Planning the Adventure of 2023

As some of you know my family took a big summer trip this year. This is something that occurs every 7 years (or so) for us because “B” gets a sabbatical every 7 years. We started planning for this trip back in December of 22 and talks started before that. It was decided by the family that we were going to spend our summer in Japan, Singapore, and Australia. It started as a 6-week trip and quickly turned into a 7-week trip (and more, more on that in the coming weeks). With the kids’ summer break being cut short this year with a new school schedule (stupid modified year round) it meant that we left a week after school ended and returned a 6 days (well…) before school started.

There was a massive amount of planning that went into this trip. We decided that we were going to try and Airbnb most places, and that required us finding places to stay and determine the dates that we were going to be in that area. It was a lot of work to get the dates all figured out.

As a family we spent time talking about what we wanted to see in each country and then we would lay out what time we needed in each area. “A” got really into the planning and looked up a bunch of stuff on her own and brought it to us to talk about. She had some really great ideas that ended up on our trip. “G” didn’t contribute too much on her own, but did provide her input when we brought up ideas of things to do. “G” one big request was to stay in a treehouse during the trip. So, I looked into that.

As I have mentioned before I don’t like the planning side of things, and this wasn’t something that I really enjoyed. There were times of tension between my wife and I when things didn’t get planned when we had talked about it, or the dates were working out and then things had to get moved around, or the idea that we all liked had closed during Covid and not reopened. There were nights when we were up very late trying to get “just one more thing” booked. It needed to get done, but boy was it a pain.

Before we could get airline tickets we had to decide what order we wanted to travel in. That was a few evenings of looking at one direction vs another. “B” really wanted to take Singapore Airlines for as much as possible on the trip so that limited us on what we could do and in what order we could do it in. We ended up determining that we had to do LA to Tokyo, then Osaka to Singapore, Singapore to Cairns, Melbourne to San Francisco, and finally San Francisco to Phoenix (well that was the plan at least). When it came to booking our flights we found that it was cheaper to leave a little later than we had originally planned so we booked those tickets, only to find out later that getting to LA for our first flight was really expensive because it was Memorial Day weekend. As a result, we ended up renting a car and driving to LA the day before our first flight. I liked that idea since it meant we would be less likely to have a canceled flight possibly causing us to miss our flight to Japan (and that was a forethought to what would come on our trip). Also, we unable to take Singapore Airlines from Melbourne to home so we had to find another airline for that part of the trip. United ended up winning that price and time battle.

Booking places to stay on the trip was also a challenge but fun at times too. As mentioned above,  “G” had the request to stay in a treehouse at some point on the trip, and there was the desire to have bunkbeds at times as well. So, when looking we had to find those special things. We also wanted to keep it reasonable cost wise, but not require too much work getting around (we weren’t always successful on this). Trying to find places that would sleep 4 with a goal of 3 beds at each place was a challenge in Japan in a few cities. We made a change on the fly on night and decided on a small place in the mountains of Hakuba (The Shack) to spend time somewhere different while in Japan. Tokyo and Okayama were certainly the hardest for an Airbnb that would fit us and was reasonable, but we found something. We had to compromise once and get a hotel in a small town south of Osaka with only 2 twin beds in the room (but said it slept 4, more on that in a later post). In Singapore trying to find a reasonable Airbnb was not reasonably possible so we went with a hotel that had “family rooms” in it. Australia was relatively easy. We found a treehouse to stay in in Cairns, I found a really cool place between Brisbane and Sydney that had an observatory in it and a planet themed mini golf course, and there was a lot of small houses that we could rent for a night or two along the way.

For transportation we did the JR pass in Japan (train pass). That worked really well. The Shack gave us a car as well and we used it – I got to drive in another country! In Singapore we again did local transport. This made the most sense cost and timewise. In Australia we decided that driving was going to be the best option. Now, I knew that Australia was big, but it wasn’t until I started mapping our trip that the size really sunk in. We would be driving over 40+ hours just to get between places while in the country (well that was the initial plan on driving time). But I love driving so I was looking forward to it (mostly). I knew my family didn’t like long drives all that much, but it would be a great way to see the nation. I tried hard to limit the number of long drive days (over 6 hours in a day) as much as possible, but it did happen.

Then there were all the special activities we had to plan along the way. Some required reservations and some didn’t. There was the otter café in Japan, the fancy kimono tea ceremony in Japan, penguins in Australia (twice), the Great Barrier Reef, K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island), Seaworld (for penguins), the Sydney Opera House, Aboriginal activities in Cairns, noodle making in Japan, Pepper Parlor in Japan (robot servers), a harbor cruise in Sydney, just to name a few things. It was crazy, time consuming and at times frustrating to get all the days to line up just right. Again, not something that was fun, but it helped make things feel like the trip was coming all together.

It was long and hard to figure it all out, but we did it. Seven weeks away from home is a long time, and I am not a huge fan of it. I like being at home. I like my own bed. I like my own stuff. I don’t like the packing and unpacking and repacking that must happen all the time when on a trip like this.

It was a GREAT trip! It had its hiccups at times, it had its frustrations at times, it had its super fun things at times. God was with us during the entire trip. There were certainly days where I felt His presence and when I really needed His presence to keep me together. I am blessed beyond anything that God allowed me to have the opportunity to spend this time with my family. I will write about each section as well (maybe a week worth of trip at a time, every few days as I get things put together), so you can hear about the trip from my point of view. I will try and upload some pictures as well to go along with it.