Tips for Preparing for an Extended Family Beach Vacation

You can tell by the title exactly what I mean. Your WHOLE family rents a beach house together for a week - or perhaps it's even your significant other's family renting the house (as is the case for me). I've learned a few things over the years to make these types of trips a little easier.

1. Don't Be Afraid to Break Off from the Group

While it is a family vacation and it's important to socialize and spend time with loved ones, I think it's important to get some time to recharge if you need to! Break off from the group and go for a walk on the beach, set up camp and read a book, go take a nap. Don't feel obligated to spend every waking moment in the company of others - especially if you are introverted! Introverts tend to need alone time to recharge. You'll have a better time overall if you just take some time for yourself. It's your vacation, too!

2.  Split the Food Work

Typically in large family gatherings, there will be at least a half a dozen adults if not more. So split the work! Everyone needs to eat, but I think it's unfair to expect the organizer to do all the work. Instead, maybe each family can cook one of two meals, and you are on your own for breakfast and lunch. Or maybe each family cooks their own meal - that sort of thing. This takes off a lot of pressure and makes the trip far more enjoyable.

3. Have Designated Family-Bonding Activities (Just not too many!)
It is often easier to interact with family members you may not see as much if there is a designated family activity - like beach darts, corn hole, card games, puzzles, board games etc. You make it geared toward kids, families or adults - whatever works for your family! Just get creative! Also, I personally love having a table with a puzzle going the whole week. Anyone who wants to work on it can stop by and socialize and have fun. Having a specific time and place to socialize can help ease the stress of "Am I socializing enough? Can I go read now? Is it rude to sit on the beach alone for a bit? Have I talked to enough people? " etc.

Just remember, even if family drives you nuts sometimes, at the end of the day, they are family. If drama starts up, just take a break and get some alone time! It's supposed to be a fun, family vacation - not a week of stress!

 Fortunately, my family gets along pretty well so I am counting down the days till our own (HUGE) family beach trip.

How to Break Out of a Travel Slump

Building off my last post, I'm currently in between exciting trips, and I'm feeling a bit uninspired. Typically, I would recommend begin planning your next adventure, but we recently got some exciting news that means our time and effort will temporarily go towards a different kind of adventure - travel is on hold for just a little while. We do have a little family beach trip planned, but it's no where exotic (still relaxing and exciting though!). I know we will absolutely travel and go on big adventures soon, but just not in the immediate future. So that puts me officially in a travel slump. Here's what I'm doing to combat the between trip blues.

Get Inspiration from Pinterest

There are SO many places I want to visit. Honestly, there are dozens of countries I plan to visit in my lifetime. So far, I've made it to 5 continents (just need South America and Antarctica) so obviously those are on my list, but beyond that I want to explore as many countries as I can. Sometimes it can be hard to start whittling down my dream destinations and decide where to go next. So far, I'm leaning towards Banff, Canada or somewhere in Iceland. I've been finding a ton of absolutely beautiful countries on Pinterest and other social media. Dive in and get inspired! Then you can start planning and saving.           

Make Mini Adventures

I've mentioned this in the past, but in between grand adventures, I do my best to find mini adventures. Just recently I took a ferry to a nearby island and explored an old mansion there. It was a blast! There are also tons of areas to go hiking, kayaking and exploring nearby my house. Every weekend, I've been making a point to get out and try a new restaurant or visit a new area. There's a lot to do in your town, too. I guarantee it!


Revel in Being Home

Finally, soak in the feeling of being home. How wonderful is a lazy Saturday spent on the couch with your best friend? That's not something that is easily done while abroad, so take the time to appreciate it now! I also enjoy a good Netflix binge or a day spent on a hammock.

If you're in between adventures like me, I'd love to help you figure out your next great trip (even if that is a while down the road!) Check out my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

So You Just Got Back From the Trip of a Lifetime - Now What?

Going on a whirlwind adventure is obviously amazing and exciting, but no one really thinks about how hard reality hits once you return home. We recently went on a two-week epic adventure to the other side of the world and had a BLAST! But boy was it hard to get back into the swing of things with normal life. Here's what I did to get it back together.

Embrace the Suck
I had a soccer coach who used to use this phrase quite often. Essentially, he meant that the hard times will pass and you'll be stronger for it in the end. In terms of traveling, I mean that the adventure was worth it. It's always going to be hard going back to work after returning from an epic trip. I choose to lean into it. I love to look back at my pictures from my trip, talk to co-workers about but still buckle down and get some work done. It's hard, but it's life! Embrace it! It's absolutely ok to feel frustrated at being stuck at a desk once again. let yourself feel those feelings - just don't dwell. There's a difference!

Find Joy in Small Adventures
Not every day is going to be the best day of your life. That's just a fact. Often it takes hundreds of mundane days to build up to an epic day. Instead of wallowing in the fact that you aren't spending your weekends jet-setting around the world (unless you're Taylor Swift, who has that kind of money??), find little adventures instead. Go on a hike! Visit a local museum! Explore your home town! Heck, you can have adventures at home. I personally LOVE a nice day spent playing games with my husband, knitting, reading and laying in our hammock. Those are things I would never do while abroad (I would rather be out exploring most times), so instead I embrace where I am in the moment.

Begin Planning Your Next Trip
Finally, my biggest tip is start planning your next trip. For us, that's a simple beach trip this fall (traveling to Australia was expensive so it's going to be a minute before we go on a big trip again!). But it's honestly a game changer. Having something to look forward to can be a huge morale booster. I even like to create a little countdown on my desk at work so I can see myself inching towards the next trip. Trips, big or small, don't get planned overnight. So why not start early? Plus! now is the time to start saving for your next trip. The more you save now, the bigger the adventure you can have later!

