Dreaming of Australia

  Now that I've fulfilled my major bucket list trip taking my family to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where are my dreams taking me? To Australia of course! The land down under has been beckoning me for a really long time, but I never thought of it as being a realistic possibility until recent years. And now my health is getting more challenging, so its possibility seems less and less likely. If this is going to happen, I'm going to have to be really creative!

 The first barrier to visiting Australia is the extremely long plane flight. The average flight time is around 18 hours, with some being as long as 35-40 hours with various layovers. I really struggle with the 6ish hour flight to Florida, so I can't imagine how my body would hold up with this! I decided that if I was to fly, I would need to do it in business class, ideally in a lay-flat seat. As you can imagine, this is no small expense, running upwards of $8,000 per person round trip. Since I'd need to bring my husband with me for many and varied reasons, not the least of which being I love spending time with him, we're talking $16,000+ for airfare alone! Yes, I've got points and miles that I've been earning and saving judiciously, but these flights are special and would run us over 700,000 points. That's more than double what I've got now with all my programs combined, let alone in one, so points are off the table for this one.

 So, is there any other way to get there? I realize I can't do a road trip, or a train trip, but I do love to cruise... So, I started with my favorite cruise line, Norwegian. Turns out you can get to Australia from the Pacific Northwest on a Norwegian cruise ship, but it'll take over $20,000 and two months, just to get there! Then you gotta hang out in Australia until the end of the season to come back. That's not cheaper, and I'm not sure I could talk my husband into a seven-month trip!

 I started to poke around and see what else is out there. I considered going solo since my husband is looking for a job and his travel availability is certainly unknown at best. If I were to hop on a cruise solo from the US to Australia last minute this fall I could get there for as little as $3,500 in just over two weeks - much faster and cheaper than the Norwegian route OR the business class flight, but then I'm trapped down under until the spring when the cruise ships come home! Ok, that could be kind of cool too. I looked around a bit and I could get a place for around $1,600 per month, or around $6,500 for the time I'd be there between cruises. That would give me plenty of time to look around! The solo cruises home are around $5,000 right now, but they could get cheaper as we get closer. Who knows! So, for travel and lodging I'd be looking at about $15,000. Still cheaper than two business class flights alone. 

 But there was one more crazy option that straddled the line between seven months abroad and being able to travel without too many physical ramifications. There's a Princess cruise going out of LA next March that goes ROUND TRIP! That's right, Los Angeles, California, to Australia, and back again. It takes just under two months, 54 days to be exact, but it visits Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, and several other tropical places along the way. It has a wonderful itinerary for me with a few days of ports followed by several sea days to recover. I think I could stay healthy on a cruise like this! BUT, it costs about $25,000. That's not chump change! There's also the fact that I've never sailed on Princess before, what if I don't like it? Boy, I'd really be stuck!

Here's the Thing: I don't have $25,000 to spend on this, nor is my husband available to sign up for a two-month trip, nor do I feel comfortable being away from home on my own for seven months. So, for now, my Australia trip will remain just a dream. But dreaming is fun, and sometimes, dreams come true!