International

We love Australia. We are also fascinated by the wonderful variety in our world. We have a long list of places we would love to visit, ideally spending enough time in a place to experience something of what its culture offers. When Maria and I watch TV together, it will likely be either the food channel or NatGeo Adventure. Good food and interesting places.




We had always thought about yurting as an Australian thing ... even though we include summer breaks, we don't think of it as a holiday as much as a second home. Then in April 2012 we met, only briefly, Philou and Nadja (& Lena and Tom). Their motor home was across from ours in a park in Port Fairy and I suspected from the first time I saw them that their's was not a conventional trip. You can read about them here. We both instantly wondered what it would look like to change the way we had thought about our international travel.

I  have been fortunate to have travelled to many parts of the world, mostly for work. England, Wales and Scotland. The Netherlands, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Oman. Canada, the USA, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Papua New Guinea. (Perhaps most formatively of all, 12 months as a 17 year old exchange student in Japan.) On rare occasions, Maria has joined me. I enjoy travelling for work, but its a different game.

In the future we would like to extend our 'yurting' practice to places other than Australia. We don't know what this will look like. We do know our current overseas excursions feel pretty much like regular tourist holidays. We'll see how we can evolve our international trips into a slower immersion in future years.

You can read about some of our travel adventures below. (All our overseas blogs are in blue. The links below will take you to the first post of each trip; then follow the links at the bottom of each post to move forward or back.)

Berlin, France and Switzerland (June, July 2008)

Papua New Guinea (June 2009)

London and Portugal (September, October 2011)

Istanbul, the Greek Islands, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates (Sept, Oct 2012)

Japan (Sept, Oct 2013)

Italy: Maria's father came out from Italy as a young man to work for the Tasmanian Hydro electric Commission. Top of our international travel list is Italy, in part for Maria to experience her ethnic roots. We have avoided going there so far because when we go we want to stay for a few months. Italy is not a place that a tourist sortie will suffice. 

Our much anticipated and postponed time to travel to Italy arrived in November 2017, one year after Maria's father Nick passed away. The links below are to our other blogs where we posted while there. The links go to the first post from that part of the trip so follow forward from there.
  • Florence & Tuscany
colduthie.com
mariadicocco.net
  • Pescara & L'Aquila
colduthie.net

A few years ago we watched Griff Rhys Jones' documentary series on the Greatest Cities in the World. we determined to spend at least a weekend together in each one. Paris (done), Sydney (done), London (done), Rome (done). To look forward to New York and Hong Kong.

Two places have been deeply formative for me. I spent a year as an exchange student in Gifu, Japan. It was deeply pleasing to go back with Maria in 2013. I also spent significant time in Colorado Springs, USA during my time in faith based work. I would love to go back one more time, this time with Maria.