The Night before Aussie

Tomorrow is the day and I could not be more excited to head to the land down under. I have had the opportunity to go on many amazing trips in my life, however this will be the longest one yet and first one alone! Although I am a little scared to be traveling alone for the first time, I know that once I am there and settled in I will never want to return. 

One of the main pieces of advice I have gotten so far: "Do NOT overpack!"... I have included a picture of my attempts at not overpacking with this post. Packing for 7 weeks became an experience within itself already! I realized that A) I have too many clothes that I do not wear and B) suitcases are extremely small. However I was able to solve these problems and turned packing into a time to clean out my closet and make some serious decisions about what clothes will come on this adventure with me. As Qantas allows two bags 50 pounds each, I managed to do it in under that somehow. One thing that I noticed helped me ease both my anxiety and excitement for the trip is packing a few days in advanced so you can spend your last days relaxing with friends and family without stressing about packing :)

I plan to photograph and video majority of my trip using my go-pro and share all of my experiences with you guys! I will be in Australia for six weeks which seems like a long time however it is not seeming long enough in order to do everything I want while I am on that side of the world! Its not everyday that you are on the otherside of the globe so you may as well do everything while you have the opprotunity. Three of the major things that I want to do while I am in Australia is travel to New Zealand and ski the Remarkables mountains, go to the Great Barrier Reef and scuba dive, and travel to Melbourne and experince another city in Australia. In order to keep these trips all organized I have printed out calendars and mapped out everything I have "planned".  However, I have not booked anything yet because I am not quite sure what to expect. One trip that I have planned so far is traveling to the Outback for a weekend and camping which is provided by IES Abroad and required for one of my classes. I have not been camping since I was about ten years old so it should be interesting! I have made a list of everything I want to accomplish while I am here and I plan to keep you updated if I am successful in achieving it all in my six weeks stay. 

Catch you on the other side, Next stop: Sydney, Australia!!