Our Around The World Itinerary... For Now

Only three months until we leave and I must admit we’re a bit nervous because even though we prepared as much as we can, it still feels like we’re unprepared as f***. Then again, excitement certainly starts to take the upper hand in our brains so we can’t wait to start off our around the world journey.

The itinerary has changed a lot over the last few months: Trans-Siberian railway maybe? China, yes? Japan, no? The dotted red line has been twisting and bending like crazy but it starts to settle down now. Still, don’t give us a hard time if we don’t keep to this travel itinerary because it can and will change along the way.

Our around the world itinerary

The decision maker for the greater part of our travel route was and is our budget but luckily a lot of countries that are at the top our bucket list are really cheap. We want to make the most out of our budget but we still want to be comfortable and not have to eat rice for weeks or ride trains on the roof with a bajillion other people.

India

The decision to start in India is a peculiar one because neither me nor Joanna ever had this country on our list before we started researching. We had the same prejudices: Too hot, too dirty, too busy and too weird. Then I saw a documentary about India and my perception started to change. After reading some more about the country and discovering Steve McCurry’s pictures of India, I decided it would be a great place to start and I was able to convince Joanna and even though she's not 100% convinced yet; because we have no fixed itinerary, we can get out whenever we want. I do hope we can spend around two months here before we go on to the next country. The reason we start in the South is because I’ve read that it’s an easy start when it’s your first time in India. Let’s hope it is...

The rest of the dotted red line

Nepal is the second country we want to visit, basically because we both think the Himalayan mountains are awesome and after that we'll try to cover most of South East Asia where our must-see countries are Malaysia and Indonesia. A lot of the time here we’ll be driven by food as we both love Asian food.

By then we want to fly into Australia but not before we do an extensive budget check as it will be a lot more expensive from here on. We’re not sure yet if we want to rent a minivan or buy a car that we can sell again at the end of our stay. We would definitely appreciate tips and advice on that!

Then it gets a bit hazy. We want to travel around the world but we don’t know how much money we’ll have left or if we’re going to get tired of it all. Ideally, we would like to fly from New Zealand to South America but there’s absolutely no plan for that now and it will depend on our budget.

Country Summary

So, for now, these are the countries on our route around the world we would like to visit (to start with):

India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.