I experienced my first ever airplane trip nearly 50 years ago travelling from Dunedin to Wellington, I was 6. I traveled alone to visit my grandparents for the school holidays, it was on a brand new Air NZ Boeing 737 and I was hooked…    …a little over three years later we traveled as a family to Australia to visit relatives for Christmas, we traveled this time on the much bigger Air NZ DC10 and DC8 – this blew my mind!!!

However, my love affair with travelling was not fully evolved until we moved as a family to Hong Kong in October 1979. We departed from New Plymouth and after five flights on four different carriers we landed at Hong Kong’s infamous Kai Tak airport on a Cathay Pacific 747 from Sydney. It was nearly midnight and I could not believe want I had just experienced. We were then met at the airport and driven to our hotel where the memory of new sounds, the bright flashing neon lights, suffocating traffic and new scents from the fragrant harbour were engraved in my mind forever – I was in heaven and wanted more!!

Since my first travel experiences as a child, I have gone on to travel the world and have visited over 30 countries, spend over two years in different hotel rooms, experienced the service levels of over 30 separate carriers and clocked up nearly a million air miles both for business and pleasure. Today I live back in New Zealand and travel most weeks (mainly domestically) for business where I guess you could call me a road warrior. You have many thoughts and experiences when you are travelling, so this blog contains the ramblings of an experienced travelling executive!!

Safe travels – from the BizTraveller