Kindly check the grammar and sentence making

Topic name: Getting up early in the morning

Like many other young people, I didn't have the habit of waking up early every day when I was a teenager.

So, today I'm gonna about a memorable trip that I planned to do very early in the morning.

If my memory serves me right, it was about 10 years ago, my friends and I decided to go on a trip to the mountainous area of my country called XYZ. That place is situated at an incredibly longer distance. We had to leave at the crack of dawn so that we didn’t get stuck in the traffic. We would also get to spend more time there.

It wasn’t a piece of cake for me to get up early in the morning as I wasn't an early bird at that time. I was so excited about the trip that I had barely slept that night. I had never been to this place before. It is located in the northern part of my country, so I knew that we would faced a long drive ahead. We had decided to go by a car since, that way, all 5 of us could travel together. On top of that, everyone reckoned that it would be safer than going by the motorbike.

Personally I'd have to say waking up early did not feel that bad at all, even though it was the first time I had done so for many months.
Although I felt a bit sleepy , but the fresh morning breezes changed it completely.

To get into the details, After 5 hours of driving, we arrived at our destination. We were amazed to see a vast land filled with yellow terraced rice fields, ready to be harvested. Under the sunlight, these rice fields sparkled like gold. We stayed for one night with a local host and helped the family with their regular tasks before setting out for home the next day.

To cut the long story short, It was such an amazing trip and we were on cloud nine because of exhilarating experience.A part from that it helped us to learn more about the countryside and the way of life of those who live there.
Finally I?d love to make more trips like that in the future.