My first time overseas was a family trip to Australia. We drove from Brisbane to Townsville over a few days, which included a day of snorkelling Great Barrier Reef, a trip to a wildlife park to hold snakes and wombats, and finding out that our car could talk. After meeting up with some family friends we headed back down to the Gold Coast for a theme park extravaganza. I love those rollercoasters!
Our group of friends bought a cheap van together especially for our roadtrip up north. We covered as much ground as possible, driving up the east coast of the south island before zigzagging across most of the north island, all in a couple of weeks. My memories of the trip include lots of swimming, last minute scrambles to find somewhere to sleep, driving down the beach, voting on whether to get the van fixed or keep going (it was a unanimous decision to keep going), barbecues nearly every night, and meeting up with friends all over the place.
The next summer we decided to do a bit of travel in the south island. We still had our van from the last roadtrip, so Owen and I plus Gareth and his girlfriend spent a few days driving around Queenstown and the west coast. We had lots of adventures (like visiting the glaciers, going on the gondola, luging, and watching fireworks) and a few misadventures (like missing the countdown for new years, and camping in a "no camping" area that turned out to be at a very popular tourist attraction the next morning).
I can't wait until our trip next year!