Welcome

And o’er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Thro’ all the world she followed him.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.

Welcome to our travel blog! We are Harriet and Michael from Aotearoa New Zealand, and we invite you to follow along as we travel through all the world together. If you are on Instagram then please also follow us there @throughalltheworld

This first post will be a bit of an introduction to us and our travel history. 

We have been together for nearly three and a half years, after we met at a mutual friend's Halloween party in 2018. We both live in Auckland, although Michael was born in Christchurch and has moved around many different places. We both love to travel, and had each made many journeys before our paths crossed!

I (Harriet) first travelled by myself when I was barely 17, and went on school exchange to Germany. I spent two months in Munich over Christmas, and then my exchange partner came to New Zealand the following year; that was the beginning of a lifetime friendship and relationship between our two families, and we have made many trips back and forward in the intervening years. I spent a semester of my undergraduate degree at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, along with my oldest friend, and then returned there for a full year for my Masters. I felt very at home in Scotland, perhaps due to my ancestry, and loved being able to travel around the highlands and islands, as well as experience living in the city of Glasgow, and make quick and easy trips to Amsterdam, Munich, Dublin, and London from there. 

Glen Coe, Scotland.

 My sister and I also spent a month together travelling around parts of Italy when she finished studying - two lone females in an unknown city! With our backgrounds in history, art history, and classics, we were truly in heaven. I have also made a couple of trips to Japan, staying in a smaller rural area and also visiting Kyoto.

Florence, Italy.

Mike has made some epic road trips in recent years, beginning with visiting 48 states of the USA in three months in 2016! He also spent eight weeks driving all around Germany, another eight weeks driving the length and breadth New Zealand. In 2019 he spent two weeks driving around Tasmania, and another two weeks all around the main island of New Caledonia. 

USA.

 Not letting covid stop him, in 2020 he managed to spend 70 days driving all around the United Kingdom and Ireland, seeing absolutely everything he could, and had to spend 2 weeks in mandatory quarantine when returning to New Zealand.

United Kingdom.

Whitsunday Island, Australia.

 During the brief Tasman quarantine-free window in 2021, Mike spent 4 months driving around the whole of Australia (many days alone in the outback). Harriet managed to join him for the final part - around the state of Queensland, though we had to cut our trip a few days short due to the travel bubble closing!

Cát Bà island, Vietnam.

Our first overseas trip together, though not a road trip, was Vietnam for a wedding in 2019. We made the most of our time there by undertaking train journeys from Hanoi in the north down to the Mekong Delta and even out to Phú Quốc island. We were lucky to not only get to see the country as tourists, but to join our friends for their traditional wedding ceremony. We definitely appreciate now how easy it was to travel internationally pre-covid!

Ninh binh, Vietnam.

 

The epic road trips Mike has done have been possible to afford due to freedom camping - sleeping in the car, rather than paying for accommodation. He has become very good at picking spots to sleep that are out of the way where we won't disturb anybody, and nobody will disturb us. We are always careful not to leave any rubbish, and use public toilets. It is quite comfortable for one person to sleep in the back of an ordinary car, as long as the back seats can fold flat, and it is possible, though a little cozier, with two. We have both slept in my Toyota Ractis on trips around New Zealand, and in the back of a Rav4 in Australia. Mike had a Honda Jazz in the UK, and this is what we are planning to live in for the next 5 months in Europe - tune in to our next post for more on our current travel plans!

Mekong Delta, Vietnam.