Geography has never been my strong point. Largely, I know of countries – I know of their food, their animals, their people. But as to where they fit into the jigsaw puzzle of the world, my knowledge left a little to be desired.
So when we started planning where we wanted to travel, I was in for a few sharp shocks. That individual countries in Africa were so large that they could blanket western Europe. That Sri Lanka is small, and Mongolia is huge. That busing between destinations in South America is a matter of days, not a matter of hours.
Our list of countries that we wanted to visit was quickly halved. And we extended our trip an extra month to accomodate what we had left. Then we reshuffled the order more times than I can count. We wanted to see the wildebeest cross the Mara River in July, we didn’t want to be in Europe in the peak season, we didn’t want to go tumbling down a mountain in Nepal during the monsoon.
We started planning the itinerary in June of 2018 and in December 2018 we booked a RTW ticket (which covered 16 of our 19 international flights).
Here’s how we decided where to go.
FIRM FAVOURITES
My partner Geoff and I each had our firm favourites which were considered non-negotiable. I have dreamed my whole life of a safari in Africa, and so there was never a chance that Tanzania would be struck from the list. Geoff really wanted to visit South America, so we strung together a concrete 6 week itinerary at the end of our trip(largely copying a G Adventures route). We have people to visit in Amsterdam and London, and were inspired by a friend who did a horse trek through Mongolia. Everything else had to move and flex around those points.
THE SEASONS
This is what decided our itinerary more than anything else. Everywhere we went, we aimed to stay in the shoulder season – the time just before or just after the peak tourist season. In most cases, this means we’re travelling in the equivalent of spring or autumn. Because we are doing this trip on a tight budget, we largely can’t afford the price hikes that come with travelling during the high season, not to mention the crowds and the difficulty booking accomodation and transport.
We have no love for the winter or monsoon seasons, so we completely avoided those months.
Once we started to filter by season (which was largely just searching ‘best places to visit in April’) our itinerary quickly started to take shape.
The one place where we land in peak season is Africa, specifically Tanzania, then onto Kenya and Ethiopia. This is because the end of July is prime time for animal action, and we didn’t want to compromise on our safari.
MONEY
Our estimated daily budget in Nepal is less than a third of what we’ve budgeted for parts of Europe. The reality is that even a tightly budgeted trip around the world like ours is rather expensive. Western Europe is overwhelmingly the most expensive two months in our trip, however countries like Singapore, South Korea, Jordan and Kenya all sit above average for our daily spend. We not going to North America or Australia, but if we were, we could expect them to eat considerably into our budget.
To counterbalance these expensive countries, we needed to plan for cheaper ones too. Sri Lanka, Nepal, Malaysia (and Malaysian Borneo) as well as Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina all sit under our average daily spend.
Because we’d already travelled to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, we left them off this trip, but these are all incredibly beautiful and budget-friendly countries
THE WORLD, THE BOOK
We have this little tank of a Lonely Planet called “THE WORLD.” No prizes for guessing the plot. It sat on our coffee table for the better part of a year, and while it was largely used as a tiny podium for our cats to sit on, it certainly helped us plan the trip.
It breaks down the 172 countries that Lonely Planet recommends to travellers (leaving out 22 considered too dangerous) into two-page chapters. Each chapter has a hundred-word sales pitch, a few insta-worthy stock photographs, a list of the top ten things to do, the top five things to eat and the best months to visit. It was the perfect thing to reach for when the inevitable ‘what about Bangladesh?’ conversation came up.
So after all that, this is where we decided to go. I’ve rounded off the dates into chunks so it’s easier to get an overview of the time spent in each place.
March:
- Sri Lanka // 1 month
- Singapore // 5 days
April/May:
- Nepal // ~2 weeks
- Malaysia/Malaysian Borneo // 1 month
- South Korea // ~2 weeks
June:
- Beijing // 1 week
- Mongolia // 2 weeks
July:
- Turkey // 2.5 weeks
- Jordan // 9 days
August:
- Tanzania and Kenya // 1 month
- Ethiopia // 1 week
September and October:
- Europe (using Eurail pass for transport) // 2 months
November:
- Colombia // 2 weeks
- Peru, Boliva and Chile // 3 weeks
December:
- Argentina // 2 weeks
