How We Managed To Fly With Carry On Bags Only

We’re off again on another trip to SEA, this time for 17 nights.  While we have always travelled fairly light on our past smaller trips, we still used to check 1 bag at 15kg and then carry on a day bag each plus a handbag/camera bag.  As we tend to take budget carriers, checked bags also have an extra charge.  But on our last trip that we realised that the weight of our 1 checked bag could possibly be redistributed to 2 carry on bags and that our carry on bags could be more efficiently packed.  So for this trip, we challenged ourselves to fly with carry-on baggage only!  Still, could we achieve the limit of 1 carry on each not exceeding 56cm x 36cm and at a maximum weight of 7kg, plus a handbag or laptop bag?  How did we do?

5 Most Useful/Useless Items In Our Backpacks

Packing for this trip was a challenge, mostly due to the fact that we were only carrying 2 main backpacks for all of our things for 2 adults and 2 preschoolers, along with a day bag each.  It was tricky to be able to separate the ‘must have’ from the ‘nice to have’ or ‘just in case’.  Five months and six countries on, how did we do with our initial packing choices? Aside from the obvious clothing, medical kits, etc,

Three Weeks On, So How Are The Girls Travelling??

It’s been 3 weeks since we left Australia, so how are the girls adjusting to life on the road??  Much to our delight and surprise, Maddy and Yasmine are handling it very well.  Naturally, there are challenges but also we are seeing the reward already too.

Choosing Bali as a first stop has worked out very well.  Although there is much to see and do here,

The Final Stretch: Packing It Up

Can you believe its all in there??!!  I can't!

After 7+ months of planning, dreaming, and organizing, we are finally down to the 'final stretch' before our dream holiday.  We have 13 sleeps to go--well, probably more like 12 as our flight from Melbourne is in the middle of the night, so not sure how much sleep we'll actually get!  


Many emotions are flooding our beings, ranging from panic ("Oh My God, we still have so much to do!), to excitement (especially from the girls, who can't wait to be finally on our way to our 'holiday'), to slight sadness (we've started to say our good-byes to friends and family) but most importantly, to acceptance--that indeed, we are actually going to do this!!