Last Friday, I woke up early and took some trains to the airport. I boarded an airplane (depicted below) and sat down for a few hours. When I stood up again, I was in New Zealand.
That's the level of detail you want, right?
Just kidding. I'm not going to give you a play-by-play. What I will do is follow a time-honored blog tradition. Unsolicited advice! I traveled alone, so here are a few tips on how to do a vacation all by yourself.
1) Find the free walking tour. Go on your first day.
Lots of cities have "free" walking tours, which are the best introductions I've ever gotten to the more touristy areas of any city. I have done these in a few cities and they're always super interesting and the guides are always really cool. They'll point out good places to eat and attractions you should go back to. If you go on your first day, you'll have some sense of direction for the rest of your trip and a to-do list for later!
2) Hostels are actually a pretty great option.
I've heard a lot of friends say that they find hostels to be weird. And I get that. Staying in a room with strangers is definitely different. And the hostel didn't provide a towel. It was super cheap, though, and in a central location. The atmosphere was social, so even though I was traveling alone, there were people for me to hang out with. And people who had been there longer than I had gave me some ideas for things to do, like climb a volcano to watch the sunset.
3) Try something new.
On Wednesday, I walked about 16 km (that's roughly 10 miles) across Auckland. I've done long hikes before, but never by myself. This one started at the harbor near my hostel and went out into the suburbs, which I hadn't visited yet. I walked through some parks, climbed a few volcanoes, ran out of water for a little while (make sure you don't do that. It was bad), and took lots of pictures. I almost gave up about six separate times, but I made it all the way to the end in about 6 hours. Between the views and the sense of accomplishment, I think that this was my favorite activity of the whole trip.
I hope you like my little foray into the ancient art of listicles (or whatever they're called). In case you couldn't tell, this is really just a way for me to tell you about what I did while making it sound like I have something profound to say. (I don't.) Anyway, here are some pictures I took.
School starts up again tomorrow, so I should get some sleep. I'll see you next week for another installment of me telling you about all the stuff that I'm doing while living in a cool place!
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