Travel musings

I've been thinking about travel a lot lately. Perhaps it's a time of life thing, or perhaps just a time of year thing (end of winter, especially the end of a bitterly cold winter, is often a restless and dreary time for me, doubly so when spring is dragging its heels in arriving).

There are many, many places that I haven't been yet and would love to go, and some I've been to and want to revisit. Japan is somewhere I adore and (having been twice) will definitely go again. New Zealand, the site of several prior visits, is a country I intend to go again. Vietnam was beautiful, and I'd love to go back. I saw very little of Canada, and want to see more. There are many places in Australia I want to revisit, and many more I haven't been yet that I want to go to. The countries I have been to (and enjoyed) that I won't revisit now are the USA (which is a shame as it is magnificent in terms of scenery and landscape, but it's just not for me anymore); and Cambodia, which (while Siem Reap and the Angkor ruins were fascinating) was quite an intimidating place to be.

My future travel can best be divided into Plans, Intentions and Ideas. In the Plans category are things I have already booked or at least solidly committed to, and it covers:

- 3-day long weekend in Phillip Island (coming up very soon)
- Solo Brisbane trip for 5 days, combined work and pleasure (spring 2025)
- Me and hubs Tasmania trip for one week (early summer 2025-26)
- Adelaide and Kangaroo Island trip for 9-10 days, incorporating both a 3-day book club trip and a 4-day anniversary weekend (late summer / early autumn 2026)

Then we have Intentions, which are stronger than Ideas but not yet at the locked-in stage of Plans:

- Japan and surrounds family trip for 4-5 weeks (our summer / their winter, 2026-27): this will be my youngest's high school graduation trip and will involve a stopover at either Singapore or Hong Kong, and our first visit to Hokkaido, the north island of Japan - we are already all super pumped about it
- New Zealand south island in spring 2027 OR summer 2027-28
- Taking the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin, followed by Darwin and Kakadu exploration, sometime in 2028

This is then followed by Ideas, which is a long, long list but the very top notes are:

- Great Big European Holiday in 2029 (timings TBD but probably at least 8-10 weeks) to cover the UK, Paris, parts of Germany and Netherlands, parts of Scandinavia, Iceland and Denmark
- Western Australia, especially the Kimberley region, in 2030
- Canada in 2031 or 2032 sometime, no ideas whatever yet about length of trip or time of year

I want to do lots of little trips too, with my family, with my partner, with my friends, by myself, in the next two decades while I am still (hopefully) fit and well enough to enjoy a wide range of activities. Weekends away and cheeky 5-day trips will, I trust, be a feature of my coming years, now that I am finally in a position where money isn't quite so tightly constrained and my children are entering their independence and no longer need to have care arranged. 

It's a big wide world, and I'm curious about so much of it. I know how privileged I am to be able to think like this, and I don't want to squander that just sitting around wondering.

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