We're back from a great time in Bali. The kids spent most of their time swimming in the villa pool or playing at the black sand beach. And when they were not, they were watching lots of TV and playing iPad games (holiday period, so we parents closed one eye).
The adults got to play some cards, drink some nice wine, and generally talk about the past, the present and the future. Shopping and sightseeing was kept to a minimum. It was a fine way to have a holiday.
I was apprehensive at first, about taking along just the iPad mini Retina (no laptop) but I wanted to see if I could lighten my travel gear load and keep my tech choices simple. It worked.
The iPad mini Retina did all the photo editing and uploading I needed with the Lightning-to-SD-Card reader (Pro Tip: it doesn't work with SD cards above 32GB), allowed me to blog/tweet/Facebook fairly well, and provided video/gaming entertainment on the plane as well as in the room via a simple Lightning-to-HDMI adapter to the big LCD TV.
I only used a Fuji x100s camera (no zoom, no changing of lens, just fixed lens simplicity) because I didn't want to carry and fiddle about with lenses and other stuff, and also because I knew I'd be busy with the kids. As you can see from the photos, I think it worked out pretty well.
Who says traveling with three families has to be hard? All you need is some planning and friends who are good travel mates. We are so doing this again. Where shall we go next, I wonder?
