As my father is the owner of FXExpress Publications, Inc., I have had the opportunity to explore a variety of extraordinary places. One of my fondest trips was spending two weeks on Turtle Island, Fiji, with my family in spring 2007 when I was 12 years old.

To set a picture for you, the island was where the movie Blue Lagoon filmed. My brother and I shared a bure (luxury straw hut) that overlooked the ocean. These bures were like what we could only imagine the world’s coolest treehouses looked like. Each bure had an open layout with two beds, one inside and one outside. I was too afraid to sleep outside at night, but I spent many a late afternoon relaxing on the outdoor bed, listening to a combination of ocean waves and the sound of my brother playing “In Between Dreams” by Jack Johnson on the bure’s cd player.

Although I would have been happy to just spend the days sitting by the beach and playing in the ocean or relaxing on one of the many hammocks, we also went on some pretty unique excursions. One was learning about the ecological history of the island and how the resort started, along with visiting the school on the island where students from the neighboring islands attend classes. Another was when I took a horseback ride through the jungle with my brother. I was happy to find I got the well-behaved horse that stayed on the path while he got the horse more interested in walking through bushes and inadvertently covering him in spider webs.

Out of all of these excursions, my favorite story has to be our picnic day. My father and brother thought it would be fun to follow a map and kayak to the picnic spot on the beach, about 1.5 miles from the resort, while my mom and I decided to take a golf cart to the picnic spot. However, our golf cart broke down halfway and we had to walk the rest of the way with the picnic supplies. This led my brother and father to assume we had abandoned them. When we finally got to them, it looked like unseen footage from Castaway. They were both sunburned and had taken to smashing coconuts on the rocks to get the water inside to drink. After they were revived with our picnic, my brother hopped on the golf cart with my mom and I while my poor father had to kayak back with my brother’s kayak attached to his!

Other fond memories include the few other guests on the island and one eccentric Australian man in particular. Almost every time we looked out to the ocean we saw him swimming his mile-long laps. After returning from one of them, he alerted a tour guide he saw whales while out swimming. As it was a surprise to see a whale sighting that time of year, the tour guide radioed the other islands to alert them, and multiple ships began to travel to the island. Upon investigation, it turned out the whale was, in fact, just an unfortunate couple out snorkeling!

Although the beautiful setting helped make the trip so memorable 13 years later, the real reason it was so amazing was I got to spend those two weeks with my family with no technological distractions. That, and the fact I got to eat waffles and vanilla ice cream for almost every breakfast! What family trip was the most memorable for you?

— Laura Gallagher, contributor