Planning for an EPIC near 3 month adventure!
In recent years I have been creeping closer to 10 years in my ‘day job’, and one thing that comes with that anniversary in Australia is something called ‘Long Service Leave’ (LSL). LSL is 2 months of paid leave, and one month for each subsequent five year period. This comes from a time in Australia’s history when workers would travel back to the UK to see their family by ship, and thankfully it has stuck around. For context, we also have a minimum of four weeks annual leave a year.
So when I got to about the eight year mark, and I was still happy and fulfilled in my role, I started planning a massive adventure for this chuck of leave. I had also been inspired by Dr James Best’s experiment with using travel and focused time to skill build in his Autistic son, Sam during adolescence. I had realised that my son always had huge leaps in skill acquisition whilst travelling, and thought this was a great opportunity for him. It was also perfect timing in my daughter’s last term and a half of primary school when they would be winding down the academic rigor anyhow. This long window for family togetherness may not ever be available again.
So I started jotting down all of the places that were on mine and my family member’s bucket lists. This included:
Ghana, so the children could experience the other half of their culture and see where their father grew up;
Paris Disneyland, because it’s our last Disney Park to cross off the list;
Paris, was my daughter’s request;
Singapore, because it was my son’s request;
Phuket, because it would fit into a business class frequent flyer strategy and both children requested it;
Ajaccio, because it’s the birthplace of Napoleon (which is my husband’s special interest);
Legend of the Seas, because our whole family loves this class of ship; and
Tokyo, because it’s our whole family’s favourite place.
Suffice to say, I realised early on, that this was going to be quite the logistical effort!!!! The actual travel will also be interesting to see how it unfolds… This blog series will outline how we went about planning this epic adventure including napping four business class award seats on JAL and Finnair, followed by our actual adventure starting in September.
W would love to have you follow along!