Not all who wander are lost

Common 'war cry' amongst those who has been bitten by the travel bug. It's something I caught 30 years ago. I took my first back-packing trip as a 19 year old, travelling over land, sea and air up the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, then up through Hatyai, Phuket, Bangkok and then Chiangmai. One month. One backpack. One thousand ringgit. And a well-thumbed dog-eared copy of Tony Wheeler's SEA on a shoestring.

Right now, a thousand RMs can't hardly buy a family lunch, especially where we are going. 

J is now 18 and had already made a trip on his own, with his classmates to Krabi to celebrate the completion of As. His Thailand trip involves comfortable flights and villas, courtesy of LCCs and AirBnB. His specialty is less about doing it on a shoestring budget, though I'm sure he can but rather he's a careful and well prepared traveller, like the scout he is.his bag contains a wet bag, a whistle and he's probably the only one in the cabin who paid attention to the safety video :-). 

He's about to set off to National Service and then University and family holidays together will become more difficult to arrange. So, we wanted a special one this time, to a place we've never been to altogether as a family: the US of A. The west coast to be precise, which is also where I first set foot in this country 25 years ago. We are going to do the golden triangle of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, with the Pacific Coast Highway and Grand Canyon thrown in! Not to mention a few campus tours for J to check out potential places he'd like to spend time in.

But first we had to fly for 18 hours to get there. So, all these special forces emboldened me to make a grand gesture and have us travel in style. A real step up from my backpacking trip all those years back and also to commemorate that my first time in business class was when I was to Tokyo (on my way to L.A.) courtesy of an overbooking-inspired upgrade. 

M is the vacation queen of the family and already has plans to document the trip on video and on her travelogue. She did an excellent one for us during our trip this time last year to Southern Africa, bringing all four parents along on safari. All eight of us enjoyed that trip tremendously, and made all the sweeter with witty words and pretty pictures. She is picking up after her old dad who used to keep a travelogue too. (Which reminds me, I need to find them: these journals are somewhere collecting dust in one of our various storage spaces). In fact, I titled this blog so because she reminded me of this phrase.

But right now, she's just enjoying the ample space she has. Already adjusting her body to US west coast time. Woe to the rest of us, especially me who cope really poorly with jet lag.