We were initially excited when our pilot told us over the intercom that we were due to land 15 minutes early in Phuket. That excitement quickly turned to disappointment when we flew into a giant, black storm cloud and the pilot informed us that we couldn't land due to a thunderstorm and would have to circle the airport for 20 minutes. That 20 minutes led to another 20 minutes during which time we could see at least 20 other aircraft circling around in the sky w...

After enjoying our last night in Turkey smoking a sheesha with Bryan and Glynda at the Shangri-La, we boarded our plane for Abu Dhabi, the first leg on our homeward journey. We arrived in Abu Dhabi and checked into our beautiful hotel, the Royal Rose, which has a stunning chandelier in the foyer. The next day we waited in the foyer for our tour guide to take us on a private tour of Abu Dhabi. We were expecting a nice car to pick us up because the tour had cost...

A short flight from Bucharest to Istanbul took us to Turkey. We joined a Luxury Escapes tour of the country that began from here. The first stop was the Shangri-La Hotel on the Bosphorus river. We joined our tour group and spent the next three days in Istanbul. This included a cruise along the Bosphorus river, which is the border between Asia and Europe. There were many mosques and palaces along the way. Istanbul is a city of mosques. There are more than 3,000 t...

We spent the last 7 days on our seventh and last road trip around Romania. We started in Bucharest where we took a walking tour with Florin, who gave us an honest insight into life in his country. Romania has never recovered from the hardships communism forced onto the people and as a result most people leave the country as soon as they can. Particularly skilled workers who can be paid up to 8 times more in other European countries, which they are free to tr...

We checked out of our apartment in Split and lugged the suitcases through the old town to the Car rental agency. We hired a Peugeot 508 for our sixth road trip since leaving home in March. We squeezed as much of our luggage and the kids luggage into the boot as we could and then piled the rest of it on top of the kids in the back seat. We drove for an hour to the Split airport and offloaded the kids and their luggage. It was then time for another goodbye. The ...