Ep 111: Three Things That Went Wrong During My Multi-Generational Australia Trip

Embark on an epic adventure Down Under with Dr. Weili Gray as she recounts her unforgettable multi-generational journey through Australia. From visa hiccups to van lockouts to unbooked itineraries, every mishap became a chance for growth and bonding. Join us for a story of resilience, discovery, and the joy of travel.

In this episode, discover how a Traveler’s Mindset shapes our experiences and changes us for the better. Check out the Dare to Dream Physician Travel Podcast on any podcast app. Listen now for valuable insights and inspiration to fuel your own travel dreams! 🌟🔗 

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Transcript

0:02

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the dare to dream physician travel podcast. I am so glad that you've chosen to join us this week. And you're listening to this on a Monday morning, happy Monday. I hope that this podcast will get your wheels dreaming and give you examples to help you see what's possible for you and living door travel dreams. So I just came back and still recovering from jet lag from, uh, three weeks of an epic adventure and Australia. I have never done anything like this trip before. It was a multi-generational trip. With my extended family. And I had never taken three weeks off from work to travel and I've never been to the continent of Australia and I have never traveled that far with my kids. So this is going to be a fantastic adventure. And so, um, the story of how this trip came into being this trip idea came into being and how it involved. Multiple generations is really a podcast on its own. And I made sure that story some other time. Um, but really at the beginning of this trip, the understanding was that, we had my aunt who's my dad's sister. And my uncle. And they were both in their late sixties. Um, my mom who's in her early mid seventies and my kids, my three kids. The planning, the reservation, the booking and the driving will be pretty much up to me. My uncle, um, said that he would be okay to be a backup driver, but he thought it was kind of scary and crazy to drive on the other side of the road. So he was hoping that I would be able to do most of the driving as well. And I was very happy with this arrangement. Um, so I say this many times, and I will keep saying it here and I'll say it again now. I really believe that travel changes us. Travel changes us when we go on a trip and we come back, we will never be the same. And travel changes us for the good travel makes us a better person. It makes us know ourselves more and makes it helps us become more confident. It helps us be more adaptable, more flexible. It opens our minds. It opens our worlds and. It helps us. It helps our eyes seek beauty that, um, we wouldn't otherwise see, and this. Is what I love about traveling is that the whole experience of traveling helps us develop a Traveler's mindset that we can take back into our regular life, even when we're not traveling and apply that mindset and have a wonderful life by virtue of being travelers. And so I want to give you some examples of how this happens in real time. Um, So that's why I decided to share three things that went wrong during my Australia trip. So. Thing number one that went wrong. I'll turn it into a public service announcement. Us citizens need visas to go to Australia. So our flight was early in the morning. And I think we left home at maybe 7:00 AM or, or maybe a little bit earlier to go to the airport and we show up at the Hawaiian airline ticket counter. And the first thing, the guy. Says to me after he sees where we're going, is where's your visa? Do you guys have, where do you guys have your visas? And. I don't know why it's not the first time I've traveled internationally. It's not the first time I've gone to a place where I need a visa, but for some reason that totally skipped my checklist. I have read about. Traveling to Australia, several blogs, many many travel vlogs on YouTube. And I even have the lonely planet book to Australia. And I do not know how I miss this very important detail. Um, so when the seven of us showed up to the airline ticket counter. We showed up about two hours early, so we weren't late, but we weren't super early. Either. Um, and the guys said visa. Uh, not surprisingly froze. And it thought visa, we need visas. Um, I'm really glad that my other family members didn't freak out. Um, And funny enough, my aunt and uncle had been to Australia maybe 10 years ago. Um, and they don't remember having to get visas either. But anyway. The next sentence out of the guy at the ticket counter was, well, you can apply for it online. So let me show you how to do it. So he showed me the app to download. Well, thank goodness. My phone was charged and, um, I don't usually use, um, I don't usually use certain features in my phone, including using my phone to read chips on, um, my passport, but, um, I'm glad to say that it all worked out and. Aye. Applied for seven visas to Australia. In probably the fastest speed I could ever do it, including