Final countdown
2 weeks until the longest time away from work or education I’ve ever had and I’m trying to contain my excitement.
Rose and I would have been happy with a couple of months of hot weather, but with both of us ready for a job change and myself rapidly approaching 30, we decided that we’d opt for a classic backpacking trip with the aim of going for a long time and as cheap as possible. Our initial stops were:
- East Asia, for classic backpacking
- Bali, because Bali
- Peru, for the Inca Trail
- Cape Town, as it’s almost on the same attitude as the UK for family time at Christmas
With how the seasons work, it logically falls to do South America before Christmas, when it’s cheaper, and Asia after, when the weather is hot. Since we are coming straight out of jobs, we were keen to have a ‘holiday’ before immersing ourselves into the living-out-of-a-backpack culture, so we naturally fell on Costa Rica, with it’s adventure sports and beaches. Winner.
With no ‘Round the world’ tickets available for our random destinations, we ended up booking half through a booking agent, so we have a fallback if we have flight issues, and the rest we booked ourselves. A slightly riskier method, but we saved around £1k each. Fingers were crossed.
But as in all ‘clever’ money saving exercises, it never works out as planned. About 2 months before heading off, I received and email saying our flights had been cancelled. A few hours of concealed swears at work, the problem had turned into an opportunity. After chatting to friends and family, we were keen to add Malaysia onto the trip, so we decided not to travel up Indonesia and replace it with a flight to Kuala Lumpur to give us 2 weeks to travel over mainland Malaysia to Phuket. It’s simply impossible to turn down the chance to visit the Cameron Highlands or Taman Negara — the oldest rainforest in the world.
So the trip is as such. Costa Rica, Peru overland to Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Bali, Kuala Lumpa overland to Phuket, Bangkok overland to Hanoi in Vietnam. Not too bad for a first time backpacker.
In the last 2 weeks before heading off I’ve realised some vital things about lengthy travelling.
It’s seriously expensive.
Some people might have said this is obvious, but I clearly hadn’t clocked on. We were perfectly happy paying for the flights, which we thought would be ’the expensive part’ but after almost £800 each on travel insurance and inoculations, it’s starts to get a bit on the pricey side. I also badly wanted to document my trip. It’s a once in a lifetime sort of deal, so I needed a camera and a couple of lenses, which set me back almost another £1000. You then have to budget your trip. Hard. We’re overseas for 162 days, so with accommodation, food and travel all requiring some cash daily, and no way of earning, it all adds up.
There is absolutely no downtime before going
I thought I’d be so happy right now, everyday I wanted to be crossing off days on a calendar until we leave, but no. Aside from working my ass off to get enough money for the trip, I’m having to pack up my flat, round off projects so that I don’t leave them in limbo, go shopping for the long list of ‘must have’ travel items, and organise the odd accommodation for the times we land in the evening somewhere.
And if this wasn’t enough, there are the numerous people you badly want to see before heading off. I made apologies early, making sure people knew I would be pressed on time, but there are still dozens of meetings and family weekends that you want to do.
To plan or not to plan
There is so much to see and do that there is a temptation to plan it all, so we don’t miss anything, but the best times are usually unexpected so an element of ‘let’s just see what happens’ is pretty exhilarating.
Expect to leave something behind
I wish I was lucky enough to have no regrets and just walk out, middle fingers raised, but the fact is that I enjoy my job (a new exciting job I stumbled upon), I am missing friends getting married and I won’t get to see many family members at Christmas… but that’s part of the deal, and it’s a deal I’d happily make again.
Opportunities like this don’t come around that often! I can’t wait.
