[GeraniumQueen]

Hi EB Travelholics

Per popular demand this is a branch out from the USA Travel thread for Travel addicts going/having been anywhere in the world!

Come and share and chat, get/give advice and be inspired for your next trip!

[~CTCT~]

GOLD!!!!

[starsg]

Silver

I am currently daydreaming about my next European adventure, I want to go for around a year. I'd love to hear from anyone with experience going for that long, was it difficult to budget etc? It would have to be a partially working holiday I think. I've been through SE Asia, Europe and parts of the USA before so I've done a bit of travel but want to get into the proper adventurous stuff- no tours, just me and a backpack long haul!

looking forward to reading about others experiences and plans!

[Faith_Hope_Love]

Wow a year??? I defiantly have not been away that long. I think I would get very home sick!

I've traveled to USA 3 times (just about seen it all now), I've also being to NZ and the cook islands. We are traveling back to America next year - our first holiday with bub. She will be 5 months old. After that in 2014 I would like to try Europe, but just not sure how to do it with a toddler. Also we like motorhoming and this is very easy to do in America, but not so sure about how it would go in Europe.

[Peanut]

This post has been edited by Peanut: 13/07/2012, 10:53 PM

[carls888]

Silver

I am currently daydreaming about my next European adventure, I want to go for around a year. I'd love to hear from anyone with experience going for that long, was it difficult to budget etc? It would have to be a partially working holiday I think. I've been through SE Asia, Europe and parts of the USA before so I've done a bit of travel but want to get into the proper adventurous stuff- no tours, just me and a backpack long haul!

looking forward to reading about others experiences and plans!

Hey cool this thread has appeared!

starsg, we are off at the end of next year for an undetermined length of holiday/travel lifestyle.
We don't know if we will even come back to Australia at all.

We are selling everything: our business, cars, house, furniture and just going. It is actually cheaper than living in Australia, unless you want to stay in the Four Seasons every night!! LOL.

I have just done a blog post, as we have announced it to our family and we have had mixed responses, some have asked if we have won the lotto, about costs and places you can stay.

We plan on staying in cheaper countries for 4-6 months of the year and more expensive ones for 6-8 months. Even in Europe this can be done by visiting Eastern Europe for a while.

That said, we will also slow travel and rent apartments when we can and stay between 1-3 months in places.

DH and I did 18 months before we were married, we just took off (after saving heaps) and travelled. Not working, just travelling.

We always promised ourselves that we would do it with our children so it's been a dream for many years and we have been pretty focused.

C

[seayork2002]

I love idea but unfortuantely when we feel like travelling it tends to be to live (UK and Australia and back and forward....so far......was going to be Malta at one stage...........and I nearly moved to the US when I was younger twice )

sorry for the waffle

One thing we want to do is go from Singapore to Malaysia by train

[Jo_P]

Yay, so glad this thread got started!!!

We have our West Coast USA trip this year, Hawaii flights booked for Easter next year and the "plan" for 2014 is England and surrounds, to see all of my family (my parents grew up in England but immigrated here when I was a baby and I've never been back) and also for dh's 50th birthday!

Carls888, I dream every day of doing what you and your family are planning to do, I am so jealous!!
Do you and dh have jobs that you can easily return to? this is our issue. My dh has had the same job for 22 years, working for someone else, and if he left it obviously wouldn't be there when he returned and I'm not sure at his age (not being mean, just practical) how easy it would be for him to find a new job.
This is the thing that is stopping us, not havng anything to come back to.

[carls888]

Carls888, I dream every day of doing what you and your family are planning to do, I am so jealous!!
Do you and dh have jobs that you can easily return to? this is our issue. My dh has had the same job for 22 years, working for someone else, and if he left it obviously wouldn't be there when he returned and I'm not sure at his age (not being mean, just practical) how easy it would be for him to find a new job.
This is the thing that is stopping us, not havng anything to come back to.

JoP

we don't have jobs we can return to as when we sell our business we will most likely have a caveat that we cannot start another one within a certain time period yadda yadda...

But we belive that we can use our experience and our dream is to start a location independent business which will allow us to keep travelling and live anywhere in the world.

There are so many families out there doing it and in fact one old member from EB is living the dream and I follow her blog.

