Continents Challenge

While we were all quarantining at home back during the pandemic, C and I were dreaming about being able to travel again and came up with a plan for where we'd like to go in the coming years. As we mapped out dates and locations, we knew a huge priority would be getting to all seven continents, which we accomplished this past December when we went to Antarctica!

We originally planned to try to do the seven continents over seven years between 2021 and 2027. What we realized is that if we were strategic, we'd be able to get to all of the continents in much less time than seven years!

Back when we were doing all of the 50 states in one year, we really just had to figure out Alaska and Hawaii first, then worry about the other 48 states. For the seven continents, the trickiest one would obviously be Antarctica, so deciding when we'd go there was our first decision, and we slotted in the other continents around that. I knew I wanted to be IN Antarctica for our 31st wedding anniversary since our wedding date is December 31 (and I have a thing about numbers!), so we worked out getting to the other six continents before and after our Antarctica trip and devised a plan to get to all seven continents within a 24-month period.

As with any travel, so many things can go wrong to disrupt the best laid plans, but the travel gods were on our side and everything worked out pretty much how we planned it, with the exception of us flip-flopping the summers we went to Australia and Africa because of safari/hotel availability.

During these 24 months, the three continents that were new to us were Australia in 2024 and Africa and Antarctica in 2025, as we'd already been to North America (obviously!), multiple trips to Europe starting in 2007, Asia in 2017 and 2020, and South America in 2023. We technically went to Asia twice during the 24 months because we added Dubai to our Africa trip in 2025, but as you can see from the signs below, our plan was always for Asia to happen in July 2026. We also went to Europe thrice during these 24 months because in addition to the trip pictured below, we went to Frankfurt and Budapest last summer and Paris this past May!

North America / July 2024

Chicago

Australia / July 2024

Sydney

Europe / December 2024

Vienna

Africa / July 2025

Nairobi

South America / December 2025

Buenos Aires

Antarctica / December 2025

Antarctica

Asia / July 2026

Tokyo

Several years ago, B1 said to me, "You guys really do love a checklist," and yes, we certainly do! We've got two other almost-completed checklists that we'll finish up in a matter of weeks! LOL!

Happy Tails to you!

2024: A Look Back

It has taken me almost three weeks to write this post because to be honest, I didn't really want to revisit the first part of 2024. It was a very dark time for me as I navigated the loss of my beloved mom and I have a hard time thinking back to that time when it felt like I was barely hanging on by a thread every single day.

There's this idea that you should only look back to see how far you've come, and I decided to adopt this mindset. As a result, I'm proud to say I ended 2024 in a much different place than where I began it. I miss my mom so much and I often wonder if I'll ever experience a joyful moment that isn't tinged with sadness in some way because she isn't here to share it with me. However, over the course of the year, almost imperceptibly, despair slowly stopped being the emotion dominating my life.

Time was certainly a factor, but I really credit travel for lifting my spirits and helping me gain some much needed perspective. It's always fun to recap our travel at the end of each year and we were fortunate to go to some great places in 2024!

We spent 51 nights in a hotel (not including C's trip to the Grand Canyon with my dad and my brother or my trip to NYC with my best friend) and two nights were spent on red-eye flights (LAX-SYD and YYZ-MUC). Not too shabby!

In terms of domestic travel, we took six trips to WDW (January, February, March, April, May, and June), finishing our 11 trips to WDW over the 11 months of the 23-24 school year! We also had one trip to Disneyland in July, a weekend trip to Denver, a stopover in Chicago, and day trips to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and Connecticut. Although Canada is technically international, we always consider it part of our domestic travel because it's home for us, and in 2024, we went to Canada several times!

Internationally, we went to Milan and Venice for spring break; we went to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Cairnes (with a layover in Tokyo) over the summer; and then ended the year with a winter break trip to Munich and Vienna.

The biggest family event of the year was the birth of our nephew in October! He is so tiny and perfect and we're incredibly lucky to now have a niece and two nephews to love!

