Family Travel: Circumnavigating the Globe

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Ok, back to my secret… While working away behind the scenes of here, I’ve also been planning a deluxe trip half-way across the world, in Bali, to celebrate my 15th wedding anniversary.

I’ve got lots of stuff I could share about this trip including where we went and why, how we ended up completely circumnavigating the globe (Seattle to Bali via Tokyo on the way there, and Bali to Seattle via Dubai on the way home) and how we did all that traveling in only business and first Class seats that were 100% paid for with miles.

Today, though, I just want to share all the pretty pictures. Because if there’s anywhere that was made for a visual medium, it’s beautiful Bali.

Bali Day 1: Intercontinental Bali Resort

Jimbaran Bay

To get a true understanding of how this trip came about, and why it was structured the way it was, you need a little back story.

Believe it or not, the whole thing was done on a whim.

One of my neighbors does a tremendous amount of work every year as the chair of an annual charity gala for the Northwest Children’s Fund (an extremely worthwhile cause if you’re ever looking to donate to an excellent children’s charity).

To show support for all her hard work, many of the couples in our neighborhood have made it a priority to attend the gala each year.

Bali Day 2: Sideman

Just to be clear, I’m far from a charity gala professional. I’ve been to a few for my kids’ school, or because of my husband’s job as a hospital executive, so I pretty much know the lay of the land. Nevertheless, I was by no means anticipating coming home with a trip half-way across the world.

However, the wine was flowing, my husband and I had saved up our annual charitable giving funds for the gala, and we had it in the back of our minds that our 15th wedding anniversary was approaching.

Plus we were surrounded by friends we truly enjoy traveling with! Do you see where this is going?

Bali Days 3 & 4: Amed

Villa Pantai, Jemeluk Bay, Griya Resort & Spa, The Gates of Heaven and Tirta Gangga Water Palace

One thing led to another, and we walked away that night with reservations along with three other couples for a week in a private villa in Bali.

I woke up the next morning extremely excited, but also more than a little stunned to find it takes literal days to get to Indonesia from the west coast of the US.

Long story short, I spent the next several weeks learning all I could about a little something called “travel hacking” (aka traveling around the world using miles instead of money). If you want to learn more about that, I’d be happy to write a detailed post in the future.

In the meantime, I’d start with this guy.

Bali Day 5: Ubud

Art Markets and Alila Resort

Believe it or not, accumulating enough miles for both my husband and I to fly completely around the world in business and first class was the easy part. Next came the arduous tasks of finding a date when all four couples could find over a week of childcare for our collective 11 children.

It took several weeks and we ended up settling on a date almost exactly a year away.

The pros and cons of planning an epic trip an entire year ahead of time is another post all it’s own. One consequence was, for various reasons, by the time the trip was actually here we were down from four couples to only two. (Don’t worry, we’re still all good friends, it was just logistics.)

Bali Day 6: Uluwatu

Sundays Beach Club

Two weeks ago the day had finally arrived. It was time to say goodbye to the the kids, get on a total of four planes and fly for nearly two days to reach Indonesia.

And, man, was it ever worth it.

I’ll write more in the weeks to come but, for now, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.