This is a really great read:

article

But it is scary, as the unknown always is, but the crazy thing for us is that it will be cheaper than living in Australia by a huge amount.

We have been saving for 13 years together and investing so we will have money to do it, it's not something we are planning on a whim.

Our belief is that life is short and you will always find work wherever you are.

C

[~Kee~In~Hawaii~]

Hi all

I'm so glad this went from a passing idea thrown around in the USA travel thread to something real. Thanks GQ!

Anyone who knows me on here knows I'm a travel junkie and am always planning the next trip (or 2) before I've even returned from the first one. DH and I have been to Hawaii every year for the last 6 years - it's my favourite place in the world. We just did mainland USA and Hawaii in April and have already booked to go back in March of next year. We saw Las Vegas, Miami, the Bahamas (via cruise), New York City and Hawaii. This next trip, we are going to San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles (Disneyland at last!) and then Hawaii again. We were meant to be sailing from Sydney to Hawaii with Celebrity Cruises but that cruise ended up being the same amount as another mainland trip so we cancelled it and chose to go back to the USA to do the "long as your arm" list of things we still wanted to do there. We have added the Pacific Crossing cruise to a lower spot on the list of travel plans - we will do it, one day.

I already have the plans worked out for a European trip in 2014. It will only be 4 weeks but in that time we will see London, Paris, Italy, Spain, Greece, Tunisia and do 2 7-day cruises. I'll post that itinerary in another post later I'm sure.

Another trip we are hoping to do around 2016 is a world cruise. DH and I love cruising and have found a cruise with Princess Cruises that is 105 days from Sydney to Sydney, taking in Asia, Africa (although limited so it's on the list to go back), India, Europe, the Middle East ... basically it has all the far-away places I am longing to see. Egypt, Petra, Dubai, Singapore, Mumbai, Istanbul, Iceland, Nova Scotia ... you get the idea. It is a $50,000 holiday before you factor in spending money but being that it's a cruise, all your food etc is included.

DH and I are also stuck on the idea of getting to Singapore and Malaysia soon and those coupon deals that get emailed to us all the time are such a temptation. Some of the accommodation is so cheap and yet so beautiful that we have a had time not buying them. I think at some point we will give in and get a coupon and that will be the kick up the bum that we need to get organised for an Asian adventure.

starsg: Your European trip sounds amazing! DH is Italian so the family really put the pressure on us to bump the Europe trip up the list and do it sooner but we have had a lot of trouble getting past the fantastic US$ exchange rate the last year so we keep going back to America (that and JoP encouraging me! lol). I see footage on tv of Europe all the time and would love to do an extended trip but our 4 week journey will have to be it for the moment. It's nowhere near as much Europe as I'd like but I know we'll go back again at some later stage. At this point in time we have London, Paris, Milan, Venice, Dubrovnik, Corfu, Olympia, Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Genoa, Naples, Sicily, Tunisia, Barcelona, Marselle, Florence and Rome on the list. I have family in Germany so future plans will be more inland and probably be focussed around river cruising and I'd love to see Prague too.

Mrs Collins: What was the Cook Islands like? I have seen a little bit of it - mainly on things like Getaway - and it looks amazing. I have an obsession with there and Bora Bora but Bora Bora won when we booked the Pacific Cruise which we have now cancelled. I think I could make better use of my time just flying to Tahiti and taking the sea plane to Bora Bora for a week there, rather than do 17 days of sailing just to spend 7 hours on the island.

carls: I cannot wait for your amazing lifestyle over-haul. It's going to be incredible for you and your kids to have real freedom. I have said so many times to DH that we want to just pick up and go and we are very lucky that DH's second job is very email/online oriented so he could do it from anywhere (and did indeed do work while we were in America last trip) but I am only just training in an industry that I am afraid I will get stuck in if I lose sight of my goals so I am reminding myself everyday that it's the true freedom of being able to go anywhere you like that has me pursuing the path I am on. Hopefully I won't take a detour and get stuck in one place!

Sorry this post has gone on forever! When I start on about travelling, I just can't stop! I'll shoosh now and end with a few of my favourite sayings that I heard in random places but which always pop into my head when I'm having a bad day at work or just feel annoyed to be not booking flights etc. They always get the travel bug in me going again

"Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer."

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights, it is a change that does on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."

"Not all those who wander are lost."

And a fantastic tip:

"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money."