Taking a year to go travelling?

[Chris100682]

Me and my girlfriend are thinking of taking a year out of our current jobs and going travelling around the world. Does anyone know any good starting points I could make for this plan of action? (good websites, information etc)

Also, is it possible to do something where I stay with a family in say.... Australia? something similar to a exchange

Your thoughts are certainly most welcome....

Chris

[SKCOLL]

We're not long back from a RTW trip. We spent 3 months in Asia, 3 months in Oz & NZ, 3.5 months in South America (Including the Galapagos) and 2.5 months in the states. Because we wanted the states we had no choice but Trailfinders - none of the other companies could do what we wanted. We ended up with a 20 flight ticket and had an absolute ball. Trailfinders were extremely good and gave us mostly great advice. Our general budgets after flights, insurance, clothes, jabs was......Asia budget = 21 stlg @ day (Cambodia was more expensive because of Angkor Wat..say 40 @ day), Oz & NZ = 74 @ day, SA = 32 @ day, States = 100 @ day. This was doing everything - tours, accommodation, eating well.....you could do it cheaper if you needed.....we also didn't work at all.

You should actually try to think where you want to go first before going near an agent. What do you want to see? Asia was the most different, Oz & NZ were the most fun.

Lonely Planet website is good for general info but can be hard to navigate properly.

Try http://www.artoftravel.com/ which we used quite a lot.

A lot of what you need will depend on what you think you want to do.....very sporty to lazy!

Stewart

[luckystrike]

SKCOLL gives good advice!

Here is a link to a thread I was involved with recently.

[mash]

Things to consider: 1. How much money do you have, major consideration in terms of how many flights, daily spending and locations you visit (create a budget planner for your trip and add to it as you organise things). 2. Health issues, what medication will you need, what can you take and what will you neeed to get. 3. Where do you really want to see, avoid having to conform to standard backbacker routes and go where is important to you. 4. Use all your agent bookings to best advantage, loads of stop over, additional flights and trips can be negociated at no cost. 5. Don't feel you have to commit to any particular named travel agent (STA, Trailfinders etc etc), try them all and use one where they have an experienced traveller helping you and keep using that person. Its the person not the agent that really matters in your planning. 6. Plan your visas well. You may be able to arrange some at home and other will need to be sorted while your away. Have this reasonably clear in your plans. 7. Try not to be too rigid with your schedule, allow for the inevitable difficulties and that you may fall in love with a place and want more time. 8. Post things home when your done with them (travel guides,souveniers etc), theres always really cheap slow boat options! 9. Take half the clothes you first pack!!