I started this blog back in February 2006 when I was getting ready to go to Europe for about seven weeks.
Now, coming up six years later – I’m planning to do something like it again.
This time I’ll be travelling with one of my Uncles (Mitch).
When and Where are we going? Not sure yet – we’re just throwing around some ideas.
How long for? Also not sure, but at this stage thinking something like four weeks. We spent about three weeks in NZ in 2010.
What do we want to do? Well, neither of us are really drinkers or party goers – but we both like food, and music, and things like that.
Not sure if how we’ll divide up the time either – I’m not keen on spending all our time in one country – I’d like to travel around a bit. Car or Bus or something is possible.
Current destination countries/ideas being tossed up:
* Vietnam
* Spain (apparently this is where the slow food movement started?)
* Canada (The great lakes, and forests look like particularly nice places)
* Italy (Tuscany I’d really love to go back to)
* Norway
* Denmark
* Iceland (Volcanoes and Fjords together – But this is probably an impossibility given cost of flights/etc)
If you had four weeks off work next year (say Mid-spring to Mid-Autumn) and a modest budget – where would you go, what would you see, and why?
Hey Will,
I don’t care where you go so long as you blog about the food you are eating so I can live through you!
JK.
Seriously, I hope you have a wonderful trip. Wish I was more travel-experienced to be able to give you some good advice. If you ever want to go to Fiji I know just the place…
If I was going to Denmark I would check out some serious Lego, but that is just my interest!
Pat’s long service leave comes up at the end of next year (can’t believe he has been doing this job for that long…) We are talking about doing a trip, but will have to see how that pans out.
Have you compared the plane tickets at oneworld.com to other options?
If your budget is modest you need to scrap Norway, (and any Scandinavian type place) quick example of why. My parents were there 2 years ago, brought two gourmet salad rolls and two coffees, cost them $42AUD.
I’m all about Vietnam, was there nearly 5 years ago and would hop on a plane in an instant to go back if I could, better than Vietnam though is the country directly to the left, Cambodia. Now that place has my heart for all eternity. Even though I’ve found all the south East Asian countries have the same view of westerners “they have money, get it from them” there was something about the Cambodian people that didn’t make me feel like I was constantly being scammed. Angkor Wat is the biggest tourist attraction in Cambodia, and damn it is beyond worth it; trust me you’ll never run out of amazing things to photograph there. Also the killing fields and the genocide museum, while not happy fun places are amazing to see first-hand.
Ok so back to Vietnam, which was where you are actually thinking about going. I went south to north, experiencing so many things, river tour of Mekong Delta, cooking class is Hue (hands down most beautiful city in Vietnam) rode bikes through countryside, visited the car which the infamous burning Monk drove and killed himself in front of, canoed on Halong bay (after our drunken boat captain smashed into another boat) visited a monastery and spelt on quite a few overnight trains (which will always suck, but Vietnam has far better trains then Thailand, which are pure arse)
As I said I was there nearly 5 years ago, and since then out dollar is stronger, taking out flights/accommodation as my brother and I did partially intrepid tours in seven weeks in Asia (Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam/china) i spent less than $2000 on all my food, gifts, entries to various things, some travel and accommodation. Food is great in both places, in Vietnam you have to have passionfruit juice, it’s heavenly and they have great bakeries (thank you France) For example, at the end of our Vietnam tour we were staying in the country a bit longer, so we checked out of our ‘expensive’ hotel and found one down the street that while wasn’t fancy, it had two beds, bathroom, and cooling all for $10UDS a night (the expensive tour hotel was a whopping $30USD a night)
And now I will stop talking, I think I’ve made it my mission to get as many people as possible to Vietnam (and Cambodia) Also if your uncle bails, I’ll more than happily go!!!