Chris Toole & Jayne Barrett

Chris and Jayne

Chris Toole & Jayne Barrett

Hi everyone and welcome to Chris and Jayne's travel blog!

The idea of travelling the world began way back in 2005 when we were both still at university. At the time, neither of us knew exactly where we wanted to travel to or what we wanted to do once there, it was simply a case of wanting to see a bit more of the world!

Having talked through some ideas and spent a fair amount of time in front of the computer researching, the desire to explore the world only seemed to grow stronger by the day! A decision was finally made to turn the dream into reality and the time to do it would be Summer 2008, once both of us had graduated.

With nearly 200 countries to choose from and so much to see, deciding on a route initially seemed like a mind boggling task! However, after much deliberation we eventually agreed on a rough route and went to the travel agents to book our round the world tickets! A brief itinerary for our trip is as follows:

USA and Canada ..... 2 months to explore the US East coast, Eastern canada, the Rockies and British Columbia and US West coast.
Fiji & Yassawa Islands ..... 2 weeks of sun, sea, sand and island hopping!
Cook Islands (Rarotonga & Aitutaki) ..... another 2 weeks of beaches and blue lagoons!
New Zealand ..... 2 months touring both islands in a campervan!
Australia ..... 4 months, arriving in Sydney for Christmas & New Year, eventually arriving at Perth late April.
Singapore ..... 3-4 days to start the South East Asia leg.
Malaysia & Borneo ..... 4-5 weeks of city life, steamy rainforrests, scaling Mount Kinabalu, orangutans and hopefully not too many leeches!!!
Southern Thailand ..... 2-3 weeks on the Gulf and Andaman coasts.
Northern Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam & Laos ..... 7 week tour of indochina starting and finishing at Bangkok.
Hong Kong ..... 5 days before finally flying home.

Over the course of the trip we would like to share our adventures with you via this travel blog. Regular updates with stories and photos of our latest experiences will be added to the blog as we go. If you would like to follow us on our adventures and share in our experiences then either bookmark this web page or alternatively, click on the 'subscribe' button below to receive an automatic email whenever we update the blog or post new photos.

Enjoy! 😊

Chris and Jayne

We've been travelling for:

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Current leg of trip:

HOME :-(

“We’re going up and out and under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz”

North America » United States » California » San Francisco September 22nd 2008

San Francisco city

Chris and Jayne

The train journey from Seattle to San Francisco was another long one, 23 hours in fact. However when we boarded in Seattle we had the privilege of sitting on the upper deck, which for some reason provided a little early morning excitement for the pair of us. Looking back, neither of us are exactly sure why we got so excited as the view out of the window was probably no different to that on the lower deck! Anyhow, it was a novelty at the time to go upstairs on a train! After a restless nights sleep sat upright, we awoke in the morning to find that the train was running three hours behind schedule thanks to a high volume of freight trains running through the night, which take precedence over passenger services. However as the afternoon ... read more

Starbucksville! (a.k.a Seattle)

North America » United States » Washington » Seattle September 18th 2008

Baloon man outside Pike Place Market

Chris and Jayne

Goodbye Canada, hello United States…. again! Our last sight of Vancouver (and Canada for that matter) was a blurry-eyed walk down Granville Street at 6am to the Skytrain station. Two minutes down the line we arrived at the bus terminus for our connection to Seattle. The journey took a mere 4 hours, including a short stop half way at the US border for the ever so friendly “Welcome to the United States, enjoy your stay” type greeting… which we assume is the correct translation for, “NEXT….” immigration officer grunts, raises eyebrows, gives you the dirty look that could make a grown man cry, grunts once more, finally stamps passport like he’s participating in a championship snap game, before finally shouting right down your ear… “NEXT…”! Damn it, we’re back in the US…….! Having booked our ... read more

Cafe where Hendrix played before becoming famous

The house boat from Sleepless in Seattle

Beautiful British Columbia

North America » Canada » British Columbia September 15th 2008

Looking out over the water at Canada Place

Chris and Jayne

Canada has so far been a spectacular country to travel through and we have both thoroughly enjoyed the sights and sounds of the Eastern Cities. However when somebody talks about Canada as a place to visit, the most likely images to spring to mind are those of snow capped mountain ranges, ski resorts, icy lakes or even man eating grizzly bears! Now, of course we didn’t see any of this whilst exploring the cities (not that we expected to either). In order to experience the ‘stereotypical Canada’ we would have to leave the cities behind and search elsewhere, in somewhere like…. the Rocky Mountains! From Toronto we flew to Vancouver on the far West coast. Our initial thoughts were to take the 3 day train journey from East to West and along the way explore the ... read more

Niagara Falls & Toronto

North America » Canada » Ontario » Niagara Falls August 31st 2008

Niagara Falls by night (american falls)

Chris and Jayne

Patrick's lovely plums......! From Ottawa we moved on to Niagara Falls, one of the seven great Wonders of the World and it certainly was magnificent. Instead of the usual day trip from Toronto, which a lot of people that we had met along the way had done or were doing, we chose to stay for 3 nights in Niagara. This later turned out to be a great decision. On arrival at the hostel, we were greeted by our super-friendly host Patrick, who insisted on us sampling some of his delicious, local-grown, yellow plums everytime we passed reception. After a long chat (with our backpacks still on), we finally dropped our bags in our room and headed down to the falls to catch the evening fireworks display. What a beautiful sight this was. Our first glimpse of ... read more

The Canadian Capital

North America » Canada » Ontario » Ottawa August 25th 2008

Oh Canada!

