Summer Adventure 2024: The Wrap Up

Summer 2024 is one for the books! We left home on Friday, June 28 and we returned home this evening, July 28!

Avalanche thoroughly enjoyed summer camp with his grandparents, who spoiled him the entire time, and dropping him off and picking him up really dictated the start and end of the trip (why we flew in and out of Chicago). We are so, so, so grateful for them! They sent us daily updates and pictures and even though we missed him terribly, we knew he was having a great time with them!

We really loved Australia! Of the four cities we visited, Brisbane was by far our favorite! I cannot say enough good things about Brisbane and we also really, really liked Sydney and would go back to either place anytime! Cairns was a cute tourist town and its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef obviously makes is a solid destination. Melbourne was our least favorite place on this trip, but we did two excellent tours out of Melbourne and they were incredible, so we still enjoyed our time there. Even though Melbourne didn't really wow us, I will qualify that opinion by saying we didn't spend as much time in the actual city as the other three places because of the lengthy tours we did, so it's possible that we'd have a different feeling about Melbourne if we'd spent more time there!

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and unfortunately, this amazing trip is no exception. Our travel back from Australia with stops in four different time zones looked like this:

• 9 hour flight from Sydney to Tokyo
• departed from Sydney Friday at 9:00 pm (Friday at 7:00 am Eastern)
• arrived in Tokyo Saturday at 5:00 am (Friday at 4:00 pm Eastern)
• 6 hour layover in Tokyo
• 12 hour flight from Tokyo to Chicago
• departed from Tokyo Saturday at 11:00 am (Friday at 10:00 pm Eastern)
• arrived in Chicago Saturday at 8:45 am (Saturday at 9:45 am Eastern)
• 8 hour drive from Chicago to Toronto
• arrived in Toronto Saturday at 8:30 pm Eastern
• 10 hour drive from Toronto to D.C.
• arrived home Sunday at 7:00 pm Eastern

The total number of travel hours to get home from Sydney (including our 12 hour stop at C's parents' house on Saturday night): 60 hours! SIXTY HOURS!

Here's a breakdown of the whole trip...

• time spent on planes: 49.5 hours

•  number of flights: 8

• number of airlines: 4

                    Southwest (Chicago - Los Angeles)
                    Delta (Los Angeles - Sydney)
                    Qantas (Sydney - Melbourne)

                    Qantas (Melbourne - Brisbane)

                    Qantas (Brisbane - Cairns)

                    Qantas (Cairns - Sydney)

                    ANA (Sydney - Tokyo)

                    ANA (Tokyo - Chicago)

• nights spent away from home: 30

                    nights spent at C's parents' house: 3
                    nights spent at hotels: 24
                    nights spent on flights: 3

• hotel chains: 7

                    Hyatt Place (Chicago)
                    Pixar Place Hotel (Anaheim)
                    Hyatt Regency (Sydney)
                    Grand Hyatt (Melbourne)
                    Four Points by Sheraton (Brisbane)
                    DoubleTree (Cairns)
                    West Hotel Hilton (Sydney)

• total driving distance: 2,763 miles

• total flying distance: 24,551 miles

• total walking distance: 116 miles (307,692 steps!)

• furthest distance from Avalanche: 10,108 miles (Toronto/Melbourne)

• nights our car was parked in Chicago: 27

• license plates spotted during our U.S. driving: 47/50 (we didn't see Nebraska, North Dakota, or Vermont)

As always, C's travel planning is unparalleled! What a great summer adventure! It's back to work for both of us tomorrow!

Happy Tails to you!