Things we'd do the same:
- hire Dave as your travel agent, just kidding, he likes his day job but he did do an amazing job researching the places we stayed and finding things to do so thanks to him and to all of the people that wrote all of the reviews and blogs that helped us out - Thanks!
- 4 to 5 days in each place was a good pace for us. I feel that we covered a lot of ground while at the same time never felt too rushed. I realize many people prefer to really get to know one place or two rather than just the highlights but we were aiming for variety and a decent overview. With our kids it would have been too crazy to go any faster.
- our neighbours gave us a tube of German laundry soap (REI) and this stuff was AMAZING!!! My new mission is to find somewhere to get this in Canada. You use a chic-pea sized gob and it works in top loaders and front loaders (or at least that's what I think the German label said). We did many loads of laundry, it worked great and we gave them back at least half of the tube.
- we both LOVED our main packs. Dave and I each had an Osprey Farpoint 70 backpack. Dave had the M/L size and his pack had his and Avery's clothes and kit bags. My S/M sized pack had Trent and my stuff.
- Eagle Creek packing cubes - I bought 4 sets when they were on sale last year. Jet Setter had them at my door the next morning - it was crazy fast! I can't say enough good things about packing cubes especially when you have people sharing bags. We use them EVERYWHERE we go now and I absolutely love them. For the kids and I all of our pants/shorts/pajamas went in the full cube, shirts/dress/swim in the half cube and socks and undies in the quarter cube. Dave's clothes are bigger so he had 2 more generic brand ones along with the 2 bigger eagle creek ones from the set. The quarter cube from his set was used for cables and tech junk. Each person has their own colour so it makes finding stuff really easy.
- first aid kit - I bought this one when the kids were little and it lived in the diaper bag/stroller. It is a nice compact one and has lots of the basics covered. I added salt (for leaches), more band-aids, advil (children's and adult), gravol (children's and adult), reactine, tums, simethicone and loperamide just in case. Next time I'll probably add in eye drops since I did have to go out to try to find some late one night.
- small spray bottle - years ago we went to Florida in August and they sold spray bottles at every tourist attraction for a ridiculous price. We went to Walmart and picked up a small one that you'd use for ironing and have used it many times since. A few spritzes feels like heaven on a hot day.
- collapsible coolers - these were great for picnics and for transporting food when we changed cities
- Inflatable Booster Seats for the kids - these are technically not certified for Australia and Canada but the are legal in the U.S.A., Europe, N.Z. and possibly more places. I'm a bit of a car seat nerd and have dragged car seats through airports and onto planes for years but even I was not looking forward to carting two boosters around Australia so we went with these. The clips are a bit finicky at first but the belt fit on both kids in all of the cars we tried them in was great.
- The RAV FileHub that we used was good to be able to copy all of the photos at the end of every day, but it was a little finicky, and not everyone could use it without training. It would be nice if there was a device dedicated for synching files and backing them up to the cloud.
- The NRMA membership we got saved us at least $300, maybe more. We technically were not allowed to have it since it is for residents, but they didn't check that diligently so if you can find a way, try it. The same goes for our membership to the royal botanical society. We got great seats for way cheaper than anywhere else. I also joined some hotel clubs that had little perks here and there.
- If your phone has a replacable battery, buy a bunch if can't last a day of heavy use. Either that or buy a battery pack to charge on the go. Very useful!
- We used a power bar and a USB hub for 220v conversion and recharging. Not bad, but most of what we recharged was USB anyway, so if you can find a USB hub that works on 220v, that may be worth it to avoid a rat's nest of cords.
- If you can change your skin colour to avoid having to apply gobs of 70spf sunscreen twice daily, that would be awesome.
Things we'd consider changing:
- splurge for two Australian SIM cards. I'm cheap and figured one was enough. In the end we should have got two. The WIFI in some of the places was painfully slow and it was a pain to rely completely on one device. Occasionally we would use Dave's as a hot spot but it drained his battery pretty quickly so we didn't do it too often.
- I've never bothered with ear plugs, eye shades or those fancy U-shaped pillows but on our long trip home I have to say I was pretty envious of those that had them.
- pack rain covers - Grandma had a fantastic rain cover that came with her day pack but Dave and I didn't. Dave would put his jacket over him and the camera bag which kept it dry but it would have been better to have had pack covers for our day bags as well.
- better roller suitcase(s) - in addition to the two big backpacks we also had two carry-on sized suitcases. They mostly contained the boosters, shoes, food, snorkels (maybe could have skipped those...) and Christmas gifts. Rolling suitcases kill my shoulder and I hate them but the kids were pretty good about hauling them around most of the time and they can't carry much in a backpack at their age. I would like to travel lighter and ditch at least one of them but if that isn't possible I'd look into buying something lighter and perhaps try one of the ones with 4 wheels (although I'm not sure if those would actually be able to handle sidewalks and cobblestones....). Presumably the kids will be a bit bigger by the time we try another trip so we can load them up with backpacks as well.
- Bring a little package of spices, salt, pepper, and cooking basics if you do your own meals. Most places have pretty sparse supplies and it isn't worth it to buy big containers of it when you are there.
- Most credit cards and bank cards charge a 2.5% foreign exchange fee (ie robbery). The Chase Bank Marriott rewards card is the only one in Canada that does not do that. The rewards are useless, but you can save hundreds on fees. We ordered one but too late to have it arrive on time.
- Bring along a car charger to USB adaptor just in case your rental doesn't have a USB port.
I think that covers most of it, hope it is useful to someone. I'll update if I think of anything else. If someone actually wants my detailed packing list I'm more than willing to share.
Happy Travels!
Happy Travels!
