Vivienne&James Hardie

Welcome to The New Normal - The Journey Continues... Our travels began in earnest back in July 2012 when we spent a whole year 'Not Being Grownups' (www.offexploring.com/notbeinggrownups). We covered 35 countries and had countless amazing experiences and the journey changed us forever. After less than a year back in Sydney, Australia we hit the road again - just Vivienne from June 2014, solo tripping northern Europe, then James joined in December 2014 after retiring from the Navy after 23 years. What do we mean by 'The New Normal'? Simply that we didn't want to go back. Back to the routine, back to our house, back to 'real life' as others defined it. In short - we didn't want to go 'back to normal'. So we redefined our goals and our life and designed our New Normal - travelling, house-sitting and experiencing as much as we can of this big blue marble. Our travels to April 2016, brought us to Amsterdam in The Netherlands and the story to then at www.offexploring.com/thenewnormal. April 2016 onwards saw this new blog - www.offexploring.com/jvnewnormal and saw us go to Ireland, Dubai, Langkawi (Malaysia), Ireland, Portugal, Spain. Which was pretty restful. The start of 2017 we hit Romania (6 weeks of Schengen exile) then actual travelling - Iceland, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, St Petersburg and Helsinki before a 5 week stay in Sydney, Australia for a grease & oil change. We came 'downunder' to catchup with family so then it was off to Queenstown, NZ for 6 glorious, chilly weeks followed by a couple of months on Australia's Gold Coast... 2017 continued in August with Brussels, Paris, Normandy, Ireland (Waterford & Wicklow), Zagreb, Croatia for the Christmas markets in early December followed by 2 months over Christmas and New Year in Canale Monterano, Italy, just an hour south of Rome. February saw us leave Rome and head to Sofia,Bulgaria for a housesit, get driven to Belgrade for a month or so stay followed by Bucharest for a culture-vulture stay, then 3 months housesitting in Spain. We had a cancellation in Ireland so instead when housesitting in Tbilisi, Georgia for a little cat, Yerevan, Armenia, just for a long-weekend look, our usual month of November in Co. Wicklow, Ireland with many cats then a big trip via Istanbul to Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam for almost 3 months including Christmas and New Year in Ho Chi Minh on a housesit, then 'the rest of Vietnam', followed by travelling to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, India and Sri Lanka. With a deep breath we then 'rested' for 7 months sitting all over New Zealand before flying with Qatar on the magical QSuites to Ireland for November 2019 in Co. Wicklow and December and January in the 1st arrondissement of Paris - utter heaven. We spent almost a month in Budapest, Hungary in Feb 2020 then 3 weeks in Sarajevo, Bosnia in March... before the virus hit the fan and we had to hightail it to Australia as the world's borders slammed shut around us, curfews were announced and flights were cut to the bone. We spent a total of almost 7 months in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia - not coughing, not sniffling and not going out. 1 October 2020 saw us make the big shift and move into our Sydney apartment for the very first time. We decided to make it 'home' and proceeded to put hooks on every single wall. We picked up housesitting - Neutral Bay, Lindfield, the Blue Mountains and settled in to ride it out (some more). December 2020 saw vaccinations begin around the world and we are keeping our fingers crossed that 2021 will bring a brave new world for our nomadic souls.