There are some places we have always wanted to visit, but never expected to see because they were so far from home and flights are costly and so on…
Then this happened! We were house sitting in Australia and were chatting with our neighbor, who is a mechanic, about fixing our riding mower. He said he could do it when he comes back from a week in Bali.
When we asked him, he said that he doesn’t like Bali that much, but his daughter asked him to visit her there. He said that the place where his daughter stays is full of Australian tourists getting drunk on cheap beer. That didn’t sound like a great place to visit, but our curiosity was aroused. Bali conjured up images of tropical splendor, but we’d never even considered that we could get there.
Well, we did some asking around and Google searches and it turns out Bali is where Aussies go for a quick vacation. It is a short, inexpensive, flight from Perth and accommodations are so reasonable too.
Instant change of plans… we decided to venture to Bali for Laurie’s birthday in January! We love how things can change on a dime when you talk to people. I also posted some questions on Facebook and continued to talk to folks.
It even turned out that an acquaintance of ours was there at that time, leading a retreat. Another gal shared a “What I Love About Bali” page. People are so helpful and cameras capture so much of the flavor of places. It is also so helpful that AirBNB is available to help us locate a great long term stay—we wanted to go for a month.
So traveling to Bali became a reality, and soon our plans included Thailand too. After that, we opened to ideas that would lead us back to the Americas in time for a potential house sit at Cape Cod for the summer.
Another cool thing was that our car and some of our treasured stuff (think Vitamix) were in Boston waiting for us. Also, our two boys who were living in Portland, Oregon had mentioned wanting to converge there for a family gathering…crossed fingers!
Wherever we are, we love to dream and learn about exotic and interesting places we might visit. You just never know what the future hold!
