Sunday 21 December 2008

We have a plan….!

We now have a pretty much fixed thought of the route that we are planning on taking and some idea of the rough timings. These are flexible apart from a few (which I have marked in Bold) UK depart date, New Years in Sydney, Rio Carnival


Depart…

Country

Days

02/05/2009

UK

0

07/05/2009

Russia

5

22/05/2009

Mongolia/Trans Siberian

15

05/06/2009

China

14

19/06/2009

Japan

14

03/07/2009

Tibet

14

06/07/2009

Hong Kong

3

20/07/2009

Vietnam

14

03/08/2009

Cambodia

14

10/08/2009

Laos

7

31/08/2009

Thailand

21

10/09/2009

Sri Lanka

10

01/10/2009

Nepal

21

05/11/2009

India

35

19/11/2009

Malaysia

14

21/11/2009

Singapore

2

28/11/2009

Indonesia/Borneo

7

12/12/2009

Travel/Flexi

14

02/01/2010

Australia

21

07/01/2010

Fiji

5

28/01/2010

New Zealand

21

17/02/2010

Brazil

20

17/03/2010

Argentina

28

31/03/2010

Chile

14

18/04/2010

Peru

18

02/05/2010

Ecuador

14

05/05/2010

Panama

3

09/05/2010

Costa Rica

4

12/05/2010

Guatemala

3

22/05/2010

Cuba

10

04/06/2010

Mexico

13

06/06/2010

NYC

2

09/06/2010

Dubai

3

23/06/2010

Jordon

14

30/06/2010

Israel

7

14/07/2010

Egypt

14

28/07/2010

Tanzania

14

04/08/2010

Zanzibar

7

18/08/2010

Mozambique

14

08/09/2010

South Africa

21

08/09/2010

UK

0



Of course there will be places that we need to spend longer in, and places that we decide to reduce the time, but this plan gives you some idea of where in the world we will be during the next months, sure does beat bein at work!!

The two key purchases that you must think about

This is our first major travel for a long time and definitely the longest duration we will be away. Therefore we didn’t have some of the stuff you need; in particular the key things that we really needed to get are the right bags and the right shoes.

I know this is a bit of a boring post, but if you think about it, the shoes we buy are going to be used for other 16 months! And hopefully will see us through a number of treks and 100s of miles. The bags will be our ‘room’ for this time, everything we need will be packed in them and we will need to carry them everywhere. It was therefore really important to choose correctly.

Bags

We decided to go simple on the bags, one main bag – that we could check in, and that we could carry. I really wanted to be as flexible with this bag, as we actually are not doing that many unguided treks, without porters, so for me a classic rucksack was not the best option. Based on the fact that we were going to be in cities for quite a number of days also, a travel pack, that could be wheeled, carried or used as a backpack would the ideal spec. And it exists!!!

Urvi found the Berghaus Jalan range, and unless you live in the US (they don’t seem to be available in the US) this is the best we have found, the bags we bought are 70 litres for me and the 65 litre ladies version for Urvi. We will see what happens through the trip and if they last (!) but on first inspection they are strongly made, light weight, do have lots of cumbersome mechanics etc and most importantly have really good rucksack straps.




We then will use approx 25 litre smaller rucksacks. These packs will be used on a day to day basis, used on the treks and also taken as carry on, to store all the valuables whilst travelling etc.

Our basic advice is to MAKE SURE you buy bags that you can carry, DO NOT buy the biggest bag you can, just so that you can take more stuff. Remember on budget airlines the check in limits can be as low as 15kgs, which is far less than you may be used to.

Keep the bags simple, check the quality of the zips and don’t be afraid to invest in good products, they need to last you,

Shoes

For me it is simple – buy the best quality boot your budget allows, and buy boots that suit the most difficult conditions you will face – not the most common conditions. We will be doing a few hard treks, and therefore a simple light walking shoe will not be enough, it might not the height of fashion, but I can easily wear proper hiking boots in the city, but not wear simple shoes in the Himalayas.

We are going to take 2 main sets of shoes, one per of solid hiking boots – Urvi Asolo Styner GTX, Anand Vasque Wasatch. The second are sturdy hiking sandals, with solid soles but still sandals – Urvi a pair of Keens, and I am taking my existing pair of Tevas, that have lasted me 8 years thus far.






Finally we will take a pair of cheapo flip flops for use in hostels, and chilling out by the pool!

The World Trip gadget bag

As most people will know i love my gadgets. Whether its IPods or home cinemas, i love them all! Therefore when the world trip was confirmed I immediately began to think about what we ‘needed’ in terms of technology.

You do need to be careful about wasting money on gadgets you don’t need, and also turning into a big attractive target for thieves and other undesirables! Therefore I think that curbing ones enthusiasm when it comes to how much kit you pack is crucial. I am not sure we have completely got it right yet, but to date this is what we are taking:

• Sony A350 Digital SLR, with 18-250 travel lens
• Fuji Z100fd Ultra compact simple Digital camera – i don’t want to be heaving the main camera around in the middle of Bangkok etc!!
• Asus Eee PC 1000 – ultra compact PC, for emails, photos, making bookings etc etc
• 320 GB External HD – to back up all the photos we take, and also to store all the music etc that we would want
• Cheap, simple mp3 players to use whilst travelling – don’t want to take the full ipod
• Nintendo DS – just because!!
• Mobile phone – for emergencies

It does not sound a lot when you look at it, but just remember the associated cables, chargers etc. It all adds up. I may remove some stuff, especially because, one of my main objectives for the world trip is to get away from all this technology and dependence on TV watching etc.

Having said that, when we were planning the shopping I did decide to go for the best camera kit we could justify. This is going to be one of the highlights of the trip for me – taking photos and documenting the trip through them. Therefore the Sony A350 kit with the 18-250 lens, a 2x convertor and a 50mm standard lens, seems to be the perfect kit for me.

We will be putting our whole packing list on the blog soon, and i will be also blogging some of our other purchases in a bit.



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