downloading the app, including putting in the credit card information. Um, Taking pictures of everybody the trickiest thing was getting that, getting my phone to read the code. That's embedded in our passports. But it all that done. And we were able to show them the visas. Check-in. It was very helpful for at least the five of us to have TOC pre-check. Um, on our tickets.'cause that, um, That helped us get through the line faster. And my aunt and uncle did not have TSA pre-check so I actually told them to get their tickets process for so they could run to the line. Cause it was about 30 minute. Wait at security at the time. Um, and the funny thing was, even though my mom had, TSA pre-check, which the line was five minutes, as opposed to 30 minutes, she did not have TSA pre-check she did not put in her global entry number, into her ticket. So it didn't show up as TSA projects. We have to run back to the. Hawaiian airline counter and get that put in. And all we're doubt. We all made it. Um, it was a little bit tight. Um, they were, I think, already boarding. But we got on our flight. To go to Honolulu and then from Honolulu to go to Sydney. So. That was, that, that was the beginning of her trip. In retrospect, I think it was a really good sign because everybody stayed calm. Um, I had never traveled with my aunt and uncle before. And I actually asked my cousin, their daughter, I said, wow, look, this happened to us. And it was so cool that your parents stayed calm and she was surprised that they stay calm. So it probably had something to do with them, seeing that I was taking care of it. Um, and they just really needed to sit there, wait, provide their passports, get their picture taken on my phone when I asked them to, um, And same thing with my mom. She certainly can freak out what other times, but, um, she didn't this time and it worked out perfectly. There is definitely a group chemistry when it comes to traveling and. Um, this first thing that went wrong on her trip was a really nice test. Of the group chemistry and it was all good. Okay, so that was interesting. So if you ever go to Australia and you're a us citizen, just remember you have to apply for a visa and don't apply. At the airport, like we did. So, the second thing. That went wrong on her trip. Um, there were probably other little things that went wrong, but I just, I was going to pick three things for the sake of time. Um, this was also toward the beginning of our trip. Um, It was. It was a lot, you know, one of the things that I'm really proud of myself for during this trip was. Picking up a rental van, cause I have to rent a vehicle that would fit all seven of us and our luggage. So I rented the biggest vehicle that they offered at the Hertz rental car. In downtown Sydney. I picked up the rental ban and it was in downtown Sydney and because it was far, it was a, it was a 30 plus minute walk from the hotel. I didn't think that my kids could do it with the luggage easily. So I walked there and offer to then drive back to our hotel. Um, which is right in the middle of the busiest part of Sydney. Um, with my rental van, and in case you don't know this. Um, in Australia. They have the driver's seat on the right side. Of the vehicle. And they drive on the left side of the road. And the first time I got to try this out was in a van that, an eight passenger man. In downtown Sydney. Um, trying to go from one busy part of downtown Sydney to an even even busier part downtown city. And so. That went, that, that I was able to do. Um, relatively complication free. Um, but after surviving that we started driving out of Sydney and I think the first day I drove about seven hours because of I'm going to blue mountain, which is another site that's a little bit out of the way. And then driving to our first destination was new castle. On the coast north of Sydney. So we got to new castle. I was beat, we were all so tired, but I was the one doing all the driving. Um, so I was very tired. And, um, we actually got to the hotel. I think our rooms were freshly painted. So there was this, um, for a fresh paint smell, aside from that, the beds were really comfortable. And I just kept the windows open, even though it was a little bit cold in new castle in the Australian winter. And slept very well that night, mostly because I was so tired. And we were getting ready to go to our next destination. Since it was just mostly passing through. And, um, while I was getting ready, eating my breakfast at the motel I find out about the second thing that went wrong with her trip. So my uncle who has been immensely helpful, he was actually putting away our luggage in the morning so we could get ready to go. And, um, he came in and told me that he had accidentally locked the keys. In the man. And he locked the door. So I think he loved the keys in the man and he used the door, the door control to lock the door. And then when he did that, he realized, whoops, the keys, um, are not in his pocket. The are only set of keys for this rental band that we rented in Sydney. Um, is actually inside the vehicle. So that was interesting because