It has been about six years since I’ve traveled 80 days in America. It was my first long journey abroad and the best adventure I had so far. Long roadtrips, hikes and city trips. I’ve been in beautiful nature and huge cities, met many amazing people and saw more of the country than many Americans have.

Even though I’ve traveled quite a bit since then, there wasn’t an adventure like that again. The last months I heard many people talking about traveling and all the countries where they were going and it triggered something in me. I always love to travel, but it’s easy to come up with excuses why not to go. Not enough money, too busy with work, afraid that it will go wrong or whatever. Some decisions you shouldn’t think too long about it, because you’ll talk yourself out of it.

I knew that I wanted to go on an adventure again, but wasn’t quite sure where to go. My first choice was Cuba, which has been on my bucket list for a long time. I did some research and found out that it’s hurricane season there at the moment, so this would probably not be the best time to go. Two other destinations on my bucket list are South-America and New Zealand. I decided to ask my friends on Facebook for advice. The opinions were divided, but some people were really excited about New Zealand. I looked further into it and realised that if I wouldn’t do it now that I might never take such a long flight to the other side of the world, so the decision was quickly made.

The following days I kept checking my favourite flight tickets website, Kayak.com, for good prices. First I wanted to go for the cheapest flight, but that was about 32 hours flying and I made up my mind to go for the fastest flight instead, still 24 hours flying. I have flown to the west coast of the United States before, which was quite long, but I’ve never flown this long. I gave it some more thought and a little less than a week later I booked my flight. The moment you book a flight like that is so unreal. I was completely overwhelmed with excitement and at the same time it took about a day for the reality of it to sink in. I called my family to tell the news and fortunately I had already shared my potential plans a couple of days before, so it didn’t come as a big surprise. Especially my mom liked it that I had already told her about the idea before.

After I booked the ticket, I ordered some Lonely Planet‘s for New Zealand and I rented a camper to travel around with. Those were the essentials for now, the other things would follow in the weeks to come.

7 September I’m flying to the other side of the world, but the adventure has started already!