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| A walkway at Namale Resort & Spa, as described in yesterday’s post, from guests personally making these stones during their stay at the exquisite resort, one of many activities centered around the personalization of guest experiences. |
Often we’re asked, “Would you return to Fiji (or wherever we may be at the time) for another visit?”
As much as we’ve enjoyed this island and other locations, it’s doubtful we’ll return to most places we’ve lived in the past. The world’s a huge place. We’ll be lucky to see what comes our way in these hopefully healthful remaining years of our lives, the clock seemingly ticking faster now than 20 or 30 years ago.
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| The traditional Fijian bell, the lali, is used to alert guests as to activities and meal times at Namale Resort & Spa. |
It’s not that we haven’t particularly loved some locations. We have. Fiji has been one of them. Sure, the ants and mosquitoes are rampant. but that would have no bearing on a return visit. At present, I have no less than a dozen itchy two and three-day-old bites that I refuse to scratch, which doesn’t seem to help one way or another.
The effectiveness of vitamin B1’s warding off mosquitoes has wafted away in Fiji, although it appeared to work in Australia. The “natural” products I have used diligently have no benefit here and the only effective means of keeping them away is the chemical-laden local products, many containing 20% DEET.
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| The Veidomoni Deck where guests can relax and watch the blow-hole. |
Then the question becomes, “Bites or chemicals, which is worse?” I alternate trying to stay free of bites on particularly bad days using the chemical products and on clear sunny days when less are biting, I go without, taking my chances on getting a few bites throughout the day and evening.
Sadly, we’re both unable to sit outdoors in the shade all day, which we’d love to be able to do. When the sun is shining I use a minimal amount of repellent to be able to sit still for 30 minutes on the solitary chaise lounge for my dose of vitamin D. It seems they don’t bite as much in the heat of the sun. In the shade, even “auto-repellent” Tom is getting bitten.
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| A walk down this short walkway to the sea, the hot tub, and seating in this area overlooking the blow-hole that can be reserved for private dining or viewing. |
Mosquitoes may carry disease, even in pristine Fiji where there are no snakes, few venomous spiders and centipedes, and a few flies. One has to weigh the pros and cons when implementing either option, repellent, or no repellent.
However, a return to this lush tropical island is highly unlikely. The only places we feel confident we’ll visit again is Marloth Park, South Africa, and then to tour more of Africa, including seeing the gorillas in Rwanda and Victoria Falls which we missed on our last visit.
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| A luxuriating hot tub at the site of the blow-hole, ideal for cocktails and relaxation. |
Kauai, Hawaii is one of our favorite places in the world. Both of these repeat visits are well down the road, long after we’ve swept through South America, next on the agenda as a continent to explore over a period of a few years.
Days ago, on our third year travel anniversary when we posted our expenses and stats, we missed an important fact that Tom mentioned, we’d forgotten hours after the post was uploaded, “How many miles have we traveled to date?”
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| As the blow-hole spouted… |
Of course, off the top of our heads, we didn’t have a clue. On the right side of the page for each new post is a Travelers Point map that enables us or our readers to view our “full-size Travel Map” with a single click. Please feel free to do so.
We spent several hours updating and correcting this map in the past few days. It’s now accurate and complete to date. For those of you who travel, you can use your own map at Travelers Point for “free” without any annoying advertising. It’s fun to map out your travels throughout your life. We’ve only included where we’ve traveled in the past three years.
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| The coral reef in the Koro Sea. |
By clicking on that link on our site, the full travel map will expand and show everywhere we’ve been. To date, we’ve traveled 128,907 km, 80,103 miles. Many business travelers have traveled over a million miles which for us, will be impossible to achieve. Stopping to live in a vacation home for two to three months along the way makes such a number far from our reach.
Then again, this isn’t a marathon, nor is it even a race. We’re just two relatively laid-back seniors leisurely traveling from country to country, continent to continent enjoying the journey along the way. If we had to stop now, we’d look back on that map and say, “Gee, we’ve certainly traveled our fair share throughout the world.”
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| A footbridge across a ravine. |
And yet, we haven’t been to Asia (other than the Asia side of Istanbul), South America, Russia and so much more, all of which call to us in the future. Plus, we’ll surely return to some parts of the world we’ve visited in the past to “expand our horizons” in new cities, on river cruises
By September 2016, a mere 10 months down the road, we’ll have spent considerable time in Cambodia, Viet Nam and living in Phuket, Thailand, giving us a small sampling of Asia which we’ll further explore in years to come.
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| At a distance to the building where guests come from all over the world to attend Tony Robbins’ seminars while staying at the resort. |
Upcoming in a post in the next few days, we’ll be sharing photos and stories of a new location, where we’ll live for three months beginning on August 1, 2017, a mere 21 months into the future.
As far off as it may seem, the time flies quickly and we can easily imagine ourselves in the new location, sitting in a comfy chair in the morning again writing to you about all of our adventures, big and small.
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| As we prepared to leave, this guitar player proceeded to play. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay to enjoy his music. |
In the interim, we have many more miles to travel, places to see, and experiences to behold. We treasure each location as if it were our first, as one may treasure on a “vacation/holiday” on which they embark once a year. But for us, it continues on and on, with no end in sight.
Recently, as we ended a conversation with a couple we met, they blurted out, “Enjoy your trip!” Often we hear, “Have fun on your holiday!” Safe travels on your vacation.”
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| Fresh locally grown flower arrangements were on display in many areas of the resort. |
Later, we often chuckle after hearing these considerate, well-intended comments. This is no “trip,” no “vacation,” and no “holiday.” This is our day to day lives and although challenging at times, we remain joyful, grateful, and in awe of the world around us. Above all, we’re continuing, if not enhancing, being together, day after day, through laughter and a pure sense of appreciating one another.
Thanks to all of you for sharing this life with us!
Photo from one year ago today, November 3, 2014:
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| On a walk in the neighborhood of our condo in Maui, we encountered this Cattle Egret, commonly found in the Hawaiian Islands. For more details from the walk, please click here. |