09Oct 2024 by Dave Macleod 1 Comment
Revamping Some Old Ambitions

Revamping Some Old Ambitions

GENERAL
On my recent holiday to Fiji, to cross off #88 Swim with Sharks, I began to read through my list again. It had been a while, at least four years, from around the time that Covid started. I shifted my focus away from the bucket list during this period, for obvious reasons. I knew travel wasn’t going to be possible for a while, so I dove into other activities in New Zealand. Also, these past four years have been extremely busy for me at work and with my studies. I helped my bosses to expand and establish their company in the Central North region of New Zealand and managed to leverage that to complete a Master of Applied Management. Booking the trip to Fiji was designed to help reinvigorate my…
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15Jun 2022 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#32 Lesson] Language Barriers Make Travelling Interesting

[#32 Lesson] Language Barriers Make Travelling Interesting

BUCKET LIST, LESSON
This life lesson relates to my previous blog #32 Drink Sake in Japan. Our trip through Japan was one big culture shock. From the moment that I stepped off the plane, everything felt vastly different from any country that I had travelled to before. The food, the signs, the outfits, the lights; it all felt so strange. I am only fluent in English, but I know bits and pieces of a few other languages. This is usually enough for me to get by while travelling to new countries. During my 10-hour flight I made sure to practice a few key words and phrases to help me out. Speaking the language is not too bad if you are shown the phonetics of how to pronounce the words. The problem lies in…
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01Jun 2022 by Dave Macleod No Comments
#32 Drink Sake in Japan

#32 Drink Sake in Japan

BUCKET LIST, TRAVEL
This bucket list item was completed on 4th February 2019 in Tokyo Japan. This story picks up where my last blog #31 Eat Blowfish left off. On our way to the restaurant we found the popular alleyway with tiny bars, called Shinjuku Omoide Yokocho. We kept the location in mind for later. When we left the restaurant we had been on our feet for 12 hours, solid. Remembering the alleyway I suggested that we go check out one of the bars to relax and get some sake. Tiny bars with big taste The bars are very popular with tourist and locals and it’s hard to find one with open seats, especially when you have a group of four. We walked up and down the alley once before we found a…
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14Jul 2021 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#78 Lesson] Stay in Touch

[#78 Lesson] Stay in Touch

BUCKET LIST, LESSON, TRAVEL
This life lesson relates to my previous blog #78 Make a Call form a London Phone Booth. This was a pretty simple bucket list item to achieve, it was just a phone call to my parents. As I have said before though, there is a life lesson in all of these. No matter whether they are easy or hard. This one taught me how easy it is to stay in touch. And also, the importance of staying in touch. My dad was excited to receive the call and it was good to update him on the next leg of my journey. As I grew up, and began to start travelling on my own, my parents and I developed a rule – No News is Good News. Back then, the only…
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16Jun 2021 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#23 Lesson] Keep Your Wits about Yourself When Travelling

[#23 Lesson] Keep Your Wits about Yourself When Travelling

BUCKET LIST, LESSON, TRAVEL
This life lesson relates to my previous blog post #23 Ride in a Gondola Boat in Venice. In my travels throughout the years I have experienced, and have been told about, many schemes where locals will try to hustle unsuspecting tourists. The sad truth is that you never know when it is going to happen until it is already in the process, or worse, it has already happen and you have been deceived. It doesn’t matter whether you have been travelling your whole life or whether you are on your first overseas adventure, everyone is susceptible to being hustled while travelling. One time when I was travelling in Cuba with my family we were on a tour and walked past a beggar. The beggar first asked where we were from…
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19May 2021 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#90 Lesson] Explored History

[#90 Lesson] Explored History

BUCKET LIST, LESSON, TRAVEL
This life lesson relates to my previous blog #90 Go to Pompeii. What class did I hate the most when I was a kid? History. What is one of my favourite aspects of travel, today? History. Did I just grow up and begin to like history? Definitely not! I don’t think there is any risk of me growing up any time soon. What changed was the way I learned the material. Instead of being told about it by my teacher or reading about it from a book, I was experiencing it firsthand. I call this explored history. I find explored history more interesting as you can form a connection with the material that you are learning. Explored history excites more of our senses, which helps to make more of an…
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03Jul 2019 by Dave Macleod No Comments
Why I Travel

Why I Travel

GENERAL, INFORMATION
The key to my happiness is doing things that I love and one thing I truly love is travelling. Travelling brings me so much joy, and every time I go travelling, I am reminded of why I love it so much. I have always had a running list in my head of the reasons why I travel but I never took the time to write it down. This sounds like some peoples’ approach to bucket lists. Realising this, I decided to take my own advice, so I wrote them down. Here is a list of all the reasons why I travel. I travel… Because it makes me happy To learn about myself To experience new things To attend events Because I like airplanes To collect miniature shampoo bottles To visit…
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08May 2019 by Dave Macleod No Comments
Credit Card Travel Benefits: Credit Cards vs Travel Cards

Credit Card Travel Benefits: Credit Cards vs Travel Cards

GENERAL, INFORMATION, TRAVEL
This blog post is the fourth, and final, instalment of my Credit Card Travel Benefits Series and continues on from Credit Card Travel Benefits: Cash vs Credit Cards. In my last blog post, I compared the use of cash and credit cards during an overseas holiday. The results concluded that, with all things considered, using credit cards for overseas travel was the better option. In recent years, reloadable travel cards have become more popular and banks have encouraged their customers to use them while travelling overseas. Once you obtain a travel card you can load money onto it, from your bank account, in your local currency and have it converted to any of the currencies supported by the card. When you load the travel card directly from your bank account,…
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30Jan 2019 by Monika Giacca Millar No Comments
Travelling With a Baby: Our Experience

Travelling With a Baby: Our Experience

GENERAL, INFORMATION, TRAVEL
I’m sure that a lot of readers of this blog aren’t even thinking about having kids at this time. But there are a lot of millennials following as well, and one by one you’re each getting plucked off the singles list, getting married, and inevitably having kids (or likely skipping getting married and putting that money toward a house or trip!). When you have kids, there’s no need to ditch your travelling habits or shelve your bucket list for when the kids grow up – it’s just time to restructure and reorganize it. Are there trips on your list that are more baby friendly than others? Perhaps, there are some great places you would like to go that would be great for when your little one is 4-6 years old,…
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10Oct 2018 by Monika Giacca Millar No Comments
Travel Insurance… Yes, You Do Need It!

Travel Insurance… Yes, You Do Need It!

GENERAL, INFORMATION, TRAVEL
As a Travel Consultant I get to send my clients off on amazing trips all around the world. They send back photos, postcards … hey, sometimes even a souvenir. That is my favourite part of the job, and it’s why I love doing it. My least favourite part of my job is working with my clients who have had a crisis before or during their trip. I’m here to help, and I’ll always do the best I can … but when my clients opt out of travel insurance and something goes wrong, the consequences can be devastating. I’m not here to be a downer, but I want to tell you all about travel insurance, what you should look for, and how to avoid paying massive unexpected fees on your journey.…
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