In August 2006, my friend Riley and I started our world trip, visiting
4 continents in a year, and trying to stay out of trouble as much
as possible. This page helps you to keep up to date with our progress,
as well as knowing where we will be at any point in time.
The planning:
Towards the end of my life at University, I became restless, really restless. There had to be more out there than work, surely?
I had to get away... for a long time.
When I returned from Leicester, to begin living my life as an 'adult', I started talking about travelling the world with a few friends. On October 6th 2005, Riley and I were sat in the Sovereign of the Seas pub in Petts Wood, taking part in one of our favourite past times, drinking. We started to discuss travelling the world and where we wanted to go. The idea of travelling the globe the following summer was a very attractive prospect to both us, partly because Riley was as restless as me about being an 'adult'. We decided it would be a good idea to go to Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Chile, Peru and Canada in a year long expedition, working in Australia and Canada to help fund the trip.
A few things stood in our way though, but the main thing was money. Riley was unemployed, I had just started a low paying job for the mayor of London, and neither of us were rich. Fortunately, Riley soon got a job at the Odeon Cinema, which then progressed to being a web designer for 'Friends Reunited'. My pay packet kept increasing as well, so things were looking up.
After meeting a couple more times to primarily discuss the trip, and going to different travel agents, we paid a deposit for round world tickets with STA on 23rd April 2006. It turned out that missing out South America would save us £600+ each on our ticket, as we only planned to go for a month, it was decided that we could do that another time. We now had to stump up £1,300 each for airline tickets, and seriously get our heads around visas, accommodation, jabs, finances, and generally everything else we haven't begun to think about.
That’s as far as the story goes for now, but more will follow soon.
01/06/06 The Booking:
Having done only a limited amount of research, Riley and I were finding it had to get hold of Canadian work visas. i was ok, I have an Australian Passport which allows me to work, but Riley would have more issues. After going to the Embassy, we decided that it was getting risky, and we may have to re think the timings of our trip.
We went back to STA, who talked through a few options with us, and we eventually decided to add another month to Australia, and a whole 2 months to New Zealand, and 3 weeks instead of 2 in Fiji. This left us with 2 months in Canada, by which time we hope to have earnt enough working in Australia and New Zealand that we can live in an acceptable level whilst in Canada.
After deciding this, the strangest thing happened. Riley and I paid the full remaining fare of the Tickets, and got our insurance sorted. In the back of my mind I never really imagined we would get this far with as little hassle as we have had, and at times I have doubted Riley, to the extent that he would pull out all together! but it's done, it's paid, and I'm now very poor for the rest of the month, having splashed out on £1,561 paying the final bill (plus the £75 we paid as a deposit) but that covers all the International flights, and our years insurance of £340 which will cover us against pretty much everything, not that we want to test it....
This site has been designed for use with Mozilla Firefox -------
