by kiwisonadventure

Back in New Zealand… what now?

We arrived home in late March, just 10 days short of being a whole year away.  Leaving Mexico, we stopped in Southern California for a 3 day break and caught up with Patti – we had met her over 6 years previously when staying at the same place on the Greek island of  Santorini. It… Read More

by kiwisonadventure

Expectations and reality

As we adjust back to life in our home country of New Zealand after our year-long adventure, a couple of people have asked me how or if our expectations were met? I asked Chris this and we had a very interesting discussion about expectations and how each of us had quite different views on what… Read More

by kiwisonadventure

To all the dogs (and cats) we’ve loved this year…

Since our first European housesit in April, we’ve cared for over 30 dogs and cats (plus a few fish and chickens too). Each animal had its own personality and we’ve liked different things about each of them. Even the pets that were hard to love at first grew on you and you end up missing… Read More

by kiwisonadventure

Moroccan Blues (part one) – The Good

Because we were so close to Morocco, we thought we should attempt to get over to visit and see at least some of this fascinating country. I was very keen to visit Chefchaouen, the blue city, as well as Fez and we would see what else was possible. A travel agent in Alhaurin de la… Read More

by kiwisonadventure

Pilgrims, Picasso and Palaces

We had attempted to see the north of Spain once before but had to change plans with an opportunity for a housesit presenting itself, but now we had an extra ten days from our return to Madrid, so planned to explore places we couldn’t find housesits. We picked up our very cheap car rental (costing… Read More

by kiwisonadventure

Italian interlude

The Cinque Terre and Milan seemed so close to where we had been petsitting in the south of France, we thought, “why not?” and planned an extra few days in Italy before flying back to Spain for our next assignment. Vernazza in the Cinque Terre was our base 15 years ago (for our family trip)… Read More

by kiwisonadventure

Long late night flights and longer layovers

Next time… I’m already rethinking my strategy for flying long-haul flights… Don’t take midnight or later flights out – it means you are tired and have spent a long time waiting for departure and by the time you board, you’re hyped, but so tired all you really need is sleep, not food. Don’t plan long… Read More