Today has been a great day meeting lots of babies at a reunion with a lovely group I taught in June.  As anyone who talks to me for any length of time lately knows, the subject soon turns to travel and so there I was, not so subtly, picking the brains of those with any travel experience to share.  A few additional possibilities for our trip emerged.

If we are planning on flying from the West Coast of North America (probably via LAX) to Australia then surely it makes sense to stop in Hawaii??  Indeed.

Ah yes, but don’t forget Fiji and the Cook Islands suggested another couple who regaled wonderful memories of their time on both, until I was ready to scrap North America altogether and head off for 3 months in the Pacific.

As soon as I got home I consulted the map, then I did what any novice does; I Googled.  Ten minutes of research tells me that we simply have to spend time in all of these islands; that it would be remiss of us to miss these unique islands out (we owe it to our kids’ education) and that since there are no direct flights from Honolulu to Rarotonga  we’ll have to go via Tahiti.

Bummer.