that has not one word that has never happened to me in the U S I have not yet locked myself out of a vehicle. So. Um, aside from. Not knowing exactly how to proceed with that. I was actually really curious to see, well, what did we do to unlock a vehicle without breaking the glass? Um, and. Uh, good thing. We had Google fi. Google fight is a wireless. So service. I think in the us, they use the T-Mobile network, for your cell phone and your, data coverage. Um, but when you, but the beauty is when you go abroad, you get, um, so service and data and the data. Is, um, doesn't cost extra, unlike Ryzen and at, and T where they usually charge$10 extra per day when you use their international plan. Google fi allows you to, um, just use just. Just continue your service. Um, there are long distance charges. If you dial. Uh, two Australian numbers when you use yourself. So, so plan. But for the most part, um, the beauty is, you know, it's it, they're still quite affordable. And, I was very thankful at this moment that I had a good cell phone service plan in place because I was about to call several members. So I started with just going to the hotel, um, reception and ask them, this is what happened. What do you suggest? Hoping that they might just have a. Um, But the local triple ways, service number for us to call and we can just take care of it. And she said, well, you know, you, this is a rental car. Why don't you just call the rental car company? So I did. I tried calling the local rental car company. In new castle Hertz in new castle, there is a Hertz in new castle and they say, oh no, you rented this car from Sydney. Um, you need to call that branch. So I called the branch where I rented from. And. The same guy who rented the vehicle to me, picked up. And I asked him. If you could help me and he said, no, you really should call, um, the roadside assistance. And he gave me the roadside assistance, service number for Hertz. So finally after, getting switched to a different operator, I was able to talk to someone who could help me. And. They took my information down very similar to how, Very similar to calling AAA in the U S except in this case, they know that it's their vehicles and they know who I am. Uh, they have access to that information. So they know that I'm not trying to steal a vehicle. Um, and so they connected me. Um, no, they didn't connect me. They just basically relayed my information to the local. Newcastle's a roadside assistance company. And, um, they said someone should be coming in the next, I think it was 30 or 45 minutes. So, um, my uncle who felt really bad and he really shouldn't feel bad because things like this happen. Said. Okay. He volunteered to go wait in the parking lot for the help to come. And I think it was maybe 30 minutes later, they did show up and it was a team. Um, there was a guy and a lady and they both had a job and it was so cool. I, now I know how they open, uh, how they open locks from, um, when you locked your keys in. It's not easy. And according to the guy, the newer vehicle, the harder it is to do it. Um, but maybe after 30 minutes or so, roadside assistance folks were able to. Unlock my car. I heard the car alarm go off when they finally unlocked it, because they basically had to break in the car with these tools. Um, and it was the only time that I felt so happy to hear a car alarm. So we survived getting our keys locked in a rental man. And in retrospect, I think that was really good timing. Um, it was, we had actually a pretty long drive that day. Um, But I had a good night's sleep, so I wasn't sleep deprived going on the long drive. And. We got this. Problem out of the way. And now for the rest of the trip, we're going to be ultra paranoid to not lock the keys in the car. So. It was just a really good place for this to happen because, um, the roadside assistance was literally, I think there were like 10 minutes away, from where we were staying at the hotel, we had cell phone service because later on our trip, You know, we had a three, three week trip later on a trip. Some of the places that we went to, like in the Northern territory, um, and the west Australian Outback, if that we have locked the keys in the car, then. It would have been much, much harder. We would have to wait longer. Um, and, and. Because we got that habit down. Of not locking the keys in the car, for everyone who would handle the key. It was really good timing to have that problem happen. Fortunately, even though we had to stay a little bit past our checkout time. Um, I think the hotel folks felt bad enough for us to just let us stay a little bit longer. While we're waiting for this car to get unlocked. Okay. So that was number two. Um, number three. Uh, this one is requires a little bit more explanation. Um, I think I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, that when I arranged for this trip and when I invited the people onboard, I basically accepted a lot of responsibility and not only being the tribal planner, the person who was going to make the reservations, and the person was going to drive. It was going to take a lot