This post was written by Ashley, one of our program graduates about her experience in Australia! Enjoy 🙂

It has always been a dream of mine to go to Sydney for New Years and see their fire work display in the harbor by the opera house and the bridge. I first had this dream when I was about 12 and I was watching the New Years ball drop show. They have a scene where they show how they celebrate New Years around the globe. You see China, Japan, and Australia (among others) and I was in awe of the beautiful water and the Harbor Bridge and the views of Sydney. I knew I needed to go there and see it for myself. 
I was in my room in Australia looking at flight prices to Sydney for New Years. They were quite pricey as you would imagine due to the time of year. I was getting nervous, how would I make it work with hotels, food, souvenirs, and activities. Then I had an idea, ROAD TRIP. It was perfect. I’d get my girls together and we would drive down the coast from Brisbane to Sydney for New Years. It would be perfect and we could save money and I mean who doesn’t like a good road trip?

We have the reservation for hotel and I was about to head down to meet Kelsey in Sydney with our other friend. A few days before we were supposed to head down to Sydney our other friend found out she wouldn’t be able to make it down with us. I’d have to make the nearly 10 hour drive by myself to meet up with my friend Kelsey for New Years. I could do this myself right?
So I wake up at like 7:30 and start my drive down to Sydney to meet my girl Kelsey for our amazing New Years weekend. The drive down was filled with lots of music and podcast, quick bathroom breaks, and lots of frozen cokes from McDonald’s. I made at least 5 snap chat calls to my friends in America to keep me going on my solo road trip to the great New Year’s party. To be honest there were times when I was kind of nervous being a young woman by myself with an obviously different accent but every time I stopped the people were very sweet and kind to me. My goal was to make it to Sydney before the Sun went down.
I make it to Sydney right as the sun was going down and I was so proud. I was so excited to see Kelsey knowing we would both be able to mark a huge thing off our bucket list together. Knowing that we would be able to drive back together too was exciting. Kelsey wanted to split the drive up into two days for the drive home and spend the night in this cute little air bnb and spend sometime at the beach. Our air bnb host was so sweet and she had a little dog named Jelly. We got chocolate covered bananas (vegan since Kelsey is a vegan) and some yummy sandwiches for lunch at the beach.
My road trip down was busy and chaotic but so amazing. I would drive that 568.12 miles a million times over just so I could do the trip that Kelsey and I had on the way back up. It was good to be reminded to smell the roses and Kelsey was the best travel partner I’ve ever had. She is so organized but also spontaneous and kept me on track both physically, emotionally, and financially. I would’ve easily eaten 12 of those chocolate bananas haha. Our trip in Sydney but also the road trip back up to Brisbane was a part of my trip in Australia that I will never forget.