Dominica May

We’re now down to less than 3 weeks before we board the plane that will take us to England and I think I can safely say I’m panicking a little. I woke up this morning from a dream that we were due to leave on our holiday tomorrow, knowing full well that we hadn’t finished organising everything yet. So, to try and alleviate some of my fears, I finally went ahead and booked our hire car for England today. We’ll be driving around from 10am Oct 24th to 5pm Nov 2nd, which gives us about 10 days to see a good proportion of the UK (I’d say England, but we’re going to Cardiff in Wales as well).

The only UK accommodation we’ve pre-booked has been our first night in London, which will give us more flexibility to decide how long we stay and where for the rest of the trip. I must say, I’m actually looking forward to going back to the Generator Backpacker’s Hostel with my family. I’m glad I e-mailed them and was told we’d be welcome there, as last time I was there I was alone and – well, I wasn’t sure whether a family with a small baby would be welcome in a Backpacker’s. It’s probably the cheapest place to stay in London that I’m aware of, though, at only 50 pounds a night for the three of us.

We also received our passports back a couple weeks ago with our Brazil visas stamped in them. I was thrilled about this, as I’d been a little worried Jeremy had sent them to Canberra via regular, rather than registered post.

I’d say probably the last things I want to do now before we leave is to book our car hire in Denver (and perhaps Boston, too) and our accommodation in Portugal and Canada. It doesn’t sound like much, but I’m getting a little sick of using the Internet to find this kind of information – there’s too much choice, which makes it very hard to compare and find the cheapest option. I am, however, pretty impressed with what I’ve managed to save us so far. I really don’t like having to pay more than is absolutely necessary.