2018 has been the year we have been ticking off our family travel bucket list! I can’t believe how much we have done in the first half of the year. People may think we were crazy for traveling round the world with our toddler but I can safely 2018 has been the best year of travel to date! I can’t believe that I haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of writing blog posts yet though! So I thought I’d give you a quick round up of our first half of 2018!
Our Travels in 2018 so far
Well we welcomed in 2018 on the Great Wall of China! I really hadn’t known what to expect visiting Beijing and we were pleasantly surprised! While the forbidden city was cray busy we had the Great Wall virtually to ourselves during our stay. We had great food during our stay especially the Peking duck and loved our hotel! The only downside to Beijing was the air pollution we experienced while we were there!
From Beijing we jumped on a plane to Hong Kong. In my head, Hong Kong was going to be a tonic after what I thought might have been a difficult destination in Beijing! In reality we found Hong Kong more difficult with troubles finding great child friendly food and all the hills! Despite this we had a great time and found lots of toddler friendly things to do especially at Disney!
After Hong Kong we headed to Bali! We fell in love with Bali and will definitely be returning to do more cultural things! Perhaps the best bit of our time in Bali was doing our family photo shoot with wanderloud!
From Bali we headed to Australia with our first stop being Sydney. I love Sydney and it is a city I could move to tomorrow! We particularly enjoyed the zoos and wildlife experiences, beaches and architecture! From Sydney we headed to Melbourne and Tasmania! Both of which are amazing foodie places! The next country on our list was New Zealand! This was the top of Wandermust daddy’s list! We enjoyed vineyards and wildlife experiences on the South Island while we enjoyed the cities on the north island.
We were unlucky with our next segment – a cruise across the South Pacific with Holland America. No fault of the cruise but we were hit with disastrous weather! Two days after we left Tonga the island was hit by a hurricane that devastated the island! The weather remained rainy and windy from there which meant we never got to the Cook Islands and dampened our spirits. Though we did try out a few amazing hotels on the way! We jumped ship at Hawaii and had the most splendid time. Staying at the hotel from the film forgetting Sarah Marshall and ticking off a bucket list item of swimming in a waterfall! Next stop was Vegas! While I did not love Vegas, especially with a toddler, I loved everything around Vegas especially red rock national park! And we did the most amazing drive through the Mojave desert!
La might have been our little girls fave place with a trip to not one but two Disney parks! We sped through the rest of LA to head up the coast to pismo beach and Monterey! Another favourite of the toddler!
Next was a week in San Francisco visiting friends! We stayed at the beautiful Westin and had a great time exploring the city and visiting napa and the redwoods!
After we said goodbye to our friends we flew east to Tennessee to road trip! We stopped in beautiful places including the friendliest town ever – Covington where we stayed at a gone with the wind plantation house! Other highlights were the city of savannah, Hilton head beach and spending time with friends in Richmond Virginia!
The last stop on our itinerary was Iceland! The place I was most desperate to visit! And despite not seeing the northern lights didn’t disappoint!
But just because we have come home hasn’t stopped us travelling. We’ve got in the royal wedding spirit at Windsor, and had a week away at the luxurious Sandybrook country park! And of course plenty of time exploring our new London home, especially the family friendly bits!
Extra reading: check out the products we couldn’t have lived without on our trip
Our Most Popular Posts
I’ll be honest I haven’t written as much as I wanted while travelling but there is plenty of time to get the trip written up! But so far our most popular posts of 2018 have been:
Guide to family friendly accommodation in the UK
50 best things to do in London with kids
Walking the Great Wall of China with kids
Garangao in Qatar
How to get the perfect family vacation photo
What to Expect for the Rest of 2018
Well we are still a bit in flux so haven’t got many concrete travel plans but they will come! But I’m the meantime you can expect more London explorations and we have a Cornwall and Devon break coming up, plus we have to write up our big trip so lots more exciting things to come!
What would you like to see more of on the blog? Do you prefer destination guides or tips?
What has been your 2018 highlight so far?