All over the world

stevelknievel

Myself and a mate are planning to do a world trip starting January 2010. A proper one. All 7 continents and take in the 7 wonders of the world, 7 of the major cites and as many capital cities as we can do and all the sh!t in between. My main question is how much do you think we will need for flights, start-up cash etc. We would like to do it all in one year, which means a pretty intense travel schedule which means not a whole lot of time for work. Also, any other advise, places to see/avoid, things we must do or anything at all would be appreciated.
Thanks

risk

wow, your not lazy at all are you....

KarmaGarda

I've been quite a few places I would recommend, but haven't been in everywhere... yet!

Top spots I've seen and recommend from the top of my head (if I leave out places I probably haven't been there yet!):

Mexico
- Mexico City was pretty cool. But we got lucky with a good tourist guide
- Teotihuacan Pyramids. I think the second highest pyramid in the world is here. It's pretty big anyway, and you may still be allowed to climb it.

Peru
- Machu Picchu. Do the full inca trail. I didn't and regret it.
- Puno and Lake Titicaca. Go see the floating islands. Overly touristic (if such a word exists) but still fun

Argentina/Brazil
- Iguazu falls. I saw from the Argentian side.
- Mendoza - If you're not into wine, go here solely for the bus ride to santiago in Chile! Or vice versa depending on where you are first.
- Some people recommend Buenos Aires.

Chile
- Pucan. Pretty cool volcano to climb

Australia
- Great Barrier Reef.
- I mainly saw Sydney, but Melbourne/Perth/Cairns were really cool.

New Zealand
- God... everywhere. Great country to travel!

(north island)
- Bay of Islands
- Glow worm caves
- Rotorua
- Wellington
(south island)
- Marlborogh wine region
- Abel Tasman
- Kaikoura
- Queenstown
- Milford Sound

I could go on with more of New Zealand but there's enough there I reckon! There are a few dodgy places inbetween with nothing to do but you'll forget them quickly

Indonesia... was too big to see it all...
- Bali. Good but very touristy

- Java. Loads of Volcanos. Yogyakarta is prob the best city (Y is pronounced as J so people call it "Jogja")

- Sumatra. Best place was the Oran utan reserve called Bukit Lawang. If you go there ask for Romy and Felix. We ended up staying in their house the last night and had a massive party! They should remember us, because he got this old witch doctor type lady to fix my twisted ankle. Was bloody amazing!

Egypt
- Pyramids.

That's a lot of decent places I've been so should get you started!!!

KarmaGarda

My session ran out because I wrote far too much

Anyway, money wise it all depends on if you are going all out budget, budget with some money splashes, or "flash" packing as we did. I went with my girlfriend and she wasn't into hostels! I went through 2k in 2 months in South America and that was hotels all the way. I'd have to put my thinking cap on and get a calculator out for a 12 month journey around the world. I'm sure you could do it with 10k... but that's a really rough guess.

For a guide buy a lonely planet "*country* on a shoe string" guide for the first country/continent. I often ditched one and picked up another/swapped them in hostels/hotels along the way.

Hope this helps somewhat!

Meathlass

Well if you're doing the 7 continents then you're obviously doing Antarctica so budget about 4000 euros at least for that. Please don't tell me you're counting Central America as a continent.

stevelknievel

Meathlass wrote: »

Well if you're doing the 7 continents then you're obviously doing Antarctica so budget about 4000 euros at least for that. Please don't tell me you're counting Central America as a continent.

"Doing" the Antarctic might be a little bit too much, but I definitely want to see an ice landscape, and spend a bit of time there. The Arctic would be a lot easier though, through Northern Canada or Russia. Would Antarctic take 4k to see?

Meathlass

stevelknievel wrote: »

"Doing" the Antarctic might be a little bit too much, but I definitely want to see an ice landscape, and spend a bit of time there. The Arctic would be a lot easier though, through Northern Canada or Russia. Would Antarctic take 4k to see?

I went about 2 years ago and it was 2750 euros with a $500 local payment. With fuel payments now I'd imagine it's close to 4k. Well worth it though, would go again tomorrow if I had the money. The only way to get there is on a cruise, you sleep on the boat and do trips (usually 3 a day on a good ship) to the continent and surrounding islands. There's no easy way to get there as there's 2 days of sailing each way before you get anywhere near the ice and the Drake passage can be very, very rough. If you're thinking of it though go with a ship with less than 100 passengers as only that number can land on the ice at any one time - larger ships will have less numbers of landings to make up for this. I went with Gap adventures and would really recommend them, a little bit more expensive than some of the competition but there were daily lectures with university lectures in all the different areas who also accompanied us on the landings and could answer all your questions there too.

If all that will throw your budget out too much then get the ferry from Peurto Montt to Puerto Natales in Chile and hike Torres del Paine on the chilean/argentinian border, plenty of glaciers but still not the same.

Harlow

Well, if you want to see an ice landscape of sorts you can keep it a little more budget friendly by just glacier climbing in south NZ. I would imagine that trying the Antarctic or Arctic would be the heaviest drain on resources. I'm sure northern Canada might offer something as well. If you watched Ice Road Truckers on TV recently, it was based on the Tundra, Canada & it showed amazing images of the Northern Lights.
I travelled 9ths without working on a budget of about 5/6k including air fare. But I really budgeted.

