When my hubby and I are on vacation we never want to come home, we have such an amazing time. Back at home life’s so hectic, well its 2015 so who’s isn’t, but not only do we enjoy spending some quality time together, we both have a passion for traveling and both want to explore the world.
‘It’s a holiday’ I hear you saying ‘it’s understandable that you’d have a good time’, who doesn’t enjoy a good holiday right? If I’m honest though, our vacations haven’t always worked out as well as they do now. Choosing where to go was our first hurdle, days and weeks of arguing where to go. We’d put off making the decision as we used to drive each other mad, both having to calm down before we revisited the subject. I mean who argues about going away right. To be fair though, it was the only thing we did argue about… well almost.
I love culture, food and relaxation – that would be the components of my perfect trip. A holiday on the Amalfi Coast, dining on fine Italian foods, exploring the coastal regions cultural highlights and then spending days relaxing by the pool reading a good book… perfetto! Well the other half doesn’t have quite the same ideas, don’t get me wrong he does enjoy a few days relaxing as most people do. He is a wildlife fanatic though and would prefer to spend more time with an elephant than relaxing with his darling wife on a beach. He’s also a bit of an adrenalin junkie, admittedly he’s getting a little more timid with age, but he still likes a bit of action packed fun whilst we’re away.
He can cope with a little culture, but I have to be a little creative to mix it in with other things. When it comes to his interests, I have no issues sharing some of my holiday with the indigenous wildlife as I do love animals, I just don’t want it to take over the whole trip. When it comes to his adrenalin fuelled things, that’s where I’m not too keen. It’s not my thing at all, but again if we’re imaginative we can make it work for both parties. So how do we balance all this out. It’s quite a lot to fit in to a holiday isn’t it? Well we came across eShores a few years ago with their multi centre holidays and haven’t looked back since. It’s become an addiction really and we’ll never now go back to standard package holidays.
By combining different destinations in to one holiday it has allowed us to really combine all our interests. Neither of us end up having to compromise and we get to do all the things we want to do. It ends up a really balanced trip that we both love. It’s also really cost effective too… instead of returning to the region several times to visit a variety of places, running up large costs from the numerous international flights, with one return flight and a few cheap internals we can link all the places in that region together. Best thing of all, we can tick several places off our bucket list in one go.
My favourite trip of all time was our holiday to Thailand. It is a place that has changed so much over the last few years but will always stick as one of our favourite holidays because it was our first ever multi-centre trip. It felt like a true adventure, traveling on our own from one place to the next. From city to beach, combining culture and relaxation, with wildlife and action. I felt like I should be on a tv programme, or 18 years old traveling around with a back pack. I was neither though, we were in our 30s, were staying in lovely hotels and traveling between each place was effortless as it had all been pre-arranged, but all the excitement was still there.
The Grand Palace in Thailand.
We visited Bangkok first and I got to see the Grand Palace, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha which were all out of this world. He was getting a little itchy at this point, but luckily we’d arranged to head a little north for an overnight stay in Kanchanaburi. As well as taking in the stunning scenery and feeling like we were in the middle of nowhere, we got to visit the elephant park there. It was an ethical elephant experience and was truly amazing, I was possibly even more taken aback than my husband. We then returned to Bangkok and both enjoyed some nice food, I enjoyed a little shopping, well it would have been rude not to squeeze a little in, then it was off to Chiang Mai.
Our flight landed midday so we spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool and we enjoyed a nice meal in the evening followed by a few drinks. The following day we spent the morning exploring the city and temples, and in the afternoon he roped me in to a zipline adventure (no pun intended). I surprisingly enjoyed it – although I’ve never told him that! After a few more elephant parks, some jungle trekking and a river raft experience we were off to the beach. We flew down to Koh Samui and spent most of the remaining trip enjoying nice food and relaxing on stunning beaches. We did get to see monkeys in the wild though and went on a snorkelling trip which kept him entertained. I got to see the Big Buddha Temple and we took a few boat trips to secluded islands so I got to do all I wanted to.
We both had such an amazing time, we’ve been doing similar itineraries ever since. Combining city, beach and all our interests it to one. It definitely was the way forward for us and it reduced our arguments to ones just over the house work. Hopefully it’s given you inspiration to give it a try too.
Guest post by Nadine B – Has a passion for traveling, on a mission to explore the globe!
We are Mike and Luci.