What is better than leaving San Francisco on a crisp fall afternoon and ending in Sydney Australia on beautiful spring morning in less than a month? We sailed on the Golden Princess from SF to Honolulu circled the Islands stopped in Maui then off to the beautiful pacific islands of Tahiti, Bora Bora, American Samoa, Pago Pago, then to New Zealand finally spending an extra day in Sydney.

We loved the low key island tours of American Samoa in an old school bus. Our tour guide was a high school girl whose family ran the tour company.

In New Zealand, we visited the North Island Wellington, rented a car and go to see the countryside and small suburbs to see everyday life. We learned that free internet is available in all of New Zealand at any public library. We found they have well marked, sparkling, clean traveler conveniences; bathrooms, snack shops and bakeries with pasties. Charming roadside parks and lots of gorgeous landscape, easy to read and well marked road signs. We visited Auckland and did not get to Port Chalmers to the tender port because of the choppy weather inside volcano topped bay. Nature abounds in New Zealand. Fjordland is like the inside passage of Pacific Northwest in Alaska. No glaciers but every bit of the scenic unspoiled mountains and water. Read more