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| Sun streaming through a dense cloud cover at sunset. |
We prefer to have all gaps filled within a year of traveling to any specific location. With a gap between two Australian cruises from March 13, 2017 to April 22, 2017, we’ve been chomping at the bit to find where we’ll stay while in Sydney, Australia.
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| Unfortunately, if we waited for sunny days, we’d have a few photos of the scenery surrounding us. |
Sydney is a magical city with much to see and do. Having been to Sydney three times since June 2015, staying overnight in hotels twice, we easily fell in love with the city, the people, and the vast array of interesting things to see and do.
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| View of lake at Pukekura Park. |
On many occasions, we’ve mentioned that we aren’t “city people” but from time to time a big city holds a certain amount of appeal that piques our curiosity and interest. Sydney is just that type of city.
The very fact of Sydney’s desirability to many tourists worldwide has contributed to the high cost of rentals both in the city and the surrounding areas, making it fall into the category of some of the most expensive vacation homes we’ve researched to date.
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| The beach in Opunake. |
The only way we can justify the higher rents that will surely prove to be the highest we’ll have paid to date is to use public transportation during this 40 day period to avoid the high cost of a rental car, fuel, and parking. Plus, it appears to be easy to get around the city with considerable low-cost transportation options.
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| It was a cool, cloudy evening when we shot these photos of the sea. |
Staying in a hotel is not a practical solution, although if we can’t pin down a reasonable scenario we may decide to stay in a hotel that has a kitchenette with a coffee maker and microwave. This worked for us when we stayed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in September 2014 for six days, giving us a feel for how we’d do without a full kitchen.
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| There are many cliffs along the shores in New Zealand. |
There’s a big difference between six days and forty days but if we purchase roasted chicken two nights a week as we do now, pick up some healthy “to go” food another few nights a week, we’d eat out for the remainder. It’s definitely doable, not unlike how we managed for another 11 days when we were in Honolulu, Hawaii in October 2014.
Of course, we’d prefer a vacation home, able to do laundry, cook our meals and overall keep the costs down. Finding a vacation home that works is the challenge in Sydney as we’re now on a mission to wrap something up in the next few weeks before leaving New Zealand.
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| Visitors walking along the beach on a cool evening. |
It’s a never-ending process, luckily one that we each continue to enjoy although more so when there are more options that stay within our budget. As we often mention, staying within our monthly/annual budget enables us to continue on as long as our health continues to be good.
The challenge always revolves around matching location, our particular needs, and desires, transportation options, availability of WiFi, and making the financial aspect work within the constraints we’ve established to continue this way of life with the least amount of stress.
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| As the sun peeked out, we stopped for another view of Mount Taranaki with cows on the hill. |
In essence, limited the amount of stress in our lives is not only vital to our long-term health and well being but it greatly affects the level of enjoyment and enrichment of each and every experience.
We hope you have a low-stress day!
Photo from one year ago today, March 19, 2015:
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| A year ago, a visitor was killed at this beach at the end of Anini Beach, a desirable beach only 15 minutes from Princeville. This was sad to see. For more beach photos in Kauai, please click here. |