Bordeaux, France

Doug has spent a lot of time in Bordeaux over the years on business, but it was a place I'd never been. One of his colleagues there offered to show us around during our visit, and so the four nights we spent there were absolutely fantastic. On the first night we arrived, we were invited to dinner at the home of Yann (Doug's colleague) and his wife Sophie. Sophie is a fantastic cook and prepared some classic dishes from the region for us, including duck liver, some incredible local wild mushrooms, and some cheese made by a friend of a friend. We enjoyed many bottles of wine and great conversation, and Carter was even brave enough to try both duck (which he loved) and scallops (which he didn't - but at least he tried).  Their hospitality that evening was only the beginning of a wonderful time in southern France.   

Barcelona, Spain

The first time we ever visited Barcelona was when Carter was a baby. We took a trans-Atlantic cruise and one of the stops was Barcelona. It was a rainy day, and we spent much of the 8 or so hours we were there sitting on a bus, looking through dirty, rain-streaked windows while Carter dozed in our arms. Two years later, we had another cruise that ended in Barcelona, and so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to explore the city. We ended up really loving it, and so it was a place I wanted to visit again on this trip.

Australia, part 2 (Cairns, Sydney, and the Hunter Valley)

We did so many amazing things in Cairns that I didn't even have time to fit them all into the last post! On our third full day in Cairns, we went on an evening safari. The safari started in late afternoon, and our guide surprised us by first turning into a nearby suburb. We soon realized why he'd taken us there: we saw hundreds of wallabies just hanging about in people's yards and in vacant lots.

Australia: Melbourne and Cairns (part 1)

Apologies for the length of time between posts - my mom came to Australia to travel with us for a couple of weeks, and we had so much fun that I didn't have much time to work on updating the blog.  This was actually our second time in Australia on the trip. We were here about a month earlier and spent most of our time driving around in the wine regions north of Melbourne. This time we started in Melbourne and stayed a few days.

Moorea and Tahiti

When you think of the South Pacific, one of the places you probably think about is Tahiti. It just sounds incredibly exotic, doesn't it? Tahiti. Like a place of incredible beauty and tradition and relaxation. And so, we decided we had to travel to Tahiti while we were in the area.      

The flight from New Zealand was around five hours long. The time change is only two hours, but since you cross the international date line, it's actually a 22 hour time difference. You arrive nearly a full day in the past, basically. 

New Zealand, part 1 (Auckland and Taupo)

New Zealand is a country I've always wanted to visit, so it was a must-see on this trip. We flew from Fiji to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, at the top of the North Island. Most of the flight was water, of course, but as we drew close to New Zealand we saw islands with sheer rocky cliffs dropping off into the ocean, topped with rolling hills of green grass. It was stunning from first sight.

Fiji

A long time ago we looked into taking a cruise around the South Pacific. The idea of visiting such exotic-sounding destinations as Fiji and Tahiti was thrilling, and though we ultimately didn't book that cruise, the idea of visiting those places remained in our minds as a sort of ultimate beach trip. When we began planning this trip, we realized we had an opportunity to pick some island destinations in the South Pacific. Bali was the first of those exotic destinations, and the second was Fiji.

Bali, Indonesia

Bali was the third of five beach weeks we're spending during this year. Bali was a place I knew little about before we planned the trip, other than that it was a beach destination popular with Australians, and that there was a terrorist attack there several years ago. When we were choosing the exotic beach locales for the trip, Bali was a place we both mentioned almost immediately (along with Tahiti and Fiji, both of which are coming up soon).

We thought it might be a bit quick to go back to a beach resort so soon after Koh Samui, and in retrospect, I think it was. It was going to be hard to top Koh Samui, and it might have been better to have a few more weeks between the two. But of course, that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy it!

Koh Samui, Thailand

After our visit to Vietnam we headed back to Thailand for the second of five beach weeks during the trip. We'd had a fantastic time in Goa and we hoped our time on the island of Koh Samui would be at least as good as that week was. It exceeded our expectations in so many ways that it's hard to describe the experience. I'll have to let the pictures speak for themselves.

Goa, India

One of the things we decided to do this year was visit a handful of beach resort areas. Doug is not a beach person, and despite the fact that we've done so much traveling together, we've never been to a resort. When we were choosing our itinerary for this trip, there were several places that we wanted to go that are clearly beach destinations, and so we decided that we would visit some beach resorts. In all, we're spending a little more than five weeks on the beach this year. Carter and I are very excited!