Chris and Jayne

When entering new cities, we'd found ourselves to be quite wary and over-cautious, but as our train rolled into Ottawa, our 7th city so far on the trip, this feeling wasn't so strong. Whether this was because we were staying in a converted jail so we thought we'd be safe, we're not sure! On arriving at the hostel, we found our converted jail hadn't been converted much at all! Apart from the entrance hall and reception area which were very modern with computers and vending machines, once we went through the big steel door onto the 'suicide-proof' stairs, it suddenly became quite scary, like we had imagined a prison to be. (Only from watching Bad Girls and Prison Break though, we don't have any other prison experiences...honest!) Our room consisted of a squeaky bunk bed, a ... read more

Je ne comprends pas... speak english

North America » Canada » Quebec August 21st 2008

Hot air balloons

Chris and Jayne

Oh Canada! As the number 69 Adirondack train pulled out of New York's Penn Station bound for Canada, excitement levels seemed to rise each mile that we travelled further northwards. Whether this was down to the fact that we would be crossing the border into a new country on our trip, or simply because of what we had read and heard about Canada prior to leaving, neither of us were quite sure. One thing was for sure though, we were both really looking forward to spending time travelling in the worlds second largest country! Despite the journey to Montreal taking nearly 12 hours, the scenery along the way offset the boredom that may have set in on any other journey. It was probably only an hour or so after leaving New York City that the concrete ... read more

More than a feeling...

North America » United States » Massachusetts » Boston August 12th 2008

State House

Chris and Jayne

Service with a smile.... about time! On arrival at Bostons South Station we headed for an information desk to pick up a map of the metro system and advice on which line to take to our hostel. To be frank, we didn't have a clue where we were supposed to be going from the station - not a perfect situation but hey it adds to the excitement of it all! Within a few seconds of conversing with the clerk sat behind the info desk, we immediately noticed a difference in attitude between service staff in Boston compared to those in NYC - for the better that is. Before long we were on our way on the metro which, compared to New York's, was a doddle to navigate. With only 4 lines (red, orange, green and blue) ... read more

Tea for free up in NYC!!!

North America » United States » New York » New York » Manhattan August 9th 2008

Broadway!

Chris and Jayne

From DC we headed further up the eastern coast to New York City. First stop had to be Central Park - we spent our first afternoon watching New Yorkers playing tennis and jogging around the reservoir whilst we decided what to do with our 4 days in this crazy city. The park is huge and we only saw a small section of it, but what we saw we found to be very busy yet relaxing at the same time. Throughout the park there are lots of places to sit and rest and there are plenty of optional tours to take such as horse and trap or tuk-tuk! For our first full day in the city we decided to jump right in at the deep end and hit Times Square. The sights and smells of this chaotic ... read more

"Oh look, it's the White House...! No it's not... yes it is.... well the sign says it's the Capitol Building.... Oh yeah, ooooops!"

North America » United States » District of Columbia » Washington August 4th 2008

Star Spangled Banner!

Chris and Jayne

Train kept rollin' ..... Just as we started to find our feet in Miami, the time came to move on to our next destination - Washington DC. We left South Beach on Thursday morning and headed for the Amtrak station with sufficient time to get our tickets printed (or so we thought!) As it turned out, the guy we got at the ticket desk was a sandwich short of a full picnic and it took 45 minutes to print our tickets, meanwhile, our 9am train rolled out the station before our eyes. We then had to wait a further 3 hours to catch the next train, however, this service detoured via Tampa, Fl, and added a further 3 and a half hours to what was already a 23 hour journey. So, nearly 28 hours later, ... read more

Miami Nice!

North America » United States » Florida » Miami Beach August 1st 2008

Heathrow departure lounge

Chris and Jayne

Goodbye England! Having arrived at Manchester Airport on Sunday afternoon and very nearly checking our bags into the wrong airline (good start!), saying goodbye to the family started off a wave of mixed emotions. After three years of planning and preparation, the once distant dream was on the verge of becoming a relaity. Only at this point, standing face to face with our parents, did it hit home that 12 months away from friends and family was not going to be easy to deal with as first anticipated. None the less, the excitement for what was coming made our departure slightly easier to deal with. After a quick flight to Heathrow we found are way to the Travelodge via Terminal 5 (thankfully we were in charge of our bags throughout this transition so no problems there!) ... read more

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