Where would we like to travel if circumstances allow?…

Here’s a familiar spot found in Maui!

As we spend month after month in the US, longing to travel again, we often wonder where we’d like to go once the doctors at Cleveland Clinic give us the go-ahead. In the worst case, we’ll be able to leave by the end of February. In the best case, we can go in mid-December, which isn’t the ideal time to travel.

If we can leave in December, a cruise might be ideal over the Christmas season, especially if the cruise begins by December 15 and ends a few days after New Year’s Day. This way, we’ll be able to avoid the rush at airports, which we attempt to avoid if we can.

Otherwise, if we have to stay until the end of February, with the goal to be in Marloth Park by March in order to be there at the same time as our friends Kathy and Don, who plan to arrive by March 6 and stay for two months, Gee…if all goes well, we could possibly be there the same time as they will. If so, we won’t need to be concerned about where we’ll go between leaving Cleveland and arriving in Marloth Park.

We’ll stay in Marloth Park for three months until our visas expire, then head to another country in Africa for a short visit to get a new visa when we return to South Africa to stay for another 90 days. This could take us through next October. What shall we do afterward?

We are seriously considering returning to Australia, New Zealand, and, most importantly, Tasmania to Penguin, Tom’s favorite place in the world. We continue to return to Marloth Park, my favorite place but have yet to return to Tom’s. He loves the quaint little ocean town, its people, and its ambiance. I loved Penguin as well, but not as much as Marloth Park.

We’d like to visit several other countries, including Japan and many others in Europe, such as Sweden, Austria, Germany, and Poland. We’d consider returning to Spain and Portugal, where we spent a little time but not enough.

Perhaps on the top of my list of new places to explore is Macquarie Island, an island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. Regionally part of Oceania and politically a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1900, it became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

For more on Macquarie Island, click here:

Macquarie Island is far enough south that human access is limited and far enough north to allow sub-Antarctic species to thrive. Sir Douglas Mawson described it as a wonder spot of the world. The island is an important site for a proliferation of wildlife, including extensive seal colonies and an array of penguin species. Around 3.5 million seabirds and 80,000 elephant seals arrive on Macquarie Island each year to breed and molt.

Macquarie Island is a site of outstanding geological and natural significance and was awarded World Heritage status in 1997, forming a second Tasmanian World Heritage Area.

Macquarie Island is managed by the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, by the Macquarie Island Nature Reserve and World Heritage Area Management Plan 2006.”

The world is vast. We have yet to visit a blip in the magnitude of exciting places left to see. For more details on where we have been, PLEASE CLICK ON OUR TRAVEL MAP ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF OUR MAIN PHOTO to see how much we have seen thus far. Looking at this map even boggles our minds when it’s hard to believe how many places we’ve been already.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, October 28, 2014:

At a park in Maui, we spotted this bird, a Red-Crested Cardinal. For more photos, please click here.

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