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Advice on our RTW itinerary

Need general advice on my itinerary....how long to stay in certain destinations etc.

13 years ago, July 7th 2010 No: 1 Msg: #115101 Delete Edit

Yas and Zaf
Yaser Hussain

N Posts: 15

Hi All,
its another topic on "advice for my RTW trip" again....but this will be my last of the noob questions.

Right, so we've planned out our trip, we've found a good rtw ticket for a decent price and its time to put some dates down and stick to them. Not having been to alot of these countries before, I'm not sure about how long to stay there. I have made a list of things to do in each country (priorities) but I don't want to grossly misjudge how long travelling around takes or rush through a country because I didn't plan it very well.

So here is my itinerary, any advice and observations would be more than welcome:

London - Leave 9th November 2010

Las Vegas - overland to LA (grand canyon, maybe san francisco) - 4 weeks

Rarotonga, Cook Islands (not sure how expensive it is in the cook islands) - 9 days

Auckland - overland to Christchurch (bungee, trekking, rafting, sky dive etc) - 5 Weeks

Sydney - overland to Brisbane (we'll do Uluru and see the Great Barrier Reef) - 5 Weeks

Ho Chi Minh City - Overland to Bangkok - from Vietnam, we are going into Laos then into North Thailand through to Bangkok. From here we will fly to New Delhi, go to Agra, see the Taj Mahal and then take the train to Amritsar and take another train into Pakistan, where I will meet up with some family...then we will take the same route back into India and fly back to Bangkok (or we could fly out from Pakistan into Bangkok, but this is quite a bit more expensive as this part of the trip we are doing independantly of our rtw ticket)

From Bangkok we will go to Cambodia to see Angkor Watt, and then enter thailand going to Pattaya making our way into phuket and then into Malaysia. From Malaysia we will go overland into Singapore

We have given ourselves 6 months in Asia.

Singapore to Jo'burg.

Jo'burg - overland into Nairobi (through Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and then into Nairobi) - 2 months

I'm worried the africa part of the trip might be too little time to sit back and enjoy.

Sorry for the long long post, but any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks 😊

Reply to this

13 years ago, July 7th 2010 No: 2 Msg: #115127 Delete Edit

Sophie and Dale
Sophie & Dale

B Posts: 328

Hey guys

Wow your trip will be amazing a great route you have planned..

We can't comment on every part but we'll make a start and try to help on the bits we visited on our trip..

Auckland - Christchuch
How are you planning to travel around? From our point of view we can't recommend getting a van and doing it your way enough... you just can't beat waking up to beautiful scenery each and every day and being able to just stop as and when you want. 5 weeks will probably be enough just don't plan to pack in every site in NZ as you'll just be driving every single day and won't enjoy it as much. We had 8 weeks there and loved every second, the only thing we wished was that we had longer! Try to focus your time on the South Island, the North Island still has some beautiful places to visit but the South is just INCREDIBLE!

Sydney - Brisbane
How are you planning to get around this bit as Ayers Rock & Cairns are a bit out the way on this route! 😊 Presumably you plan to fly to some places otherwise you'll be spending a lot of time on buses/trains... maybe give more idea on your planned itinerary for this one? Generally though if you're just planning on 'seeing the main sights' you'll be fine

Asia
We didn't visit India but if you try and fit a month in each country (which it sounds like you are more or less?) then that will be a good amount of time. HCMC - Hanoi/Sapa will take you around a month, Laos you could get away with a few weeks depending on the places you plan to visit there, Northern Thailand another few weeks, maybe 5 days in Bangkok? Try to spend as much time in Cambodia as you can as the people are lovely and there's a lot more to see than just Angkor Wat. A month in Malaysia is a must, again a beautiful country with heaps of different stuff to do.

That's probably about all we can help with but hopefully it is of some use, if you want a bit more info just let us know.

HAve a fabulous trip and we'll look forward to reading about it.

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13 years ago, July 8th 2010 No: 3 Msg: #115183 Delete Edit

Yas and Zaf
Yaser Hussain

N Posts: 15

Hey Sophie and Dale, thanks for the reply, its a big help when people who have been to these places can share their experiences, it's very much appreciated.

