We've known our friends, the McAllisters, for many years.  Native Australians, Bill met Steve in an extended training course at work. Steve had his wife, Mary, with him and they became good friends of Sandy and I. They visited the US a couple of times through the years and began a family. They always encouraged us to visit them in Australia but we just never got around to organizing it.

In 1999 Steve and Mary decided to bring the whole family for a grand US tour and we invited them to spend the Christmas holidays with us. Since we were now retired there was no excuse and we finally agreed to make the trip.

Many friends told us that we couldn't possibly visit Australia without a stop in New Zealand. Then, too, we had a nephew, Nat, who was living inDubai in the middle east teaching English as a second language. Why not make it a trip around the world?

And so our little adventure was born.

We used a travel agent at AAA for the airline tickets. He did better, price wise, than Bill could seem to do on the Internet. We decided to use B&Bs in New Zealand. Bill found a web site that helped ID the B&Bs and arranged everything via e-mail. There was no [problem with arrangements in Dubai since we'd stay with Nat and Michele.

What follows is the text of an e-mail travelogue that we created while on the road, modified slightly to fit the web site page format

Enjoy!