The Travel Thread

Originally posted by chaz:
Hoya has always struck me as being rather well-heeled for a student.

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
The trip he described sounded more like a 5-figure venture than a couple thousand. But whatevuh.

Originally posted by vansmack:
What's a coupole thousand dollars when you have a 6-figure mortgage in your head?

can't we just have fun brainstorming about trips without getting into peoples' finances?

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:
i'm looking to take a 4+ week trip in august/september/october, the world is my oyster, where would you go?

if you go to south america, do consider adding the galapagos to your itinerary. spendy, but absolutely mind-blowing. i can fill you in on what to look for in a good tour. a once-in-a-lifetime type trip (not that you can't go again… i'm hoping to).

if i had four weeks and relatively unlimited funds, i'd do a southeast asia tour. bali, thailand, cambodia, sri lanka, maybe throw in the maldives.

some good ideas here:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/travel/20071209_WHERE_GRAPHIC.html

for anyone else looking for inspiration

I spent almost 2 months in 2003 tromping around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and it was awesome. Even better, total cost, including airfare (got a sweet deal for $700) was just over three grand.

I strongly encourage you consider SE Asia. You get: serious culture shock, incredible history (esp in Cambodia and the Nam), and almost the most important part, unbelievably cheap prices. You can get your own room with bathroom for usually a couple dollars a day, and if you want to go lux, for $10-$15 a day. Plus a full meal will rarely cost more than a dollar or two, including drinks.

Cambodia is especially awesome because of Angkor Wat/Siem Reap. On my trip, I planned on spending three days in Siem Reap and ended up staying for 2 weeks.

Another bonus is that, unlike Europe, the locals think Americans walk on water, and you will always make friends wherever you are.

Yet another bonus is you can travel on your own, or you can choose to hook up with other fellow travelers. I spent a week traveling around with this british guy, who I'm still in touch with, and then after a couple weeks on my own, had a great 'travel affair' with an Irish woman for about a week until we got sick of each other. What was funny was that after we "broke up", we kept running into each other every couple hundred miles for the next couple weeks because we were heading in the same direction.

If I had 4 weeks I would go trekking in Sikkim.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E1DA163AF933A05752C1A9659C8B63&scp=1&sq=sikkim&st=nyt

I'm going on this in June and cant wait
http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/PHP

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
If I had 4 weeks I would go trekking in Sikkim.

i was looking at these trips:

http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/AHDS
http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/AHHL
http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/AHDK

does anyone know if the monsoon season in india gets significantly better in september/october as opposed to august?

Originally posted by Relaxer:
I spent almost 2 months in 2003 tromping around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and it was awesome.

this does sound great, i'm just trying to convince my g/f to buy into the culture shock factor … i might convince her to do bali/malaysia/s-thailand, then head out into laos/cambodia/vietnam

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
with 4+ weeks??? i'd do either australia and new zealand, or. . .some combo of india and thailand. . .

I'd do Australia/New Zealand, but if it's more like September, you're talking winter, which may not be optimum. A friend has 6 weeks and that was the issue he came up against – southern hemisphere trips in late summer are winter down there. Hence, northern S. America is appealing for that season.

Originally posted by Smylie:
I'm going on this in June and cant wait
http://www.gapadventures.com/tour/PHP

have you or anyone you know done a gap tour before? everything i read online seems great, but i'd just hate to realize 3 days into a 20+ day tour that i hate it … and i'm generally not a "package tour" person

and here i thought my measly week at an eighty degree low, american east coast beach was something special. perhaps i'll reread thompson's "the rum diary" to pretend i'm somewhere over the exotically liquored rainbow.

i took a month off last year and toured new zealand with a friend. all we had when we got to auckland was a friend to stay with for a couple of nights, a rental car, and return tickets. we drove all over both islands for the next few weeks, and had an amazing time. highly recommended. we went during winter here and the weather was incredible there. not sure if that would be the same with the timing you are looking at. if you want suggestions of places to go/things to do in nz, drop me a line.

i quit my job last year to do a little bit of traveling. i went on a 2 week guided tour of China with my mom . after doing the trip, i dont think i would ever do a guided tour again. not saying that it was a bad thing to do, but i wanted more free time to explore the cities.

a week after i got back from china i did a 6+ week solo backpacking trip around europe. easily the best experience of my life. freedom to go anywhere i wanted for as long as i wanted to. highlights of the trip were going to oktoberfest in munich, watching the sunset in croatia, and doing ice climbing on a glacier in switzerland. i went in september and october which was nice because the weather was good and it wasnt too crowded. if you dont mind living in a backpack for a few weeks i would highly recommend doing something similar. the downside is that the US dollar is weak in europe…

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
Big plans for a guy with no income.

google "post-bar trip", asshole

Assuming you just graduated I would recommend a contiki trip. http://contiki.com/destinations

They drive you around to the different destinations, drop you off in the downtown area with a map and say go explore on your own then meet at the bus at a certain time. You'll be in a group with people in your age group who are from all over the world.

