It’s been a busy couple of weeks with making the decision, what is our next big trip? To most, it might seem completely insane to work out what we are doing next year in May. Unfortunately, like most average families, we have a budget we have to stick to and it’s the only way if we want to travel and travel well. Timing is also everything when you have kids.
My 2 children will both be in school next year. Yes, I am particularly excited by this. However, it makes it hard as we all know School Holidays mean $$$. It seems that the standard accommodation comes at a higher price and it turns people off holidaying. As great as it is to pull the kids out of school to travel and I am a true believer this is a learning tool within itself, I also think the kids miss the social aspect with their peers. They will always catch up on the work and you can always take the material with you but they do seek out to find kids their own age to play with. Parents are so boring in the afternoon when the daily activities have finished. haha With our cruise all paid for and our tours worked out, the budget for this year has been set and spent. It’s time to look at the future and plan. My first step is looking at the public and school holidays. Next year, the Easter long weekend is before the school holidays start in our state (NSW). It’s a great opportunity for us holiday makers to merge the 2 holidays into one to create one big trip. The best part is only a small amount of time away from school. Yet you can have 5½ weeks to play with. We have so many ideas and places on our bucket list. With our new camper, we would like to concentrate on Australia and all that our wonderful country has to offer. Hubby and I particularly like the outback and the kids enjoy it but they prefer sand and surf (hence why we all love cruising). We have been talking about doing a large road trip up the coast to Cairns for about 5 years now. We also would love to take the kids to Tasmania. Tasmania is my favourite place in the whole of Australia. So that is where our dilemma begins. Which one? Taking into consideration the climate particularly the weather conditions and plenty of weeks to play with, it has to be a trip in our camper to Cairns. For us, this trip needs a lot of planning as we want to see and experience all the best parts. From all things BIG like the Banana, Prawn, Pineapple and Mango to snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef and seeing the sun rise on the most eastern part of Australia. The list is endless but our budget is not. An excel spreadsheet is my saviour. Columns with dates, distances/driving times, places to stay, things to do all set out in an itinerary, and you can form the inevitable budget. No point planning a trip if you are worried by the cost and spending money doing activities that you don’t have or can’t afford. That is why I plan so far ahead. I now have 10 months to save and start putting away money in small increments which won’t change our lifestyle too much. I can hear you say, you can camp for free in most places. Yes, this is true but the camper will need to be on the car at every stop. I don’t feel comfortable leaving our camper at a rest stop. I also love having small luxuries such as electricity for our laptops so the kids can chill watching a movie at night. I also seek great pleasure from hot showers in the morning. That is just me. I could save $2000 by ‘free’ camping but I think we would not find this a holiday. Like I mentioned previously, the kids also crave a social side of travelling. They love to meet new friends along the way and play together. This is why we like the caravan parks. Free activities and a safe environment for the kids to play. With all this being said, we now look forward to our cruise in August and then booking our next big trip. 24 Days on the road seeing some of the best of what Australia has to offer. I can’t wait to share our travel stories with you my readers. Taking you on our journey is something I find motivating as a writer. Do you have any places we should add to our itinerary?