Just over ten years ago, my wife Lorna and I sold most of what we owned, shipped it back to her native Britain and spent the next four months traveling from California to Alaska to Western Canada and then down through the Western United States to where we started. We then said goodbye to our long suffering sub-compact Ford Festiva and headed out to Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. I’d agreed to swap my native California to live in her country, and we both figured having a giant trip was in order, before we began our new life (and anticipated children) elsewhere.
I wrote a sort of travelogue for friends and family. If we’d had blogs then, I’d have been blogging about our trip. Instead, I emailed back to friends and also posted entries to my personal web site. People seemed to enjoy it, and I’d always wanted to put it online for others.
That’s what I’m doing now. I’d planned to post each entry exactly 10 years after I originally wrote it. I’m not quite there, though I might catch up if I have time. I’m also posting them back to the time they were written.
The first entry is fairly brief, then I started getting more into the writing, spending a bit more time talking about different places.
The photos aren’t the best. They’ve been sitting in a closet for about 10 years and have been handled a lot. I’m scanning from grungy prints, rather than clean negatives, and dust turns out hard to be eliminate. Worse, am I neither a scanning export nor a professional photographer! Still, I hope they give you a sense of the places we went, especially as how they looked then (I’m sure they’ve changed since then). Maybe some day I’ll do them over (or have someone do them) perfectly.
A key thing to the trip was that were were under an extremely tight budget. I counted every nickel, dime, dollar, loonie or whatever to make sure we’d have enough for the entire trip. So you’ll hear a lot about prices and figuring out how to safe on food and lodging.
The entire trip is listed below. I’ll also update this with links to post about each segment of the trip. All posts can also be found in my Big Trip 1996 category.
| Travel Day |
Date | Place Visited |
| Entry #1: Orange County, California to Prince Rupert, British Columbia | ||
| 1 | Mon, Aug 5 | Redwoods |
| 2 | Tue, Aug 6 | Crater Lake |
| 3 | Wed, Aug 7 | Newport (Ore) |
| 4 | Thu, Aug 8 | Tacoma |
| 5 | Fri, Aug 9 | Vancouver |
| 6 | Sat, Aug 10 | Prince George |
| 7 | Sun, Aug 11 | Prince Rupert |
| Entry #2: The Inland Passage & Glacier Bay | ||
| 8 | Mon, Aug 12 | Prince Rupert |
| 9 | Tue, Aug 13 | Juneau |
| 10 | Wed, Aug 14 | Glacier Bay |
| 11 | Thu, Aug 15 | Glacier Bay |
| 12 | Fri, Aug 16 | Juneau |
| 13 | Sat, Aug 17 | Tok |
| Entry #3: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park | ||
| 14 | Sun, Aug 18 | Chitna |
| 15 | Mon, Aug 19 | McCarthy |
| Entry #4: Anchorage – Seward – Kenai Fjords | ||
| 16 | Tue, Aug 20 | Anchorage |
| 17 | Wed, Aug 21 | Anchorage |
| 18 | Thu, Aug 22 | Seward |
| 19 | Fri, Aug 23 | Seward |
| 20 | Sat, Aug 24 | Denali |
| Further Entries For Places Below Not Yet Posted | ||
