Hello!

---

Hello everyone!

Just though I would write our first message since you have all very kindly signed up! I thought I would update you all on our plans.

We are currently planning to leave at the start of September. We decided not to book a round-the-world flight with set dates as we felt this would restrict us too much, so we are not really planning too much and booking too much in advance which is rather scary!

We have a rough idea of where we want to go which is to head through Northern Europe by bus/train for a few weeks up to St Petersberg where we will start the trans-mongolian journey through Russia with a stop in Moscow plus some other Russia towns that we haven't decided on yet. This will go through Mongolia and into China and should take a couple of weeks. we will then travel down through China into Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand & Malaysia - our plans here are a little hazy but we will probably spend a couple of weeks in each one and possible do some volunteer work teaching English which gives us free accommodation in return.

Presuming we are still alive and still have money left the plan is to get a flight (our first one!) from somewhere in Malaysia into East Coast Australia. We probably won't spend too long here as Im guessing we won't have much money left by this point and when we are done we will fly over into New Zealand where we are planning on getting a working holiday visa which allows us to work and stay in New Zealand for up to a year!! If this all goes ok and we manage to save a little money whilst travelling round New Zealand, we hope to visit some of the pacific Islands and West Coast USA on the way home.

So that's it! This is all just a rough idea at the moment, and nothing is set in stone yet - we are still yet to actually book anything, arrange visa's, get insurance, get our backpacks - but hey Im sure we can do all that in 3 weeks! Makes it much more fun and gives us a lot more flexibility so when we are away we can enjoy out time in different places and not have to rush off in a fixed time schedule.

So until then we are going to be in Southend until 18th August planning and preparing, then heading up the Northern end of the country to see Ste's family for about 10 days, then coming back to Southend for August Bank Holiday weekend when we will be having our leaving drinks on Sunday August 30th at The Townhouse 7pm onwards - all of you are of course welcome.

Thanks for reading - any tips/advice muchly welcome! :p

See you soon

Layla & Ste xx

---

Comments

[Christie]

crazy kid
hey love! it all sounds amazing! Am extremely jealous but sooo excited for you - it sounds like you are doing it all in one!! SO GOOD! I know you've been wanting to travel for ages so good on ya for following your dreams! If you are goona be in the east of Australia then you have def gota meet up with Becky and probably by that time Emily will be living out there (slowly all my family are leaving me in shitty England..don't know why, maybe i smell or something?) Bex lives in Coogee bay which is about 20 mins on the bus outside of the city centre of Sydney and i am sure she would love to see you if you're gonna be there. I will def try and come to your leaving drinks on the sunday - would be great to see you cos it's been sooo long! Well hope all the plans come together and you manage to get everything done in the few weeks. love christie. p.s. one bit of advice - write a journal and take loadsa photos xxx