Given that I’m flying away at the end of the week, it’s hard not to spend a little bit of time looking to the future. And as that future is very much going to a holiday I’ve been looking forward to a lot, it makes me wonder about what wonderful holidays you’ve all had.
For some reason, one of the strongest family holidays that sticks out in my mind is one of the first. It was a road trip south, of sorts, to the NSW/Victorian border. I remember we stopped for a motel one night in Peak Hill, where Mum and I shared some Vegemite toast. There was nothing special about the motel, the toast, and certainly not Peak Hill: it was a mining town just over 400km south of Sydney, certainly not a tourist spot by any stretch of the imagination, and Vegemite is Vegemite. It never changes.
But sometimes small moments with family can be special like that.
Other holidays that I remember: my first solo holiday in Japan a couple of years ago, predominately because I kept things as super chill as humanly possible. A family trip to Queensland was also tops because, as a kid, theme parks are great (except Sea World, which I never, and still don’t, take to).
What’s the best holiday you’ve ever been on, or the one you remember the most?
Comments
11 responses to “What’s The Best Holiday You’ve Ever Been On?”
I watched a nature doco about africa once
I’d have to say that the best for me, was one of my trips to Shanghai. Spent a week there with my wife as we had done many times before, but then I went to Tokyo for 8 days before returning home. Was such a great trip!
Probably the US trips before we had kids. Lots of fun. Family trips as a kid where I didn’t have to do anything were also pretty sweet. Didn’t have to plan or pay for anything.
Last trip up the Gold Coast was good, parents shouted our family up with them for my mum’s birthday. It was meant to include my brother and SIL but they pulled out due to work leave stuff which ended up being awesome.
We take the kids to Echuca every year around Christmas/New Years along with about 4 or 5 other families. All the cousins are running amok and the parents are just sitting there catching up after another hectic year.
It’s total peace even with 15 screaming kids.
Shoutout to the Shamrock pub for having Furphy on tap and the 101 parmas on menu.
New Zealand. Been there 5 times and more specifically the South island.
Hire a car with no plan, camera in hand and stop at every single lookout and mountain bike trail.
Absolute bliss.
Went to the US to visit family for the 2005/2006 Christmas/new year for a few weeks. It was fekkin cold but worth it. Mum always wanted to experience a white Christmas and I’d never seen snow in real life.
Stayed around upstate New York but visited NYC for a few nights. Saw a Broadway show, statue of liberty and all that.
Also went up to Lake Placid. Fekkin cold up there too.
Second time I went to Tokyo in 2011. Went alone, and just spent a week exploring Tokyo. Was about 2-3 weeks after the tsunami and all the Fukushima stuff was still going on, but I went anyway. Got to experience some small earthquakes/aftershocks which was an experience. Made a couple of plans for various things, but most days were devoted to just hopping off at a random train station and exploring. Spent an entire day in Shinjuku Gyoen park chilling out with my music and PSP, and watching the blossoms fall. Early to mid April is just magic if you can find a park or somewhere with trees and greenery.
Might have something to do with it being on the 10th anniversary of my father’s death in Tokyo, but it was a special trip. Not miserable or sad, just reflective and peaceful.
Random unplanned city exploration is some of the best holidaying you can do if you’re up for it – modern Asian cities in particular are good for this – fantastic, easy to use train networks, easy to recover if you get lost or end up somewhere you didn’t expect. Hong Kong is also great for this.
Planned our honeymoon around the southwest US. New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada. There’s a wealth of National Parks and other sights.
Outside of summer you don’t have the crowds or crushing heat so you get a lot more intimate tours and don’t have to worry about traffic or pre-booking months ahead.
Done some amazing and varied Trips that have been great.
Of my trips as an adult and away from family, Africa for three months was the best. It was tough, challenging, outside of my comfort zone and I think that made it all the better. Camping for almost two months across 9 countries. It was just amazing and about a month into it I truly just let go of all the baggage and personal issues that get in my way and was in the moment and truly happy. One of the only times in my life as an adult I really felt just living life in the moment.
I have done other amazing trips, even longer trips and was close, and at times was, but the euphoric enjoyment and happiness is something that I have never quite had captured long term by another trip.
Probably my last big trip. 2 weeks in Japan skiing with the family, good fun, but a standard affair. Then, flying off to Beijing, where I got lost in the streets at 7 at night just after arriving, was scammed and threatened in an alley, and told the hotel didn’t have my reservation. I traveled to Mongolia, and spent part of their new year with a local family, as the patriarch told us stories in a language we didn’t speak.
I threw up on the train as it was transferring into Russia, the judder of the track shift setting me off. I slipped over a dozen times on the icy streets of Irkutsk, and skied next to Lake Baikal.
A dozen different Russians spoke at me, tirades in another language I don’t speak. I walked around the Hermitage until my feet ached, and I spent an hour searching for the entrance to a hostel.
So many experiences, good and bad, made for a great trip.
The Manu park (15000 km2!!) in the the Amazon basin.
The brief before we left was, if you see anyone, tell your guide straight away. There are known remote tribes, drug runners hiding cocoa crops, poachers and illegal loggers. Also there’s a moth that will lay eggs in the fabric of your clothes and then the minute larvae burrow into your pores and eventually hatch out your skin. So be careful okay?
A day across the Andes in a jeep, the entire next day in a motorised canoe up the river.
4 of us plus a guide,cook,driver and man-friday then spent the next three nights in a hatched hut.
We carried in food and fuel for the generator, which we could only operate 4 hours day.
The lagoon out front had three types of Piranhas and countless Cayman. The tree canopy was twenty metres overhead, and more than once tribes of wild monkeys swung overhead. Howler monkeys echoes down the river at disk and dawn. That night sky…so many stars…
Best. Holiday. Ever.