North Island tour continues

90% of the time, my go to travel style can be described as "winging it". I don't like committing to a certain itinerary because I have found that sometimes the best experiences are spur of the moment unplanned adventure. This usually works for me, but in New Zealand not so much.

The thing I did not think about beforehand was that I was traveling during the NZ summer, peak backpacker time. They also aren't fans of free wifi in the hostels which made it very difficult to fly by the seat of my pants. I ended up with the most ridiculous route of the North Island (literally went in circles) but I just embraced it and was happy to check off some pretty amazing things on the bucket list.

My favorite excursion was my visit to the Waitomo glow worm caves. Originally I planned on simply taking a nice leisurely boat through, but my travel agent suggested a more adventurous route. Little did i know this meant crawling through tiny spaces and jumping backwards down waterfalls 🙈🙊 It was awesome though! At first I was definitely thinking to myself "could anyone hear me scream down here?" But once the cave opens up and you are floating down the river surrounded by thousands of glowworms it was 100% worth getting so out of my comfort zone!

After all of the excitement of the tour and excursions I headed back down to Wellington for a much needed relaxing few days before heading off to the South Island and it was exactly what i needed!

Comments

One week down

I have officially survived my first week of this crazy adventure! A week ago, I was landing in Edinburgh and had no idea what was awaiting me. I was definitely most nervous about this part of the trip because I was going to be travelling solo and have never been to Scotland before.. but I was in for an amazing surprise. This city totally captured my heart! I met some absolutely amazing people and made memories that will last a lifetime! When I first got off the bus in Edinburgh to be honest I was feeling defeated. I had to pay an arm and a leg for overweight bags, and I lost my phone on my layover. I was dragging my suitcase up a giant hill and then all of the sudden I turned a corner and saw this amazing view Seeing Edinburgh castle for the first time literally took my breath away. I couldn't help but stop and smile. Here I was jet lagged, drenched in sweat from carrying all my stuff but just seeing something so beautiful made me know that no matter how hard it seems at ti...

Sofia take two

After my week in Athens volunteering, I headed to Chalkida for some much needed down time. This is the beach town where Jen had been living for the past two weeks. After spending a few relaxing days by the beach we headed off to the airport to give Sofia another try 😆We only had about 30 hours to see the city and we were determined to make the most of it! On our ride from the airport, our taxi driver insisted on us getting out and taking our picture with the famous cathedral. 😅 We got to our hostel and they were SO welcoming, kind, and helpful. The girl at the front desk sat down with us and went over the map explaining the major sights and the best places to eat..guess she knows the way to our hearts 😍 We spent the first day just walking around, taking in the sights and checking out the local food scene. We were so happy to be back, and that it was so nice and cool compared to Greece! That night we did a free pub crawl with the hostel which was fun and the next...

Exploring World Wonders and stuff

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef has always been on my bucket list and I knew if I was going to Australia, I couldn't miss out on the opportunity. Most people do the excursion out of Cairns but it was cheaper to fly into Proserpine. After doing a little research, I found out that this airport was quite close to the Whitsunday Islands, which I had heard amazing things about. So it was settled; I would kill two birds with one stone. I booked a 2 night boat tour which would sail through the Whitsunday Islands and we would stop off to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef a couple of times (what is my life?!) I arrived in Airlie Beach the day before my boat excursion and it was so. freaking. hot. Luckily my hostel had AC so I just kind of hid in there but the next day it was even worse. When I got on the boat I was feeling way out of my comfort zone. It was so much smaller than I had expected and somehow 25 people were supposed to sleep comfortably in these stuffy cramped quarters? I t...

Lost in Wanderlust

Search This Blog