I did a post-grad school 23 day Euro trip with them but they also offer more exotic locations like Aussie/NZ, Egypt, Bali or Russia.

If you haven't explored the possibility of travelling all over Europe with a Eurail pass, then you're really missing out on a great opportunity. Train travel is incredibly comfortable, scenic, affordable, and dependable. We're going to Munich for Oktoberfest at the end of September and then on to Prague before heading back to Germany, using the train as our main mode of transport.

Other thoughts…last year we went on a self-guided bike tour through Burgundy. Relatively easy biking, which is good since we stopped every hour in another winery and tried their wares.

Barcelona is gorgeous at that time of year. The tourists have thinned out but the weather is still comfortable. There are worst ways to spend a few days than checking out Gaudi's creations (especially Sagrada Familia) and hitting every tapas bar along Las Ramblas.

Another thought…use the ferry system in Greece and explore the islands - but not the usual suspects like Mykonos and Ios. For our honeymoon we took a sailboat and went to islands like Kifnos, Kea, Syros, and Sifnos. Some of these islands are too small to accept cruise ships but all are accessible by small boats. That's where you see real Med island life.

Yeah - that's it. Planes, trains, ferries, and bicycles. Do it all. Sept/Oct is a great time to see Europe!!

Get to Guyana and start from Georgetown going south to the Brazilian border, one week in Guyana, amazing country. Then from Boa Vista, in northern Brazil to Manaus. Couple of days in Manaus and then upstream in the Amazon to Peru. Then fly to Cuzco and cross to Bolivia through the Lake Titikaka, few days in Lake Titikaka, La Paz, Sucre, Potosi, Uyuni Salt Lake and cross to Chile and go south to Santiago and then go even further south or go to Buenos Aires finishing your trip in Rio or Salvador de Bahia.

this is awesome stuff, thanks so much for the recommendations

re: contiki, this company always struck me as a teens / early-20-somethings spring break party kind of thing, is that misplaced? i'm not that far removed from that age group, but i'm not really in the mood for going traveling with a bunch of 20 year olds

re: eurail pass, i did this when studying abroad in 2002 (when you could get 1 euro for less than 90 US cents), took a little more than 3 weeks to go on the train line from amsterdam down to naples, had the time of my life (and i owe it all to…)

right now i'm leaning towards starting out in bali and then going to se asia, maybe mixing in a shorter GAP tour with unplanned wandering … but still investigating

thanks again, any more daydreams / brainstorms / suggestions are much appreciated ….

i need ideas too. i'm taking a year off school and am planning to get a one way ticket to sweden. i want scandinavia so bad. sadly, i have no business being there. there's a place to stay but not an ideal one. i've got a lot of charisma and plenty of schemes in my head to be put toward staying past the alloted 3 months on a tourist visa but nothing's set in stone.
the only thing i'm demanding out of this year, besides a lot of fun, is that i learn a language through-and-through.

Originally posted by slowgraffiti:

the only thing i'm demanding out of this year, besides a lot of fun, is that i learn a language through-and-through.

If you're going to go through the effort of learning a language, at least make certain you learn a useful language. While Swedish will help bag some pretty hot ladies (or dudes) who are very likley to be taller than you, I think less than 10 Million people speak it.

When you get back and you don't have the opportunity to speak it often, it will go out of your head as quickly as you put it in.

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by slowgraffiti:

the only thing i'm demanding out of this year, besides a lot of fun, is that i learn a language through-and-through.

If you're going to go through the effort of learning a language, at least make certain you learn a useful language. While Swedish will help bag some pretty hot ladies (or dudes) who are very likley to be taller than you, I think less than 10 Million people speak it.

When you get back and you don't have the opportunity to speak it often, it will go out of your head as quickly as you put it in.

you're a bigger buzzkill than rhett!