Hey, I’m just in the midst of planning a trip to New Zealand at the end of the year to; hopefully work in some capacity as a photographer. Originally I was simply going to fly straight their but thought I'd make my way their overland to make it more interesting. Having been looking into this for a few months now, I've come across a few ideas.
If anyone could comment on these with regards to budgets, routes, times to go, places to see, things to do etc, that would be amazing. Any help at all would be cool.
At the moment I’m thinking of setting off in late Febuary 2010, travelling through Europe via train. Paris, Cologne, Warsaw and onto Moscow. Following this could be a ride on the Trans Mongolian line of the Trans Siberian express to Irkutsk near Lake Baikel. From here would be another train journey through Mongolia and onto Beijing. Xian in China might be my next stop before travelling onto Shanghai. Depending on the amount of cash I have saved up before I go I'd very much like to catch a ferry over to Osaka and see at least part of Japan, if only for a week before travelling back to Shanghai and onto Hong Kong.
From Hong Kong I'd like to travel onto Singapore through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia. My friends travelled around these countries last year which has given me a great impetus to visit them! Having said this, if anyone has any information about what route to take through these countries, I’d really appreciate it.
Flying from Singapore to Auckland might be the last leg of the trip but which would be the cheapest stopover? Darwin or Cairns perhaps? Or maybe Sydney?
I’m a keen photographer too and so would be taking a fair amount of expensive equipment with me. Would just like to know if anyone had travelled extensively before with a lot of photography gear and if so, how they looked after it and kept it safe?
I’ve already done a lot of research into most aspects of this trip but any help/ideas would be useful. Anyone worked in New Zealand on a WHV? How about long train journeys? Vaccinations? Insurance? clothes? Visas? How to take cash, cards ect?
Ill most likely be travelling alone too so if anyone can throw up some advice about doing this, that would be helpful.
One last thing. I’m basing this whole trip on travelling to and from major cities and destinations, if only to get the bearings. What really interests me is seeing the places close by or in between that aren’t as well known and that may contain hidden gems. Any travellers who could advise me about any other possible places to pass through?
I realise that's a whole lot of information but if anyone could advise or guide me to more information about any aspects of this trip I would just be so grateful! Cheers guys.
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