| 21 | Sun, Aug 25 | Denali |
| 22 | Mon, Aug 26 | Denali |
| 23 | Tue, Aug 27 | Fairbanks |
| 24 | Wed, Aug 28 | Fairbanks |
| 25 | Thu, Aug 29 | Fairbanks |
| 26 | Fri, Aug 30 | Haines Jct. |
| 27 | Sat, Aug 31 | Watson Lake |
| 28 | Sun, Sep 1 | Prince George |
| 29 | Mon, Sep 2 | Jasper |
| 30 | Tue, Sep 3 | Jasper |
| 31 | Wed, Sep 4 | Banff |
| 32 | Thu, Sep 5 | Calgary |
| 33 | Fri, Sep 6 | Helena |
| 34 | Sat, Sep 7 | Yellowstone |
| 35 | Sun, Sep 8 | Yellowstone |
| 36 | Mon, Sep 9 | Salt Lake City |
| 37 | Tue, Sep 10 | Las Vegas |
| 38 | Wed, Sep 11 | Los Angeles |
| 39 | Thu, Sep 12 | Los Angeles |
| 40 | Fri, Sep 13 | Los Angeles |
| 41 | Sat, Sep 14 | Los Angeles |
| 42 | Sun, Sep 15 | Depart LA 7:15 p.m. |
| 43 | Mon, Sep 16 | Arrive Tahiti/Bora Bora |
| 44 | Tue, Sep 17 | Bora Bora |
| 45 | Wed, Sep 18 | Bora Bora |
| 46 | Thu, Sep 19 | Bora Bora |
| 47 | Fri, Sep 20 | Bora Bora |
| 48 | Sat, Sep 21 | Bora Bora |
| 49 | Sun, Sep 22 | Tahiti, then Depart |
| Mon, Sep 23 | Lost Day | |
| 50 | Tue, Sep 24 | Sydney |
| 51 | Wed, Sep 25 | Sydney |
| 52 | Thu, Sep 26 | Sydney |
| 53 | Fri, Sep 27 | Canberra |
| 54 | Sat, Sep 28 | Snowy Mts |
| 55 | Sun, Sep 29 | Melbourne |
| 56 | Mon, Sep 30 | Melbourne (Ballarat) |
| 57 | Tue, Oct 1 | Melbourne |
| 58 | Wed, Oct 2 | Adelaide |
| 59 | Thu, Oct 3 | Kangeroo Island |
| 60 | Fri, Oct 4 | Ayers Rock |
| 61 | Sat, Oct 5 | Ayers Rock |
| 62 | Sun, Oct 6 | Darwin |
| 63 | Mon, Oct 7 | Kakadu |
| 64 | Tue, Oct 8 | Kakadu |
| 65 | Wed, Oct 9 | Kakadu |
| 66 | Thu, Oct 10 | Darwin |
| 67 | Fri, Oct 11 | Cairns |
| 68 | Sat, Oct 12 | Cairns |
| 69 | Sun, Oct 13 | Cairns/Kuranda |
| 70 | Mon, Oct 14 | Great Barrier Reef |
| 71 | Tue, Oct 15 | Great Barrier Reef |
| 72 | Wed, Oct 16 | Whitsundays |
| 73 | Thu, Oct 17 | Brisbane |
| 74 | Fri, Oct 18 | Brisbane/Koalas |
| 75 | Sat, Oct 19 | Arrive Auckland |
| 76 | Sun, Oct 20 | Auckland |
| 77 | Mon, Oct 21 | Auckland |
| 78 | Tue, Oct 22 | Coromandel |
| 79 | Wed, Oct 23 | Mercury Bay |
| 80 | Thu, Oct 24 | Rotorua |
| 81 | Fri, Oct 25 | Rotorua |
| 82 | Sat, Oct 26 | Rotorua |
| 83 | Sun, Oct 27 | Turangi |
| 84 | Mon, Oct 28 | Tongoriro National Park |
| 85 | Tue, Oct 29 | Drive to Wellington |
| 86 | Wed, Oct 30 | Ferry/Drive Christchurch |
| 87 | Thu, Oct 31 | Christchurch |
| 88 | Fri, Nov 1 | Drive Mt. Cook/Queens |
| 89 | Sat, Nov 2 | Queenstown |
| 90 | Sun, Nov 3 | Queenstown |
| 91 | Mon, Nov 4 | Te Anau/Glowworm Caves |
| 92 | Tue, Nov 5 | Milford Sound |
| 93 | Wed, Nov 6 | Doubtful Sound |
| 94 | Thu, Nov 7 | Arrive Fox Glacier |
| 95 | Fri, Nov 8 | Fox/Franz Joseph Glacier |
| 96 | Sat, Nov 9 | Hokitka – Kaikoura |
| 97 | Sun, Nov 10 | Kaikoura – Christchurch |
| 98 | Mon, Nov 11 | Christchurch |
| 99 | Tue, Nov 12 | Christchurch |
| 100 | Wed, Nov 13 | Depart/Arrive Fiji-Coral Coast |
| 101 | Thu, Nov 14 | Coral Coast |
| 102 | Fri, Nov 15 | Coral Coast |
| 103 | Sat, Nov 16 | Savusavu |
| 104 | Sun, Nov 17 | Savusavu |
| 105 | Mon, Nov 18 | Savusavu |
| 106 | Tue, Nov 19 | Savusavu |
| 107 | Wed, Nov 20 | Depart Fiji/Arrive LA |
| 108 | Thu, Nov 21 | Los Angeles |