Couple early 50's taking 2 years off wants to plan world trip to less trodden destinations in all continents needs help and advice.
Hi every one,
My husband and myself (we are both in our early 50's ) have planned to take a year or two off and travel the world. Neither of us are seasoned travellers. We live in Sydney and ideally want to travel staying in each continent for a couple of months and visit countries/places by land. We want to go to the less traversed places and visit the cities only for some spectacular sight seeing, not otherwise. Countryside is what we are looking at.
Has any one started out of Sydney travelling the world ? Has any one travelled the less trodden paths around the world on a budget travel or home stay sort of accommodation plan ? Do you think a couple could do it within US $ 3000 a month ?
I would be ever so thankful for any tips and advice coming from other travellers.
Regards.
globaltrott
Reply to this My husband and I travelled through South America for 8 months in 2007, we are in our fifties and from NZ. We stayed in hostels mostly, often booked through hostel bookers on the internet. When we met people at the hostels we would talk to the mostly younger people and see where they have been, what they did and if they liked a place and could recommend what to do. We got good up to date information like this and then could decide where and what we would do. In South America the bus trips are very long and we tried to stay 3 nights in each place, unless we really hated a place. Then we would either move to another hostel or go to the next town.
It is good to not have too many plans ahead because you are always watching the calender.
We budgeted on $70 US per day and mostly managed to stay within budget. We only flew about 3 times, other wise bused everywhere.
Reply to this From Sydney, a good start might be to fly to Tahiti then from there to Easter Island, a fascinating place right in the middle of the Pacific! I love the Island and the Moai are well worth visiting. From there, you could fly to Santiagi in Chile and explore the Americas from there. Depending on what you fancy, Patagonia should be well worth seeing along with Machu Picchu in Peru. Work your way up to Canada then fly to Europe from there.
Does this help a bit? I'm sure a RTW ticket would be a really good start for you to cover the long haul bits then plan to travel on bus/ferries/internal flights. To me $3000 monthly is extremely generous but I can understand you may want safe, secure places to stay. Look out for special offers - it might be worth signing up for an international chain of hotels as those can give you discounts if you like a particular standard of accommodation?
Reply to this Hi Josie, Paul and Susan,
Thank you so much for the tips. I appreciate you all taking time to reply.
Josie and Paul how wonderful ! What an adventure it might have been. Sounds about the right way I guess to go about a travel plan that stretches into a year or two. Guess planning it all in advance wouldn't work out and would end up only causing stress.
Do you have a list of favourite places you stayed within your budget ? Did your budget include stay and meals for both of you ? Do you have a blog I can visit and get more info on your travels and adventures ?
We also plan to come to NZ for a couple of months and then fly from there onwards. We want to experience the beautiful countryside and other quaint village life. Do you think renting a holiday cottage might be a better idea than hotels. We would prefer that. We are not night life types and prefer the outdoors and nature, ofcourse museums and galleries too.
If you can give us a few spots to research I would really appreciate that.
Thanks for all the help.
Hi Susan,
What a great ternary ! It looks very workable and logical in terms of taking a world trip. Do you know of any world tickets that are better than others. Ones that will give us the choice of changing or adding destinations if such a thing is possible. I am researching the same but can't yet tell what I should be looking for in a good ticket.
Thanks again for all the help.
Wish you all the very best for Christmas and the coming year.
Reply to this Hello globaltrott,
If you click on our names it takes you to the blog we wrote.
About the accommodation, we tried to stay at places that had breakfast included and looked at the comments of others who had stayed there (when booking by hostelworld or hostelbookers)
We missed out Easter Island, mainly becuse of the cost, however we came across San Agustin in Colombia that had all the statues you could wish for and underground tombs. There was an amazing market that people parked their horses and carts outside.
Another highlight was Chan Chan in Peru, we did not like the hawkers and ripoffs that happened at Cusco and Machu Pichu, although the actual site was huge and interesting. I believe there have been other similar type of ruins found in Peru that could be interesting.
Every country was our favourite while we were there and the next country became the best.
Our budget included accommodation, food and transport and sightseeing.
We actually saved money when we did theAmazon Ferry because it was 4 days and food included all for about $50, i can't remember if that was each or both of us.
Reply to this Hi,
I would like to suggest you India.......where living cost is low and you can enjoy and relax in the nice beaches or travel throgh the Historical places.....or try some Yoga and Meditation lessons that will be perfectly suitable for both of you.
Reply to this Thanks Joseph,
India is my final destination as we are relocating to settle there. Yes I plan to enjoy it from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari !
Reply to this Hello Globaltrott 😊
I think you could certainly do it for 100 US dollars per day. And you could do it for a lot less in some countries.
I dont know if anyone has mentioned round the world plane tickets yet. Since you want to cover a number of continents a round the world plane ticket may be useful for you.
There are less trodden places in all continents. For example in Asia most of the Central Asian countries and Iran are not much trodden.
Mel
Reply to this Hello GlobalTrot
We are a little older than you and set off from Brisbane. We are headed in the opposite direction for the moment through SE Asia to India, Iran, Syria and on. We had planned to be away from Australia for about 2 years. It looks like it might take longer.
We reckon that we can do it on about $100 USD per day on average. Not so sure about Europe but we should be able to build enough of a bank in the cheaper countries to cover that. So far on this trip we have only been to NZ and Vietnam but our budget is handling things well so far. It has also worked well in the past through Central Asia, China and the rest of SE Asia as well as Canada and Alaska.
We considered RTW tickets but haven't gone down that track mainly because we wanted to do as much as possible overland. We haven't, so far, gone for home stays and such but that could come. We are trying to keep a blog if you are interested.
Reply to this Hello Slowfeet,
What fun. love the title for the blog. it's the way to go. Exact thing we want to do- first NZ then either to USA or Canada, Europe then India. if that does not happen then to Indonesia, Malaysia and India. Our final stop is india where we plan to settle.
Love to keep in touch and read your blog. stay well, enjoy good health and may your journey be all you wish for.
best wishes.
globaltrott.
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