If you'd like some help planning your next adventure, visit my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

Was the 17-Hour Flight to Australia Worth It?

Traveling from the U.S. to Australia is no easy feat. In fact if you add in all of our collective travel time it's close to 30 hours straight of traveling. The bulk of that is a grueling 17 1/2 hour flight. I'm not going to lie to you, it's not easy!  But in my opinion, it was definitely worth it.

One of the most important things for me when deciding if I wanted to make the longest trip everrrr was making sure I spent enough time in Australia to justify the flight. We decided to take a little over 2 weeks. Personally, if we went for just a week, I don't think it would have been worth it. You would spend more than 2 full days traveling! And that's just to get to the country! Australia is a big place (and we covered New Zealand, too!) so you have to take into account that you will likely spend even more time traveling between cities if you choose to move around.

I will probably do another post summing up my best airplane hacks, but for now let's say this: invest in a good pillow, move around and check the back of the plane for free snacks! Just like most things in life, great adventure takes hard work. That starts with planning the trip, financing the adventure and then finally traveling to your destination.

If you're nervous about jumping head first into a crazy-long plane trip, maybe build up to it. If you've never traveled internationally before, I recommend starting with a six-hour flight or so. After that, you'll have a good idea if you could handle the insane across-the-world trip to Australia. Even if you are a great flyer, just try to prepare as much as possible. It's going to be awful. But totally worth it.

If you'd like some custom tips and help planning your next crazy adventure,visit MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

That Time We ALMOST Hiked a Glacier - Fox Glacier, NZ

The part of the trip I was arguably the most excited for was Fox Glacier. The plan was to take a helicopter to the top of the glacier and go for one hell of a hike! Unfortunately, weather was not in our favor. It was terribly disappointing (we had flown to the southern island and road tripped out there specifically for this glacier!!) but sometimes that's life. I had no desire to die in a helicopter crash, so I believed them when they said the clouds were too low. While I can't recommend the actual hike, I will say I was happy that we did get a full refund. What can you do.

We did however make the most of it. The town was really cute and we managed to drive out and get a (very distant) glimpse of the glacier.

No, really. That's it. That little bit of white between the mountains. I'm sure it's much cooler up close.

We actually decided to try to make the most of our cancelled trip and took off a day early. The hotel was able to rebook our room so they gave us a refund (which was great!) and we headed down the road to Haast. We tried to enjoy the sights near there, but alas the dumb weather got in the way again. Rain, wind and even a massive power outage pretty much made us just chill out for the night (though we did get a discount because the power was out).

The next morning we got up and headed to Queenstown, which was nice! I'll share some pics of that fun in my next post, so stay tuned! I know this is a bit of a brief post, but hey. My time in Fox Glacier was brief as well. I just thought it was worth sharing that not every travel adventure goes to plan. Sometimes weather gets in the way (like the time I tried to shark cage dive in South Africa!).

If you want help planning your next adventure, check out my website MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

New Zealand's Southern Island: The Ultimate Road Trip

After almost a week and a half of an epic vacation throughout Australia and the northern island of New Zealand, we set out for the southern island. Our destination? Fox Glacier. We flew from Rotorua to Queenstown. Just a quick side note - Rotorua's airport is TINY! It was such a relaxing airport experience! There was no security or anything. Craziness.

Anyway, upon landing in Queenstown, we immediately hopped in the car for a 5-ish hour road trip to Fox Glacier. This sounds boring, but it was actually quite epic. Along the way, we stopped to admire the views, gazed upon beautiful mountains and waterfalls and also stopped to see the blue pools.

The blue pools are exactly that - these amazingly-clear pools. The little hike to go see them was very nice and enjoyable, but as you get closer to the pools the bugs came out to play. My goodness were there a lot of bugs! That and there was a bridge with far too many people on it. This wasn't a crowded attraction per se, but it was quite busy considering the road to get to it had almost no one on it. Either way, it's definitely worth a pit stop.

We eventually made our way to Fox Glacier, stopping at a yarn store in Haast along the way. It was an epic road trip for sure. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance. Just be sure to leave yourself plenty of time so you can enjoy the scenery and stop wherever you would like to!

Fun in Rotorua, New Zealand

One of my favorite stops on our trip has to be Rotorua. This town is beautiful and full of adventure! While Waitomo is kind of out by itself, Rotorua is a nice town full of activities. It isn't really a city like with sky scrapers, but there are tons of things to do. We went on some truly spectacular nature walk, zip lined through a forest and even rolled down a huge hill inside of a giant hamster ball - yes really. 

Let's start with the nature. The forests are gorgeous! There are some gorgeous lakes and walking paths where you can really take in the beautiful scenery. I highly recommend taking a look at the blue and green lakes and/or the Redwoods – Whakarewarewa Forest. It was truly breathtaking. 

Now if you're in the mood for something a bit more adventurous, I recommend OGO Rotorua and/or zip lining. In fact, they even have bundled packages called "Zip and Roll" where you can book both activities at once. 

So OGO is one of the funniest activities I've come across in my search for travel activities. You literally roll down a huge hill (they have several different tracks!) inside of an inflatable ball. You can have multiple people inside (up to 3), you can also fill it with water. Note: I would highly recommend going the water route as it helps you slide around. It was so silly and so much fun. Though you definitely fall all over each other so make sure you are comfortable with your ball-rolling partner!

Next up, was our zip lining adventure! It was pretty epic. It lasted for several hours and even included rope bridges. I had been zip lining before, but not like this! I also really liked that they incorporated some educational bits about preserving the forest. It was an amazing experience!

All in all, Rotorua was an amazing stop on our trip. Though I will say, you should be ready for a sulfur smell in parts of town. That comes from all the natural springs in the area - our hotel even had private hot tubs with each room! 

If you'd like some help booking your next adventure, visit MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.