I'll get to paddle into the infamous glow worm caves. I can't get over this upcoming joy. I know I'll be a total dork and cry while sitting in there because it will be so amazing and I'll feel so blessed and overwhelmed.

There was a time in my life where I didn't really feel anything for a long while. Totally numb. So, I'll take this unexpected excitement and future plan to cry when I see the glow worms.

This is real.

Maybe all the dreams don't get to come true. But this one does.

Preparing For Sabbatical

Just pulling this blog out and shaking off the cobwebs and dust. Sabbatical is coming!

More soon.