Our Roughly Sort of Planned Route

Travelling is something that we have both always wanted to do. Due to a number of reasons ranging from financial to education to career, we have never got around to actually doing it. Now, after a few years of dreaming, we finally are!

Only in the last 2 months, we have finally bit the bullet and said we're doing this. Even though we have been thinking about doing it for a while, we never actually thought too hard about where to go and what to see and do.. So we don't really have a itinerary yet..

We've sat down together and researched and planned and come up with this rough sort of planned route, which goes as follows: London > Sri Lanka > Thailand > Cambodia > Vietnam > Laos > Thailand > Myanmar (Burma) > Thailand > Singapore > Indonesia > Australia > New Zealand > Fiji.

Initially, Sri Lanka wasn't on the list. It was mentioned for a day or two stop over during the flight over to Thailand so we have a look into it and what we could do. It turns out we really like the sound of it so we're now planning on ~14 days! We then starting looking at flights to include Sri Lanka, some of which were stopping off in Mumbai or New Delhi and we starting looking at maybe a day or two there as well rather than just a few hours in the airport. Quite quickly we realised that this way of thinking was going to make our trip much longer and much more expensive so we stopped this trail of thought. Still planning on 14 days in Sri Lanka though! Just stopping in the airports rather than extending those into a few days as well.

When we get to Thailand we won't be staying to explore Thailand too much (this is why Thailand pops up multiple times on the route), we've planned this for when we loop back around. We'll be heading to our first must see which is in Siem Reap, the ancient temples, in Cambodia. Then chasing the Mekong River to Vietnam's Ho Chi Mihn City then up to Hoi An. Most likely long train journeys up through Vietnam to Hanoi and the stunning Halong Bay. From there, across to Luang Prabang and into Myanmar, and back in Thailand. A bit of island hopping and full-moon parties, then Singapore where we will get a flight across to Jakarta in Indonesia where we will find a way across to Bali. Bali to Cairns, this is where we are thinking of starting a road trip down the east cost of Australia stopping off in Brisbane and Sydney, yet to be confirmed if we will be stopping at Sydney or heading further down to Melborne before jumping across to New Zealand (at some point in Australia we are going to stop and work to top up our funds for anywhere between 6 and 12 months). We like the sound of a camper van rental or bus tour through New Zealand (I'm really looking forward to visiting Hobbition in NZ!!). From Auckland we will fly to Fiji, which I am hoping by then we will be able to confirm where our next destination will be - Current guesses are either back home, South America or USA.

Any of (or even all of) the above will probably change between now and getting to each place, which is how we're planning our route because we don't want to have a strict itinerary and no flexibility, if we're enjoying somewhere (or not so much) or meet someone who gives us recommendations we want to be able to add or remove a few days here and there.

#Routeplanning