One place I would really recommend you take in is Siam Reap/Angkor Wat Temples in north-west Cambodia. Pretty amazing what they accomplished. We rented a tuk-tuk for a couple days & our driver took us to some of the temples further out which was great becasue we got to see so much of the countryside. You'll also see the temple made famous by Lara Croft which really is wonderfully weird & eerie. Go early/late though to avoid people & beware the heat!

Accomodation wise, we found Australian hostels to have the poorest standard & most expensive while China, South-East Asia & NZ were great! Trains in China were also great although be prepared for any long train journey you might undertake. Not expensive either.

As for Korea if you're that way, there's not a huge selection of acomodation options for the backpacker that I know of anyway & I lived there for a year. Motels, or the sex motels with kinky bed'bath lighting(!) are a sure bet.
Like most places in Asia there tends to be people hanging around buses/trains (except China & Korea to some extent) who guide you to somewhere. Japan or Tokyo is expensive! Although, I managed to survive 4days inc accom on $150. Flights from Seoul to Tokyo (2hr flight) came in at about $470 though. 2006 price.
I'd prob say after airfare is accounted for, have at least another 10k to hand. Its up to you how budget friendly you want to be or how long you plan on spending on each continent. I chose to be really careful with what I spent. I still saw all the same things my non-stingy friends saw but just spent about 4k less!

spaceylou

If you go to Australia try and get across to Western Australia....it is amazing, far less touristy than the east coast, there is a reef off the coast near coral bay/exmouth area that you can just swim out to.....there are some amazing national parks in the state as well.....we took the train across from Adelaide and stopped in kalgoorlie along the way for a few days to break the journey....a truly "interesting" town that really wouldn't be there if it weren't for the gold! I could go on, but basically I would recommend west coast over east coast any day of the week!

Of course if you have time to do the whole country - even better

Oh and another poster already said it but New Zealand is an amazing country as well.....go everywhere.....if you are planning on sky diving there and are being careful with money, I did it in Taupo on the North Island and it was nearly half the price of places in Queenstown on the South Island where a lot of people do it.

White-Teeth

Harlow wrote: »

Well, if you want to see an ice landscape of sorts you can keep it a little more budget friendly by just glacier climbing in south NZ. I would imagine that trying the Antarctic or Arctic would be the heaviest drain on resources. I'm sure northern Canada might offer something as well. If you watched Ice Road Truckers on TV recently, it was based on the Tundra, Canada & it showed amazing images of the Northern Lights.
I travelled 9ths without working on a budget of about 5/6k including air fare. But I really budgeted.

That trip sounds amazing, and much less expensive than I would have imagined. Maybe you could start a thread giving budgeting advice. For example, which airlines you travelled with, etc. I was looking into planning a trip to South America and it really adds up, especially airfares.

As for the around-the-world-trip, I can't give prices. I'm amazed that a lot of the estimates received are much lower than I would have guessed. I would have imagined that for a round-the-world-trek, you were easily talking upwards of 20 grand, especially given the price of international flights.

Awayindahils

White-Teeth wrote: »

That trip sounds amazing, and much less expensive than I would have imagined. Maybe you could start a thread giving budgeting advice. For example, which airlines you travelled with, etc. I was looking into planning a trip to South America and it really adds up, especially airfares.

As for the around-the-world-trip, I can't give prices. I'm amazed that a lot of the estimates received are much lower than I would have guessed. I would have imagined that for a round-the-world-trek, you were easily talking upwards of 20 grand, especially given the price of international flights.

I haven't been myself yet, but I was talking to someone who spent 16K travelling the world. They went for almost a year.

longshanks

well its lookin like i could be made redundant in a couple of months, so this thread has made for interesting reading. i was thinking of heading to india for a couple of months, and then onto cambodia, vietnam etc. but after reading this thread south america is also lookin like an option.
now the question is do i sell the house or rent it out. (renting wont cover the mortgage, so i'll be paying the balance). do ye reckon about 10k for 6-8 months travelling would cut it?

Harlow

Hehe...It was probably closer to 6k spent in all. My round-the-world ticket - 7 stop-overs - cost just over 1700 euro which was a fantastic deal at the time (2006). After that, expenses were spread over accomodation, bus/train passes, food & a few extra flights.

Australia cost me the most as we were there for 4months & we found it more expensive than anywhere. We planted oursleves in Cairns for 2 months and worked for accomodation & food saving a bucket load. In fact, in one month I totally cut my expenses down to just AUS$300. Additional flights from Sydney to Thailand (return) cost about AUS$700 and we got another one-way flight no more than 200euro Thailand to HongKong. Asia cost us next to nothing & to save a bit extra here & there we opted for overnight trains/buses through China & Vietnam. Don't think we ever spent more than 10euro on accomodation throughout Asia with the exception of a couple places - a whole 25euro or so!! But the standard of accom in Asia was generally great! Nearly didn't go to Vietnam. Faffed about in southern China deliberating becasue we'd heard more unsavoury stoies than positive ones. Anyway, we went & hands down, beautiful country, fabulous people, best food & great hostels/hotels!

I lived in Korea for a year beforehand so Korea & Japan aren't included in the round-the-world ticket, altho I think Tokyo can be a stop-off if you want. Could be a bit more on the price though.

As for the 10k budget (after plane fare), I would find that absolutely grand for 6-8months travel but I don't know much about South America (yet). A RTW ticket can include SA instead of another stop-off, Hawaii/Fiji/NYC etc.

Anyway, all the best for anyone who's planning their trips!! I'd go in the morning!