Thank you so much for everything you do, but especially for helping me get into the habit of drinking water.

I never, ever felt thirsty, so drinking enough was always a trial for me. I would feel hungry (or so I thought) and go looking in the fridge, but not know what I wanted! I would end up eating something (usually unhealthy) and still feel unsatisfied. I now realize that this was my body’s way of telling me I needed water. It took a very painful bout of kidney stones for me to wake up and take drinking water seriously! So now I drink a few mouthfuls instead of snacking (a much better habit for not accumulating body clutter.)

Last year my DH and I went on a very long road trip up into the Northern part of Australia. I knew that this would be quite a change of climate, we were just coming out of our winter and it was still quite cold.

First we would be heading west into a much drier climate, then north into the hot, humid tropics. We would be exposed to heat and sun in our little van. I knew we needed to drink lots more water, and slather on lots of sunscreen.

Thanks to learning about routines from you, we were able to establish special ones for the trip. We had a little camping fridge in our van, which we kept stocked up with about six metal water bottles (one of them a FlyLady water bottle).

We would sip from two of them as we drove along, then refill them from our 20 litre water container each time we stopped, and swap them for cold ones from the fridge again. The FlyLady bottle became our favourite because it stayed cool for longer. We would apply sunscreen in the mornings before setting off, then again after our lunch stop. I also used your tip for putting moisturizer on my feet before my socks and lace-up shoes. My DH suffers from a rash on his back which gets much worse in hot humid weather, so we established a habit of applying an anti-fungal wash (with a Rubba Scrubba) before his shower and moisturizer after.

We were able to enjoy many bush walks and adventures without becoming dehydrated, thanks to having the bottles handy to grab and take with us at a moment’s notice.

When we got to Darwin we were treated to a very special cruise on the harbour with our son (who is in the navy). I have always been very prone to motion sickness, and was worried that if I became ill it would spoil the trip for everyone.

However I did not have that problem at all this time and I wonder if that could be attributed to keeping myself properly hydrated?!!

At the end of our nine week trip, I had a fabulous tan (not intentional, but can’t completely escape the extreme climate) without getting sun burnt once! I had beautiful soft heels with no cracks from dryness and exposure. DH’s back has never looked better in the 26 years we’ve been married.

We had to throw out all of the water bottles because they all grew weird stuff in them from minerals from having to fill them from bores and natural springs, except the FlyLady one, it was truly stainless steel, the others were pretenders!

Flybaby, Travelling with routines in Australia.