A London Food and Travel blog full of unique experiences.
Having flown 3 return flights to New Zealand in the space of 12 months one year, you could say I’ve learnt more than a few long flight hacks & tips.
For each of those trips I spent over 50 hours hurtling through the clouds, cruising through 4 hemispheres, over several continents and hours staring at a screen roughly 8 inches in diameter.
When we tripped to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, what to wear in the Middle East was the aspect I probably researched the most. I’m no fashion plate, but as a female travelling into a conservative country that has quite strong views on what is acceptable to wear, I fretted about what was suitable to throw into my suitcase.
‘What do I wear to the Middle East’ is something I get asked a lot – and I’ve been meaning to write this post for an age. Normally I roll with smart, comfortable and lightweight layers with a couple of nice dresses stashed for the evenings – but I also packed for Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha with a fair amount of care to include long sleeves and cover-ups. (Our eventual destination of New Zealand each time was easy to additionally pack for – bare feet, floaty beach skirts and a single woollen Christmas Jumper for the amusement of my family enjoying 30’C summer heat.)
Many visitors visiting the South Island of New Zealand buy a Campervan (and sell it when they leave the country) which means their Nelson accommodation is sorted, but if you’re just road tripping with a normal car and trying to decide where to stay in Nelson, you can’t go wrong with The Sails, a luxury motel. (Or, if you want to break up those nights in the cosy caravan…)
I’ve never heard of a ‘luxury motel’ either, we’ve stayed in motels (on our American roadtrips) and 5 star luxury, so I was curious to see how they intersected.
They say that “jobs fill your pockets, adventures fill your soul” and with this in mind (plus the memory of lockdowns fresh in our minds) I announced to the better half that I fancied doing [minimum] 12 trips in 12 months this year.
He sighed – for context I spent December and January on the other side of the world and I hadn’t even unpacked my suitcase from that trip – but simply gave in.
Whenever I get the opportunity, I love running away to the English seaside [read: literally any sun-filled excuse] and recently we loved a day trip to Margate beach enough to go back a couple of weeks later, hiring a beachfront apartment for a leisurely three day break.
One of the things I miss the most about living in New Zealand, is the easy access to beaches. They (whoever ‘they’ are) reckons that no-one is more than 1.5 hours drive from a beach in my narrow home country, so when I was home recently, I made FULL use of that access.