of time to plan this trip. And so I actually had. Done a lot of research in, you know, where do you even go and creating an itinerary based on that research, shared it with my own uncles. So I did kind of a day by day. This is roughly what we'll do. This is roughly what we want to go see. Um, and I had to say it, that was really time-consuming. But I'm so glad I did it. I absolutely wouldn't be able to do it for every single one of my trips. If, especially if I'm traveling a lot every year, but I think for most people, if you could challenge yourself to even do it for one trip a year or one trip every two years, there's something so rewarding about researching something. Um, reading about these places, then choosing these places. And in the end, going to them and, you know, seeing the dream come alive, seeing the dream in person. It is just so satisfying, so I would not do anything differently. I would still have accepted the same level of responsibility. Um, But it was a lot of responsibility and it was a lot of time and the truth is. I ran out of time planning this trip before departing. So even though I had a scheduled where we wanted to go. And I got my aunts and my aunt and uncle. Um, and mom, my mom didn't really care if she would have gone because even she, she would've gone with anything, but my aunt and uncle were on board with the plan. I just didn't have time to book everything beforehand. Um, so. I was first hoping, well, maybe I would do it the week before the trip. Well, it turned out. I had a lot of clinical duties to finish. I have a lot of things to, um, especially have be going away for three weeks from my clinic, which I have not done before. I wanted to make sure my patients were tucked in as much as possible to leave as little work for my colleagues as possible just to be considered of them, especially because I was going away for so long. Um, so yeah, that's what most of my time, the week before. Um, going away and then I was kind of hoping, well, maybe. During my flight. If I have wifi, I could then plan it because I'm basically stuck. You know, sitting on a flight for 15 plus hours. Um, it turned out that Hawaiian air didn't have wifi available. On your flight. So that plan didn't work out so well either. So anyway, yeah, so more than half of the trip was not booked by the time we left, I booked. Some of the important stuff. Like we spent four days on a island in the middle of the great barrier reef. Um, that one is a little bit more stressful to book last minute. Um, because they either have availability or they don't. So I had already booked that way in advance. Um, I booked her rental car for the first part of the trip. I booked the flights. The first set of, interest Raelian Australia flights, um, before we start on the trip, so maybe a third of the trip was booked. Um, The other two thirds though, were I had a good idea? I kind of knew where we were going, but I wasn't sure if they had availability and I wasn't, um, I wasn't sure which hotel or which, um, like for example, for the whale-watching. Um, the wheels went. So many whales, you know, which particular company to book with. So, If you, follow people who travel a lot. Um, this doesn't freak them out at all. And I've certainly gone on trips when I was by myself, like as a backpacker in college. Where I went on trips. With very little, very little planning. And it was so much fun to just, you know, um, play by ear to spontaneously figure out what, where I was going to go next. Um, and, and so it's not a big deal, at least in my mind, if I was doing that for, for a solo travel or maybe it just. One other person. But we're talking about a trip that involves more elderly travelers, um, and young kids. So it was a little bit stressful in my mind. But I also just had a feeling that it would just work out. Um, And so what I ended up doing was I just started. Planning the trip when I had to. So the first, um, the first few days I had already booked the hotels in Sydney. And so we knew we were going to go when we got off the flight, we knew, um, where we're going to stay. I knew where to pick up the rental car. Um, the day before I was going to pick up the rental car. Instead of going out for a walk in Sydney when it was raining. Anyway. Um, I told my mom. That I would just stay home and stay in the hotel. And just use the internet and, you know, and decide where we're going to go next and where we're going to, what hotels we're going to book. And it really worked out just fine. My mom learned about, um, a place near Sydney that she wants to go blue mountain, that I was not on my radar. And so I was able to fit that in and change the plan of where we're going to stay each night, slightly to be able to fit that in. Um, so it worked out just fine. And that's what happened throughout the trip. I would just try to plan a few days beforehand. What made it difficult was I did all of the driving. Um, so by the time, so if I had some help with driving, I would've been able to do some of this during some of our long drives, because I did have, a generous amount of data through Google