In New Zealand, we were thinking of hiring a car and stopping off at hostels or weather permitting...camping, but a van does seem like a better idea...just not sure on costs. Is it quite expensive to hire and to run? I guess you save on accomodation with is usually a big cost.

In Australia, we plan on flying into Alice Springs and from there make our way to Uluru, then getting a return flight to Cairns and making our way down to Brisbane by public transport. How did you get around in Australia? We were thinking of using the greyhound coaches, but not sure if it is more of an experience to use the backpacker buses. How easy it is to get to Uluru from Alice Springs, I'm trying to steer clear of adventure tours as I want to feel the sense of accomplishment of making it to places on our own, but my wife doesn't mind tours so I guess we'll be doing a few tours.....if you've ever been on an adventure tour...are they worth the money and did you enjoy the experience?

For Asia we want to spend more time in Cambodia and Vietnam and do voluntary work, so it's great news that you reccomend Cambodia as we will be spending a bit of time there.
We've been to Malaysia before but we only got to see Kuala Lumpur, and we are really looking forward to seeing the rest of the country.

Thank you ever so much for your help, you guys are awesome 😊 Reply to this

13 years ago, July 8th 2010 No: 4 Msg: #115231 Delete Edit

Sophie and Dale
Sophie & Dale

B Posts: 328

No worries!

Hiring a car and stopping off would also work... when will you be there? We were there in Oct & Nov and it was pretty miserable most days... bit like England really! You could get a big estate car and sleep in there sometimes, we saw a lot of people doing that too, if you have a bit of camping kit that would be ok. It was quite expensive to get the van, we had quite a 'nice' one as we wanted a fridge and stuff, it varies hugely depending on when you are there.. obviously most expensive over Christmas! The best bit was just being able to pull up in the most beautiful places and waking up to it in the morning, you will get that with some hostels but not so many.. anyway worth looking into maybe....

Oh we did that route in Australia pretty much! We got the Greyhound from Cairns to Melbourne and it was pretty good. There are lots of different tickets depending on how far you want to go, you can just stop as many times as you want (depending on what ticket you have) and book that leg a day or so before you want to go, can't comment on the backpacker buses I'm afraid (we felt a bit old to be doing that 😉 ) You might have to hire a car from Alice to Uluru if you want to do it yourself and it is a long long way.. much longer than you'd think, maybe 6 -8 hours solid driving. We went on an organised trip and it was awesome, we went with the cheapest one and wouldn't have had it any other way but that's just the way we wanted to do it. We stopped at various other places and slept in swags, we went with the one that runs from Annies Hostel in Alice. We had a great group which often makes or breaks a trip like that but from us it was a thumbs up!

If you have anything else let us know. Reply to this

13 years ago, July 8th 2010 No: 5 Msg: #115237 Delete Edit

samar india
samar india

N Posts: 1

Good plan indeed; but I would recommend you spend some more time in India. You should visit Jaipur; Mumbai (The bollywood city) and back waters at Kerala. Reply to this

13 years ago, July 13th 2010 No: 6 Msg: #115579 Delete Edit

Yas and Zaf
Yaser Hussain

N Posts: 15

We'll be in New Zealand around November December, but England weathers not so bad, as long as its weather like the last week 😉
I like the idea of hiring a car and sleeping in that lol, cheap and cheerful.

Thanks for the link for the Uluru tour, its so reassuring to know that I'm not overpaying for something or paying for a rubbish tour.

You guys are great 😊 thanks for all the help. Reply to this

13 years ago, July 17th 2010 No: 7 Msg: #115878 Delete Edit

slam
slamet riyanto

N Posts: 2

an amazing itinerary. if you're going to Asia would not hurt if you visit Indonesia, especially East Java, you can visit Mount Bromo, Ijen Crater, with a sulfur mine, and saw a coffee plantation or live in the village. have a nice trip,
regards,
Slam Reply to this

13 years ago, July 22nd 2010 No: 8 Msg: #116295 Delete Edit

2step
Jozsef Csaszar

N Posts: 4

Wow, i would never plan a trip like that, id just go. Very well done! Reply to this