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Remembering My Big Trip Of 1996

September 5, 2006 by Danny Sullivan

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
DatePlace Visited
Entry #1: Orange County, California to Prince Rupert, British Columbia
1Mon, Aug 5Redwoods
2Tue, Aug 6Crater Lake
3Wed, Aug 7Newport (Ore)
4Thu, Aug 8Tacoma
5Fri, Aug 9Vancouver
6Sat, Aug 10Prince George
7Sun, Aug 11Prince Rupert
Entry #2: The Inland Passage & Glacier Bay
8Mon, Aug 12Prince Rupert
9Tue, Aug 13Juneau
10Wed, Aug 14Glacier Bay
11Thu, Aug 15Glacier Bay
12Fri, Aug 16Juneau
13Sat, Aug 17Tok
Entry #3: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
14Sun, Aug 18Chitna
15Mon, Aug 19McCarthy
Entry #4: Anchorage – Seward – Kenai Fjords
16Tue, Aug 20Anchorage
17Wed, Aug 21Anchorage
18Thu, Aug 22Seward
19Fri, Aug 23Seward
20Sat, Aug 24Denali
Further Entries For Places Below Not Yet Posted
21Sun, Aug 25Denali
22Mon, Aug 26Denali
23Tue, Aug 27Fairbanks
24Wed, Aug 28Fairbanks
25Thu, Aug 29Fairbanks
26Fri, Aug 30Haines Jct.
27Sat, Aug 31Watson Lake
28Sun, Sep 1Prince George
29Mon, Sep 2Jasper
30Tue, Sep 3Jasper
31Wed, Sep 4Banff
32Thu, Sep 5Calgary
33Fri, Sep 6Helena
34Sat, Sep 7Yellowstone
35Sun, Sep 8Yellowstone
36Mon, Sep 9Salt Lake City
37Tue, Sep 10Las Vegas
38Wed, Sep 11Los Angeles
39Thu, Sep 12Los Angeles
40Fri, Sep 13Los Angeles
41Sat, Sep 14Los Angeles
42Sun, Sep 15Depart LA 7:15
p.m.
43Mon, Sep 16Arrive
Tahiti/Bora Bora
44Tue, Sep 17Bora Bora
45Wed, Sep 18Bora Bora
46Thu, Sep 19Bora Bora
47Fri, Sep 20Bora Bora
48Sat, Sep 21Bora Bora
49Sun, Sep 22Tahiti, then
Depart
Mon, Sep 23Lost Day
50Tue, Sep 24Sydney
51Wed, Sep 25Sydney
52Thu, Sep 26Sydney
53Fri, Sep 27Canberra
54Sat, Sep 28Snowy Mts
55Sun, Sep 29Melbourne
56Mon, Sep 30Melbourne (Ballarat)
57Tue, Oct 1Melbourne
58Wed, Oct 2Adelaide
59Thu, Oct 3Kangeroo Island
60Fri, Oct 4Ayers Rock
61Sat, Oct 5Ayers Rock
62Sun, Oct 6Darwin
63Mon, Oct 7Kakadu
64Tue, Oct 8Kakadu
65Wed, Oct 9Kakadu
66Thu, Oct 10Darwin
67Fri, Oct 11Cairns
68Sat, Oct 12Cairns
69Sun, Oct 13Cairns/Kuranda
70Mon, Oct 14Great Barrier
Reef
71Tue, Oct 15Great Barrier
Reef
72Wed, Oct 16Whitsundays
73Thu, Oct 17Brisbane
74Fri, Oct 18Brisbane/Koalas
75Sat, Oct 19Arrive Auckland
76Sun, Oct 20Auckland
77Mon, Oct 21Auckland
78Tue, Oct 22Coromandel
79Wed, Oct 23Mercury Bay
80Thu, Oct 24Rotorua
81Fri, Oct 25Rotorua
82Sat, Oct 26Rotorua
83Sun, Oct 27Turangi
84Mon, Oct 28Tongoriro
National Park
85Tue, Oct 29Drive to
Wellington
86Wed, Oct 30Ferry/Drive
Christchurch
87Thu, Oct 31Christchurch
88Fri, Nov 1Drive Mt.
Cook/Queens
89Sat, Nov 2Queenstown
90Sun, Nov 3Queenstown
91Mon, Nov 4Te Anau/Glowworm
Caves
92Tue, Nov 5Milford Sound
93Wed, Nov 6Doubtful Sound
94Thu, Nov 7Arrive Fox
Glacier
95Fri, Nov 8Fox/Franz Joseph
Glacier
96Sat, Nov 9Hokitka –
Kaikoura
97Sun, Nov 10Kaikoura –
Christchurch
98Mon, Nov 11Christchurch
99Tue, Nov 12Christchurch
100Wed, Nov 13Depart/Arrive
Fiji-Coral Coast
101Thu, Nov 14Coral Coast
102Fri, Nov 15Coral Coast
103Sat, Nov 16Savusavu
104Sun, Nov 17Savusavu
105Mon, Nov 18Savusavu
106Tue, Nov 19Savusavu
107Wed, Nov 20Depart
Fiji/Arrive LA
108Thu, Nov 21Los Angeles

Filed Under: Big Trip 1996, Traveling

About Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is a former analyst and journalist who works for Google to help educate the public about search, to explore and explain issues that may arise with search, and take feedback from the public to help promote solutions.

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