![\"\"](\"https:\/\/travelcake.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/aus.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBut then I moved to Bali.
Suddenly, Australia wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this distant fantasy anymore \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it was just a three-hour, \u00e2\u201a\u00ac100 flight away. Technically, I could jet off to Australia for a long weekend!
Still, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel the urge to go… until three years later, when my best friend called to say she had left everything behind in Belgium to settle in Perth.<\/p>\n
There was only one thing to do: Meeting up with my bestie in a place I never thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d reach? This could only be epic! But just as I floated away on my Australian daydream, reality came crashing in: DAMN IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n Babies can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t snorkel. Goodbye, adventurous dream trip. Before I knew it, I was boarding the flight with a toddler on one arm and a bag full of her stuff on the other. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I hit my first surprise:<\/p>\n You wouldn’t believe how many people reached out to me or spontaneously helped out. People really<\/em> step up when they see you traveling solo with a child. During the flight, strangers flashed me compassionate smiles, and a few even gave me kudos for traveling alone with my daughter. I had passed the first single-parent travel test with flying colors. The real reality check came when we reached the arrival hall \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and my friend wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the first time I’d landed somewhere completely unprepared<\/a><\/strong>, but it was<\/em> the first time doing it with a kid in tow. Old me would\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been casually sipping a cappuccino, catching up on some news and half-heartedly piecing together a backup plan. I had to accept it: Travel would never be the same again.<\/strong> Eventually, my friend showed up and we spent the following days catching up… Meeting new friends…<\/p>\n Beach hopping…<\/p>\n Wandering the quaint streets of\u00c2\u00a0Freemantle…<\/p>\n Going out for elaborate breakfasts, which seems to be the meal Australians take most pride in.<\/p>\n Taking spring walks along\u00c2\u00a0meadows filled with wild flowers<\/p>\n There was even space for some wine tasting after all!<\/p>\n What surprised me most?<\/p>\n The mellow baby-proof travelling didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother me at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n In fact, it made the trip more relaxed and enjoyable. After years of hopping from one country to the next almost effortlessly, travel had started to lose its edge for me. And you know what?<\/strong> The post “This was not how I pictured my first visit to Australia<\/a>” first appeared on Travel Cake<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How Australia Turned Into My First Single-Parent Travel Adventure Having spent most of my life between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Australia always seemed like such a far-flung place. An unattainable travel goal \u00e2\u20ac\u201d one that would require a serious amount of time, budget, and planning.Add to that the fact that I was never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,157,137,158],"tags":[160,161],"country":[208],"class_list":["post-3699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-parent-travel","category-personal-story","category-the-pacific","tag-parent-travel","tag-the-pacific","country-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3699"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4608,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions\/4608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3699"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcake.net\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=3699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
Book. The. Ticket.<\/strong><\/p>\n
I immediately started building a list of must-dos in West Australia: snorkeling the reefs, wine tasting in Margaret River, cycling around Rottnest Island, having random kangaroo encounters, exploring ancient caves decorated with Aboriginal art…<\/p>\n
I was traveling with my one-year-old daughter.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nEven more so: I was embarking on my very first single-parent travel<\/strong> adventure.<\/h4>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no toddler seat on a mountain bike.
I definitely can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sip silky reds and detect notes of nutmeg while preventing a child from eating pebbles.
And descending into protected caves while carrying a kid who touches everything<\/em>? Forget about it.<\/p>\n
There was only one option: go with the (baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s) flow.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
The only thing I had meticulously planned was the flight: enough milk, pre-cut snacks, new toys, ridiculous stacks of diapers and changes of clothes.
Other than that? Nothing.
I knew almost nothing about Perth. I had no idea what we’d be doing there and I really didn’t care.
All I cared about was surviving the car ride to the airport, making it through customs, and not losing my mind during the three-hour flight.<\/p>\nFlying solo with a baby or toddler is quite all right!<\/strong><\/h4>\n
At every checkpoint, someone would magically appear to lift my bag, fetch a trolley, or hold doors open while I juggled kid, bags, passports, and boarding passes.<\/p>\n
(Of course, her waving and blowing kisses at every passenger probably helped.)<\/p>\n<\/a>
We even had an Australian stamp<\/strong> in our passports!
From now on, I could shamelessly say things like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I took my daughter to Australia\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She traveled to three continents before she could even walk.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
Douchey? Sure.
But proud? Absolutely.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
Where would I stay if she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show?
How would I even get into town?<\/p>\n
I could suddenly feel the heavy weight of responsibility settle onto my shoulders.<\/p>\n<\/a>
New me was pacing the arrival hall, singing nursery rhymes under my breath, hoping we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spiral into a hunger-fueled tantrum.<\/p>\n
At least, not solo parent travel.<\/p>\n
\nWe swapped epic adventures for low-key, baby-friendly activities.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
No stress, no pressure, Just pure enjoyment of being in the now.
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a completely different travel style \u00e2\u20ac\u201d slower, gentler \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but somehow, it fit.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
But traveling with a toddler \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and doing it solo \u00e2\u20ac\u201d threw me right back into the deep end.
It made it challenging again. It made it an adventure again.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m ready to do it again someday.<\/strong><\/p>\n