Have passport, will travel! Damn, it's out of date.

This is my first post. It’s 1am and I can’t sleep (again) so thought I would just christen the blog. If I’m this excited with less than 3 months to go, God help me the week before.

When Aly and I made the decision to take this holiday, we weren’t exactly planning to go this far in terms of cost. We knew that I wouldn’t be able to travel to the U.K. in economy due to my medical condition, Ankylosing Spondylitis, which is essentially an auto immune disease in the arthritis family. It causes extreme pain mainly in my sacroiliac joints, thoracic spine and hips. If I sit for very long and if I’m in a ‘flare’, I have immense pain when I try to move. I am currently controlling it with diet, exercise, pain killers and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). While I’m managing OK most of the time, undertaking such a big trip would be nearly impossible sitting cramped in economy. So that I could remain as pain free as possible, Aly and I knew that we would have to fly business or first and that obviously requires a lot of money.

So we committed to spend some hard earned cash on taking this trip with the intention of taking some time in the U.K. to visit Aly’s elderly dad and my extended family also. With seven weeks to spare we thought we would have time to enjoy some alone traveling time as well as catch up with family. Like all best laid plans, our holiday portion of this trip completely took over and we got so carried away we only have 2 weeks out of the 7 to spend with family, the rest shall we say, is pure indulgence.

I will print our itinerary in the next post…sleep is beckoning; however, I just wanted to at least start off this blog so there was something on the page.

In respect to booking the holiday, we used a wonderful travel agent (Travelscene Westernport) for the flights, car hire, cruise booking, and some of the accommodation (thanks Jen); however, I had a total ball on the Internet finding the ‘perfect’ places to stay in some of the countries we are visiting. I poured over so many site’s and travel blogs that I sometimes got confused about where I had read this and that. Reviewing the accommodation was half the fun. Just when I thought I’d found it, someone disclosed that the hotel was noisy, dirty, smelly or they were ripped off so I’d search some more until I found places that resonated with me. I do love some luxury but at the same time I’m not as picky as some people who reviewed hotels. OMG…I think they wouldn’t be satisfied with Buckingham Palace.

I also want to post some of the cute things I’ve purchased to take with me. As a person CRAZY about travel, I love anything to do with it and that includes luggage, travel accessories and stuff like toiletries.