We are going to Australia! Part 1

How to choose your travel destination.

As long as you plan, your trip will be fantastic!

Leaving in New Zealand for half of our lives we've never travelled to Australia, until this year. On a search of a country for a 2 week holiday, which will be destination for Yulia's birthday on 4th of July, we considered Bali, Europe, Cuba and Japan. Thankfully there are enough bloggers and vloggers with all the information possible, with all the DO's and DON'Ts.

"One of the major things we always DO is getting a Travel Insurance. Flights might get cancelled, documents might get stolen, luggage can get lost. All of it might never happen, but what if it does and you are not covered?" Just a friendly suggestion :)

What we going to help you with - simple, but crucial points when trying to decide on your next destination!

Having a little bit less than two weeks, particular budget and craving a relaxing holiday in a country we've never been to was our moto.

1) Country we've never been to together

There are just too many of those countries which we've never visited together, we'd say there are about 185 of them hehe.

We've chosen a few most popular ones for now, because of all the information available.

One of those countries is Indonesia, the island of Bali? Well, Yulia visited Bali with her family a few years back, so we crossed it off our list.

2) Travel time (including plane delays, it happens)

Both of us have never been to Europe, it is super exciting destination! But considering flight length, delays and recovery from time change (time difference between Europe and New Zealand is like 13 hrs), we've decided we'll go there when we can physically afford to have at least a month of holiday. So, unfortunately, it is off the radar for now too. (Remember we only have 10 days for everything, at least 2 days for return long haul flying, sleep recovery, etc)

3) Relaxing holiday (walking, eating, cruising, taking photos)

Weather and celebrations. SCHOOL holidays.

- Japan! How exciting! We started researching and found out on a few different websites (including Japanese) that June - July is highly possibly a rainy season and literally nothing is happening during our dates... Bummer... Plus, since it's a pretty crowded country, we doubt we could have a chance to relax and do nothing much.

AVOID at all costs to travel during school holidays, it might cause you flight delays, missing out on your hotels and overall kids, babies, children everywhere!

Don't get us wrong, we love kids, but when there are too many and they are not yours when all you want is to relax :) Up to you really.

4) VISA and travel conditions (we both NZ citizens)

We felt like we wanted to give up, but holiday crave was consuming us, so we even considered Cuba! All the vintage cars, dining, dancing, beaches and very different culture... Well not this time... Air NZ flies to Cuba through Houston which is in USA, and this country is strict on visas for those who ever (from certain dates) visited Iran (which we did on our honeymoon in 2016), the process was about to become costlier and longer in our case...

Are you annoyed for us yet? Imagine how annoyed we were... (crying emoji face)

5) Think outside of the BOX

And suddenly it appeared to us. What if we go somewhere we've never been, which is only 3-4 hrs away, in the similar time zone, flights can be super cheap (researching for deals), speaking the same language and even has a flag like New Zealand, but with one extra star on it?

Hallelujah! Our neighbour! Australia!

6) Details

Long story short, the only thing we had to do is to decide to which city we want to fly, which obviously has to be warmer than New Zealand this time of the year (July is winter down here), get accommodation (apartments, hotel or room in the house), rent a car and finally relax, continue our kiwi everyday life until 28th of June the date of our flight!

I'll tell you more about the details in the next article (Part 2).

Thats how we chose our destination! We are so excited to go on this trip, that counting days now. I'l be posting to Stories on Instagram when we arrive to AUS, and of coarse you can expect a few posts on our experience there including food, accomodation and Brisbane and Gold Coast overviews.

Follow our Instagram to be up to date @pomegranate_planet

See you on the other side of the world,

with love for adventure,

Yulia & Arash