Europe trip 2023

Days- 261 days

Countries- 34 countries (35 for me because of going to Spain with Mum – my total country count is now 43) including NZ.

Beds- 60 beds for the fam, (67 for me as they didn’t come to Spain).

Sickness- C had a rash early on in Asia, I had a head cold in Thailand. BK had a quick tummy bug or something in Sri Lanka. Both kids got colds in London when I was in Spain. I put that down to not having their Mum to nag them about using hand sanitizer and washing their hands as soon as they get in the door from being out and about. This meant our extensive travel insurance was unused! Woohoo!!

Familiar faces seen- 24 and it was so lovely to see them all.

Flights- 19 flights (21 for me – Spain return)

The best and worsts for our flights are all the same as the 3 month stats except our best landing was the one back into Auckland. I was fortunate enough to walk through the Auckland airport halls to Duty Free with the pilot so I told him so!

 

Top 3 things I learnt.

I am not a teacher. Never again.

Juggling BK’s work with everything was much more difficult than both of us ever imagined. We had to be much more intentional about it.

I’m awesome at keeping my family on a budget. Yay me!

 

Roughest Day- Still that land crossing day from Thailand to Cambodia that went from bad to worse.

 

Best Day – So many highlights it’s very difficult to choose so I’ve chosen one for each continent.

Asia – The elephant experience in Thailand was a stand out.

Europe – Legoland still gets talked about a lot and was, strangely, enjoyed more than Disney (but that’s probably all to do with crowds and wait times).

 

Favourite Country.

Mine has to be split into continents again so  Asia – Taiwan & Singapore / Europe – Croatia

C loved Thailand & Sri Lanka

R has no idea

BK really enjoyed England!

 

And now the figures you’ve all been waiting for

Day to day living costs-  $44,933

Flights, 4x rental cars, Eurostar, vaccinations, travel insurance and the Camino tour- $21,438

Total trip cost- $66,371 ($254 a day or 63.57 per person per day)

 

#nailedit

 

Now onto the next adventure….

 

Team Knowles, over and out! ‍‍‍

 

(Disclaimer- this is not the entire cost of those months away, we still paid business overheads, storage, school fees and a bunch of other stuff at home BUT it would definitely be cheaper to be on the road than live our lives at home if we had ‘gotten rid of everything’).

 

 

Hello Spain – Camino de Santiago

 

We had a few days in the midlands of England after we left Ireland. Then it was to one of London’s many airports so Mum and I could fly to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. BK and the kids went to an Airbnb in London.

 

Mum and I flew to Spain to go on a walking holiday with an organised group. We were going to walk the last 115km of the Camino de Santiago over 6 days. After a smooth flight we arrived to 30+ degrees. We had a bit of luck when the bus from the airport to the city stopped right outside our hotel! The most famous sight to see in Santiago de Compostela is the cathedral so that was of course our first stop. And it was beautiful. The following day we went inside the cathedral and also caught a tourist road train around the city before bussing out to the airport to meet up with our tour group. Once we had everyone we were transferred about 2 hours drive away to a hotel at the start of our walk. We had dinner very late followed by an even later briefing meeting We were in for a week of early starts and late finishes!

 

We were up early the next day and were excited to get started on the walk. It was a misty morning which was a welcome start as it was going to be a hot day (34+ degrees)! We started walking at 8am after doing some stretching and walked the first 22km of the trip. When we reached the hotel many hours later I was pleased to find it had a pool so I threw my togs on and jumped in to cool down as soon as we arrived. I enjoyed the dinner, the starter was a big chunk of melon. The dessert was custard – my fave!!

 

The next day few days were the same routine, a good buffet breakfast filled us up and after our morning stretching we were off around 8am each day. We all walked at our own pace. Mum and I got in to the hotels first each day as we didn’t like to stop for long and let our muscles go cold, as it was hard to get started again!! Once we arrived at our destination for that day we had showers and then into bed for a rest/sleep. We then met up with our group for dinner and a briefing meeting before falling into bed!

 

The temperatures got much more bearable as the week went on, one day it even rained on us.

The food was hit and miss for me as there was a lot of vegetable soup for the entrees and seafood for the main courses, neither of which I eat! The hotels we stayed at were nice. And the benefit of doing it as an organised group meant our luggage was transferred between each of our hotels so we didn’t have to carry it!

 

In our group was us 2 Kiwis, 2 English, 5 Irish, 4 American and one Spaniard guide. We became like a family and we got a ‘What’s App’ group together to share photos and let our tour leader/guide how we were progressing along the walk. I think we’ll be friends for life. It was great to meet some awesome Irish people after we’d done Ireland last month. It was a little unfortunate we didn’t meet them before we went to Ireland.

 

Our whole group was successful and got to the end of the walk with no injury. We each got a certificate of completion which will be highly treasured. Mum acquired a blister on the last night of the trail wearing her sandals for a couple of hours during dinner. I got none! (Plenty of others in the group got them early on). Before we started we thought after it we’d finished we would be totally exhausted and unable to walk, but, while we are tired, our bodies are perfectly fine.

 

The day after we finished we took a bus trip to ‘the end of the world’ Fisterra, Spain. We found the 0,000 km marker for the Camino so had photos with that and saw the lighthouse. It was a long day on a bus but it was so beautiful out there on the Atlantic coast.

 

So after 9 days in Spain Mum and I are off back to London for a few days with the family and then homeward bound.

 

The next, and final, blog will be a bunch of stats covering the entire trip.

 

Till next time,

 

Claire