fi. Um, But what ended up happening? Was I had a little bit of analysis paralysis when I was planning for this trip when I was sitting in the us, because a lot of it, I wanted to ask some questions. And what changed when I got to Australia was, well, here I am in Australia. I'm the same time zone. Um, and yes, I have to make a long distance phone call my phone, but, um, I have to do it anyway. And so I just started calling a lot of these places and talk to them. Um, sometimes it was not easy to find lodging for seven people. Um, so I would have to talk to them and say, Hey, do you guys have anything that may not be on the website? And I actually started to find that really enjoyable. So once I get over that, Um, hang up of, oh, I have to call another country. You have to, you know, down a long distance, it became really easy and also I couldn't procrastinate because I knew we had to pick something. Otherwise it won't have a place to stay in a couple of nights. Um, so it ended up working fine. Um, there were some nights where I didn't get enough sleep because by the time we got to the hotel and done with our activities, that was when I could plan. Um, so again, it would have been a little different if I had, another driver. On our trip, but I have no regrets. I was, um, very happy. Um, I'm doing the driving and doing the planning. Like I said, there is something really magical about. Having choice. And I'm starting from scratch. Like you start from a blank slate. I, I knew, I didn't really know that much about Australia. I knew that, um, I wanted to see Kuala bears. I wanted to be able to hold them if I could. I knew that, um, I wanted to see. A kangaroo. I know I have read that you could swim with whales. And Australia. So I wanted to try for that. And so there were certain things I knew that I wanted to go scuba diving the great barrier reef., and. I'm just really grateful that I was able to do this trip. Um, despite the things that went wrong. Um, because even the things that went wrong, I think it just helped us become stronger. It helped us. Be better next time. It,, helped us learn, learn more about ourselves. And I have to say, I really love traveling with my aunt and uncle. Um, and my kids were able to spend this really special time with them to get to know. they're extended family. They never had that same chance in the past. Um, and even I didn't get to travel. Even when I was young, I was very close to my extended family. Uh, my aunt and uncles, but we didn't have this privilege of going on these epic Avengers. My parents couldn't take this much time off from work. And, um, neither my parents or my aunts and uncles really had the money to be able to go on a trip this far away when I was growing up. So it was just so special and, um, And I never stopped thinking about this, but you know, I'm seeing my dad pass away. Seeing my dad struggle with cancer. And seeing my dad take his last breath. It just dawns on me that, you know, um, you just never know when, when, when you have a chance like this, and if you have the chance, then take that chance and do it. If you want to do something and there was the chance make that happen. Aye. Um, I often think of that, you know, even my other relatives, my aunts and uncles, and even if they are younger than my parents, I don't know how, how long they'll be in good health and how long they'll be able to, have these experiences. And I, it just, it's just wonderful. To be able to do this. so. I hope I hope this podcast episode help you. Open up to some of the things that you might want to do in your life. And give you some ideas for travel for ways of connecting with your family. And, learn from some of my lessons. The biggest takeaways are that always check. If you need a visa. Even if you are no matter what country you're going to. And. Always check for your keys before you lock the door to your vehicle. Wherever you are. And, don't have analysis paralysis, just plan that trip. Pick up the phone and call. Wherever, wherever you need to call, whether it's another continent on the other side of the world with a 15 hour time difference. Um, just start booking things. Um, and it's not the end of the world. If you have only a third of your trip planned. Um, you can still plan that trip even with multiple generations, even with a larger party, you can still plan that trip and have an epic, epic adventure, epic experiences when you get there. And, um, even though I was a little bit stressed at times and having to plan thing and book things last minute. The rest of my family are mostly immune to that. And they had a fantastic time and they were really grateful that I was able to do a lot of this legwork. So. Um, they were appreciative and I was appreciative of a lot of the help that they provided during the trip with just so many various things, including, um, providing entertainment for. For my kids while I was driving, I actually, I felt I had the much easier job. I'd much rather drive than, um, try to keep my kids entertained and happy during these long drives that we had. All right. Until next time, have a good week.