Hello, my name is Ethan, I am 15 years old, and I live in the USA. The only other country I have been to is Canada.
When I get out of High School I am going to take a year off before college. During this time I want to do a lot of travelling. I do not want to try to see every country, but pick out a few and travel around them. I want to experience the culture more than see everything. I am thinking about going to a country or two in southeast Asia (Which do you suggest?) and maybe a country in Africa (I don't know too much about any countries in Africa. What countries in Africa are the most beautiful and the people most friendly?)
I am saving my money and currently have about 1,600 dollars. I think I will have about 6,000 dollars when I graduate. I will most likely not have to pay for airfare because my parents said they would pay for that. How long do you think I could stay in each country (Lets say I stayed in three)? I don't mind staying in the cheapest accommadation and eating from street vendors. I'm not picky about food at all. I would also like to do a few outdoor activities such as hiking, maybe whitewater rafting (depending on the place), etc.
I know I am young and there is a lot of time untill I graduate, but my mind is set on travelling. Thanks for the help and would appreciate some suggestions about things I need to know before I start travelling and while I am travelling (not sure if I phrased that correctly).
Ethan
Reply to this Hello Ethan 😊
I think it is a good thing that you know you want to travel so long before you are going to do it. It gives you so much time to prepare and get over being nervous about it. That is, if you are in fact nervous about it.
The choices in Africa are limited because there is war and unrest in many of the countries. At the moment Kenya and Tanzania might be the ones to choose, or else Egypt and Morocco.
In South East Asia you have time to travel around most/all of the countries if you want. You intend to spend the entire year travelling, I presume.
What you could do to get more aware of what you need to know when travelling is buy a few Lonely Planet Guidebooks. They get updated every 5 years so if you get them now then you could still use them for information when you travel. They give information about things like safety, money, accomodation, local customs, transport, suggested inineries.....
Since you seem pretty sure you want to go to SE Asia then South East Asia on a Shoestring by Lonely Planet could be the one you get first. It covers all the countries in SE Asia. It costs around 35 dollars US and is available in most book stores around the world.
Mel
Reply to this Hey Ethan
I know it has been a long time since you have sent your message (your probably not even 15 anymore) but I thought you might still come to this site every once in a while.
Well, I have traveled through many parts of both central and south east asia so I thought you might want to know a bit about the areas. I have been to both extremely poor areas and more wealthy areas. I'm not sure which you want to know about.
For all I know you will never read this message so i'm not going to talk all about where I have been in this message but if you ever want to know I will tell you with pleasure. Just send me a message.
Fellow Traveler
Eric
Reply to this hey ethan,
if your planning Asia but also want to go to Africa then I would HIGHLY recommend Madagascar. Culturally speaking it's a fascinating country...while obviously a part of Africa, the first humans there were actually indonesians....i think of it as the bastard child of asia and africa.
It has an amazing natural world too. something like 90% of its non-bird animals are endemic...not found anywhere else on the planet. Including of course the famous Lemours (although you'd be out of luck if you want big-game safari type animals, what ones the sub continent had were killed off a long time ago).
It has amazing scenery...Tropical rainforrests and idillic beaches in the north, the middle is harsh deserts and the south has the 'Spiny Forrest'. The arrid landscape has led to some wonders of evolution, a tree who's sap is so acidic that it kills all other plants it touches so it can get maximum water is one example.
The people are very friendly, many can speak english but french is the official language. It's also a pretty safe country... the entire 3 months I was there the only trouble me and my group had was a rickshaw driver not returning a lost wallet, but i honestly couldn't blame him for that, the $40 in it was several months wages to him. It's also a fairly stable democracy.
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