The benefits of having a break are well known. A normal work and home life routine suddenly disturbed by the chaos of Djemma el Fna market square in Marakesh, Morocco. Values are reassessed and time stands still with black coffess, sitting with the local old men accompanied by warbling snake charmer tones. Another few days all this will seem normal. What constitutes a top city break is quite personal but undoubtedly the Easyjet fare to places like Morocco or Turkey give an astonishing opportunity to experience a complete cultural change. Hopefully it is only a matter of time before the Easy and economical airline companies link up around the world. I have heard that some describe the culture here as naive. Alternatively they may know how to live, what’s important in life and have the apparent naive ability to learn new things often superior to mature isolated cynicism. I’m just amazed by it all.
Please get a life and pursue another hobby. What about world peace, space exploration, feeding ducks or discovery of some clean ubiquitous source of energy? This would be far more beneficial to mankind than wasting peoples’ time in clearing out malicious php scripts. Or better still, do some traveling and spend less time at your computer creating these annoyances.
UPDATE January 2019: Just had to do a cleanup again.
My sidebar disappeared completely in Internet Explorer but was fine in other browsers. This was all down to hidden characters pasted from Word into the text post which have now been removed.
By the way, anyone want to buy a piano? (£100, London)
Following on from “The Travel Map” I have just published the second travel guide book, fully documenting my more recent trips. Together the two books describe in detail 10 round-the-world trips and a separate trip to Africa, from naive beginnings many years ago to experienced backpacker status. Hundreds of photos and 1156 pages in total! Hopefully you’ll find them inspiring. Please enjoy the trip.
Here’s an experiment. If I had the opportunity to do one round-the-world five month trip and wanted to squeeze in as much interest, novelty, cultural, climatic and geographical variation on a modest budget, what would my route be and which countries would I visit? I’m going to post a first draft here and edit it over time (swapping countries and routes for example, adding points of interest, Vietnam or Cambodia?) hopefully as a result of constructive comments. The end “ideal” backpacker trip should give an amazing and challenging experience for someone who is interested but can’t quite decide where to go.
An Ideal trip
Sept
from London:
Egypt (Cairo, Luxor)
Israel (Eilat scuba diving qualification, Jerusalem)
Oct
India (Delhi, Agra, Varanasi)
Nepal (Kathmandu, Annapurna or Everest Base Camp Trek, Tibet)
Nov
Thailand (Bangkok)
Indonesia (Bali)
Vietnam (Southern)
Dec
China (Hong Kong, Yangshuo)
Australia (Sydney)
New Zealand (South Island, Queenstown)
Jan
New year in Sydney (or Auckland)
Cook Islands (Raratonga, Aitutaki) Timed to allow two New Year’s Days
Chile (Atacama, you need basic Spanish language skills)
Bolivia (Uyuni salt flats, Yungas Trek, La Paz)
Feb
Brazil (Iguassu Falls, Rio Carnival)
Optional return via the USA (New York)
back to London.
Unless you know different!
UPDATE 1 Removed “Jordan (Wadi Rum, Petra)”, too many deserts!
UPDATE 2 Added trek to Annapurna as first choice with the Everest Base Camp trek as 2nd choice.
UPDATE 3 February 2019: I believe prices have at least doubled since I originally wrote this!
OPTION 1 For a cheaper option, miss South America and from the Cook Islands go via USA (LA, Las Vegas, San Franciso) and Canada (Vancouver, Toronto) and USA (New York) and back to London.
OPTION 2 For a more expensive option, when in South America, add a 10 day trip to Antarctica from Ushuaia, Argentina, via Buenos Aires and El Calafate.
(a cheap round the world ticket would still be roughly US $5000)
. . . Although the author has tried to make the information as accurate as possible, he accepts no responsibility for any loss, injury or inconvenience sustained by any person using this site.