The least fun event of the year was Avalanche getting skunked in February! The stench lingered for months! So gross!

My favorite travel experience of the year was seeing the Little Penguins on Phillip Island in Australia! Truly one of my favorite travel days ever!

Avalanche turned 13 in October and we have been so fortunate that he's had the best people to love and care for him while we travel. He loves his time at his dog hotel, he completely adores his babysitter, and of course, C's mom and dad are amazing and he has the best time when he's at their house for several weeks at a time! We're beyond grateful for them!

I had a tough time narrowing down my very favorite moment of 2024 because there were a lot of great ones to choose from, but the one that filled me with such happiness was going outside with Avalanche at 2:00 am back in February when we had some overnight snow. He and I just ran around the yard together in the middle of the night and it was magical!

We've got some big trips scheduled in 2025 and I'm looking forward to all of the memories we're going to make!

Happy Tails to you!

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!

The Land Down Under: Day 21

We flew from Sydney to Tokyo on ANA, which is one of our favorite airlines! We've always been impressed with the quality of their service and this flight was no exception. It was a nine-hour flight, during which time both of us slept quite a bit, and we arrived in Tokyo at 5:00 am. We've still got quite a way to go between here and home, so it was nice to get some decent rest! We're connecting through here, so we had to take a shuttle from the international terminal where we landed to the international terminal we are leaving from, which took about 20 minutes, and since then, we've just been enjoying the airport!

Had we had more available time to travel this summer, we not only would have gone to New Zealand, but we definitely would have spent some time in Tokyo because we absolutely love Japan! Unfortunately, it's just a five-hour layover, but that was still plenty of time to stop by the 7-Eleven in the terminal before heading to the lounge for a few hours prior to our flight!

bag drop was quick and painless!

the airport lounge in Sydney was
super quiet with really good food

we sat in premium economy to get the
2-3-2 configuration

we will miss Australia, but we have
missed Avalanche so much and we're
beyond excited to see him!

dinner on the flight included pasta primavera,
salad, fruit, a roll, and then ice cream for dessert

the shuttle between terminals
at the Haneda airport

this shuttle is so much better than
the Dulles people mover
LOL
(I still love Dulles as far as airports go!)

there were two other passengers on the shuttle with us
and the four of us had to follow this lady as she
escorted us to the security checkpoint

Japan is wonderful!

the 7-Elevens in Japan are fantastic - 
even the ones in the airport!

you can't buy happiness, but you can
buy egg salad sandwiches from 7-Eleven in Japan
and that's pretty much the same thing!

the ANA lounge at the Haneda airport
is very nice, although quite busy
(you can't really tell in this pic,
but trust me, it was busy!)

Happy Tails to you!

The Land Down Under: Day 20

It was our last day in Sydney today, and while we are obviously super excited to see Avalanche, we're sad to be leaving Australia. What a wonderful three weeks this has been! This country has exceeded every hope I had about it and we're leaving the four cities we visited with amazing memories!

We checked out of the West Hotel and left our bags at bell services, then spent part of our day at the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium, which was great! We saw sharks, rays, tropical fish, penguins, jellyfish, and a dugong! The staff did some really interesting presentations and we're so glad we went today! We had wanted to visit the aquarium when we were in Sydney during the first part of our trip, but we had a hard time finding tickets available for when we could go!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous so we spent our last few hours walking around Sydney, with a final visit to the Opera House, before wandering back to our hotel to get our bags and take an uber to the airport. We've got two long flights and a long drive ahead of us, but waiting at the end of our journey is our beloved fluffy boy! We can't wait to see him!

an absolutely beautiful last day in Sydney!

Little Penguins!

Sydney is a spectacular city!

I liked the look of this sculpture outside the
Museum of Contemporary Art

when you look through it from the back side,
you can see the Opera House!

Australia...you are amazing!

Happy Tails to you!