Recently in Travel Category

Tonight I bought two tickets to the Coldplay concert on March 3. It's a Tuesday at the Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne Park. Carly's never been to Melbourne and the last concert we went to (Avril Lavigne when Carly was 11) was in Sydney. This is Carly's Christmas present and will be a bit of mother-daughter bonding. I'm a huge fan of Coldplay and love their music, and I'm already looking forward to the concert.

Where we'll stay and what we'll do is a few months off so I won't even worry about it yet.

This time of year many of us decide to pack up and get away from it all, which means big business for hotels, motels and caravan parks all across the country.

If you're looking for a getaway that's a little different, you'd do well to check out the new list of the world's extraordinary luxury hotels compiled by Forbes magazine.

The list features:

Ice Hotel, Quebec, Canada. Created anew each year out of 15,000 pounds of snow and 500 pounds of ice, the 34-room hotel features an ice chapel, two art galleries and a host of outdoor activities. The temperature inside the hotel ranges from 23 to 28 degrees Fahrenheit, and the beds are carved from ice. You don't sleep directly on the ice, though -- there's a wooden plank between the ice and a comfy mattress, plus you're insulated with a special sleeping bag that can withstand the harshest climes (-40 degrees Fahrenheit).

Propeller Island City Lodge, Berlin, Germany. Would you rather sleep in a coffin or in a bed atop a castle? Each of the 31 rooms in this hotel is designed totally around a different theme, such as the orange room and the symbol room (tiled entirely with wooden blocks painted with 300 different symbols). Pictured below is the Padded Cell.

Library Hotel, New York City, where each floor is designed after one of the 10 categories of the Dewey Decimal System, such as Math and Science and Religion, and each room houses part of the hotel's collection of 6,000 books.

The Ariau Towers Hotel, Brazil lets you sleep in the treetops of the Amazon Rainforest. "Tarzan's house," for example, is perched on stilts 80 feet above the ground. Situated on the bank of the Negro River, Ariau's suites are linked by a series of catwalks.

Jules Undersea Lodge, Key Largo, Florida - a former research lab located underwater in a tropical mangrove habitat, and guests must scuba dive 21 feet to get to the main lobby that can accommodate up to six guests, and each air-conditioned room features a 42-inch window in the water.

The flights are booked and the kids are excited, and it looks like we're off to Queensland at the end of January. All paid too so there's no turning back. We'll fly out on Australia Day, and return home on February 3rd, a Saturday, so we can get back to normal on Sunday for school and work on Monday. The kids will miss the first three days at school, but that shouldn't create too many problems. This way, I'm hoping the lines won't be so long at the theme parks (they're sure to want to go) and the airfares were cheaper. You wouldn't think a week would make that much difference but when it comes to money, any saving is a good thing. By the time January comes around, my credit card should be paid off too, so I might even have some spending money.

We'll drive to Sydney and leave the car at the airport, and Carly is excited that we may have time to do some sight-seeing there before we need to be at the airport around 5. What with the time-difference, it looks like the flight takes only 20 minutes, but we'll actually be in the air for an hour and a half.

The return flight gets us back in to Sydney around lunch-time, so we should get back home around 6pm. That's without stops of course, so it might be more like 7pm. It's 4 months away but I'm already thinking about what to pack. I must be just as excited as the kids.

We had a fantastic 5 days in Queensland staying at the Grand Florida Resort on the Gold Coast. The place was just beautiful and I could easily live there. We arrived on Wednesday February 1st after driving all day on the Tuesday. After 14 hours in the car we stayed in Tenterfield on Tuesday night and I slept like a baby. The scenery was spectacular on the Great Dividing Range and I can easily see why people want to move up there. Everything is so green, with trees everywhere. Nothing like around Junee where it's brown and dry and dusty. Farmers there would have little to complain about, I imagine.

Wednesday morning we had another 5 hours on the road. We travelled with Lauren and Daniel and we had frequent stops because of Zeke. That made the trip less hectic and gave us a chance to look around a bit. We got to the resort around 2 pm and the kids had a swim in the pool before I drove them to Carrera, where they were staying with mum and my uncle and aunty. I got lost every time I went somewhere so took much longer to get anywhere. By the end of the 5 days there I knew my way around much better. Always the way!

The rooms were just beautiful. Fully equipped with washing machine, clothes dryer, dish washer and even a garbage disposal unit. That was a buzz. The balcony overlooked tropical gardens and we sat out there most nights. The ocean was 100m away and I took the kids there a couple of times. The surf was warm, which was surprising, and the pool was like a luke-warm bath. After the freezing rivers here it was a nice change.

Our days were rather hectic, trying to cram everything into 5 days. On Thursday we drove to Kirra to visit my dad and had a swim at Rainbow Beach. Zeke wasn't overly impressed with the ocean and cried every time a wave came. He loved the pool at the resort and was in it every day. We all were. You can't walk past the pools without wanting to go for a swim and the water was warm enough to swim at night. Friday we went to Harbour Town where all the factory outlets are and had a shopping day. We spent lots of money and bought lots of new things and everyone had a great day. Friday night was Emily's hen's night and we had a fantastic night. More about that later. Saturday I took the kids to Wet n Wild and Saturday night I went out for tea with Emily and Kai and a few of their friends to the Lone Star Restaurant (huge steaks, yum) and Sunday was the wedding, which went off beautifully. I have some photos so will post them later.

We left about lunch-time on Monday and drove down the coast road, stopping in Byron Bay for a late lunch and a swim. The sea was colder there, but beautiful. I could easily live there too. We stayed the night in Coffs Harbour and set off early on Tuesday for another 14 hours in the car and got home at 8.30 pm in time for Lauren and Carly to watch the OC. A fantastic holiday but too short. I came home with $40 in the bank and will definately start saving to go back there next year but I think we'll fly.

I told Carly and Alex last night that we wouldn't be having a holiday in July now that the renovations are going to begin. They were not impressed. They couldn't get the NO MONEY thing. My dad lives in Queensland and we haven't seen him for a couple of years now, and the plan was to go up on the train during the next school holidays and spend a week. Dad lives on the NSW/QLD border in a caravan park that sounds just beautiful. I'll be hard-pressed paying for the painting after the builder is finished (lucky my brother is the painter), but there's also carpet for the new part of the lounge room and possibly the lounge room as well. The kids don't get the concept of having no money. They think you can go to the bank and get more out. It probably seems like it to them. Of course if I get the job there would be no holiday either.

The thought of a holiday in Queensland during July was something I've been especially looking forward to. We can have some bitterly cold days in July, and Dad said the temperatures in Kirra range from 14 -24 (celcius). A gorgeous winter day in July may not even reach 14 in Junee. Dad was also disappointed when I told him on Sunday we may not be able to come. I'll have to make a real effort to save some money by Christmas. I should put it to the kids that the holiday will be our Christmas presents. I doubt it will go down well, but you never know. Children can be quite surprising.