Kastuo-ji

Posted on by Caroline
We’re on day three of our trip to Osaka with our friends. We’ve adopted the name of 6-4 Okay for our trips because inevitably when we’re in Japan and announce that we’re a party of 10, the response is usually a look of surprise, followed by Tim saying “Betsu, betsu!”, which in my head I’ve translated as “Separate, separate!”, and then we get a nod and “Six, four, okay?” And we nod back, “Six, four, okay!” We traveled with our friends on a trip like this three years ago. I feel like that was a formative trip for us in a lot of ways. The kids bonded on that trip and the relationship has held, even as they’ve all grown....Read More

Back in the saddle…

Posted on by Caroline
Can we just agree that 2025 was a funky year? It was a funky year for us. We had some major upheavals last year: we decided to enroll the kids in a local school for 2025-26, we had some health-related turmoil, and we had family issues back in the states. All in all, it added up to a lot more time in the air flying back and forth, but oddly less time traveling for fun. I feel lucky that we were in a position to make the time we needed to spend with family, and we got a lot out of our time at school. The kids made new friends, and were challenged and stretched to adapt to a new...Read More

Wrapping Up the Magic (for now)

Posted on by Caroline
We left Taupō later than we expected and got in late to Waitomo, the home of glow worm caves. If felt like we were in the middle of nowhere - by the time we got there it was dark, and the sky was littered with more stars than I’ve seen for a very long time. Awe-inspiring. The next morning, we were up to take a tour of the glow worm caves. We weren’t able to take pictures, so you may have to google it, because it was truly otherworldly - in a boat with the gentle sounds of the river lapping the sides, and only blue-ish glowing worms lighting the ceiling and walls of the cave. They are a strange,...Read More

Not nearly enough time in Taupō

Posted on by Caroline
We got up early to make our way to Taupō just in time for our sailing tour of the lake to see the Māori rock carvings that were completed in the 1970s to celebrate the arrival of the Māori to New Zealand. By the time we arrived in Taupō, we had transitioned from late summer into fall. The trees were suddenly starting to change color, and the clouds had moved in. It was a refreshing change - after 5 years in Guam, changing seasons are an occasional, delightful novelty. After a quiet night in the RV, Tim and Amelia went to try their hands at fly-fishing the local rivers, and Duke and I adventured out for a coffee and bakery....Read More

A (Very) Busy Day in Rotorua

Posted on by Caroline
Continuing the theme of a slew of photos, and not much text... After we finished up in Hobbiton, and ate a full buffet lunch at the Green Dragon Inn, we drove southeast to the town of Rotorua. Rotorua is a resort town that smells distinctly of sulfur. We got in just as the sun was setting and the lady at the reception counter recommended a night-walk through the redwoods, and so back out we went. Wait! (I can hear you asking...) Did you say redwoods? And yes, I did say redwoods... For some reason (that we never did really figure out), they discovered that New Zealand's climate is very friendly to redwoods, and so why not? They planted a grove...Read More

We’re Going on an Adventure!!!

Posted on by Caroline
I'm catching up now, so these next few posts will be long on photos, and short on text. We're having a fabulous time here in New Zealand, but sketchy wifi and an excess of fun have made keeping up with the blog tricky. We made our way from Coromandel through twisty turny, beautiful mountain roads (well, beautiful to me anyway... I didn't have to drive a camper van through them... ), and down to Hobbiton. Apparently a location scout for Peter Jackson was in a helicopter and from the air, saw the Party Tree that would eventually become the anchor for the shire. We were given a tour of the set by Dr. Brad, who is one of only five...Read More

Coromandel

Posted on by Caroline
I’m catching up now because we’ve had some technical difficulties and we’ve been busy exploring. Coromandel was craggy and wild and chill and stunning. It was the perfect way to start our trip. I told the kids that if I ever run away, they can probably find me in Coromandel… Since there’s just not enough time to write, a slew of pictures will have to do….

36 hours in Auckland

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday was our buffer day in Auckland. A chance to recover from the red-eye flight and ground ourselves in New Zealand before picking up the RV today and heading out to the main event - our road trip through North Island. We had originally planned to spend a few hours in the Auckland War Memorial Musuem. It’s supposed to be fabulous - history, culture, natural history…. a great way to get some context for everything we hope to see in the next few weeks. But (in what is starting to feel like a recurring theme for me) the museum is closed both days we’re here… so we had to re-group. If you’re ever able to make it there, will you...Read More

Off to New Zealand

Posted on by Caroline
This year when we dreamed about what we wanted to see and do for the year, an RV trip to New Zealand was high on the list. We figured we’d go sometime around September - plenty of time to plan and dream, and catch the shoulder season between winter and summer. What we didn’t dream about (at least not yet) was transitioning from homeschooling and back into school for the kids. But after oodles of dreaming and scheming and thinking, we decided that this year will be our last year of homeschooling. Homeschooling has been an unexpected joy for us… It has been the right choice for these last five years. We’ve taken full advantage of the flexibility, travel opportunities...Read More

Sharing Japan

Posted on by Caroline
I’m sitting here in our hotel room, watching the early morning light grow over the Tokyo rooftops in Akasaka. In a few hours we’ll all go with Meg and Kate to the Haneda airport to send them on their way back to their life in France. It’s been so much fun to witness Guam and Japan through their eyes and share our life with them. I feel like we’ve made the most of it. We really only had enough time to give them the teaser tour of Japan - a few World Heritage shrines in Kyoto, a little shopping in Tokyo, and we ended the tour at The Making of Harry Potter outside Tokyo yesterday. It was the first time...Read More