£10,000 Budget. First Time Traveller. Slightly Overwhelmed

Also wondernig if i should pick up tome of the LP travel guides. I can get them on my Kindle for £8 odd each. Thinking of getting South East Asia on a shoestring, Australia and maybe India (however India is a bit more expensive). That way ive got them with me but not lugging massive books around.

00blamal, I do not agree with some of the comments you are being given and I would ask those making them to re-consider their advice to you as an overwhelmed, first time traveller.

It is very easy to be overwhelmed and it is very easy to be led down the wrong path when things that should be a given are assumed or ignored. Some of the posters above are not taking where you are coming from as a new traveller into consideration.

First, cost is not the most important factor in travel, the most important factor to consider is interests. Where do you want to visit and what interests you about those places. Not all places are equal contrary to what some of the above comments might suggest. Thailand is not the same as Australia and not necessarily as interesting to you. We have no way of knowing what interests you and to suggest cutting a country without knowing what would interest you makes no sense. To suggest cutting it based on cost, only makes sense if both were of equal interest to you. So NO, it is not logical or obvious which countries you should cut.

You need to do your own research on which countries are likely to interest you the most and make your OWN decisions on where you will visit. I know it is overwhelming but asking others to give you the answers will only get you THEIR answers, not the answers that best fit YOU.

Any trip requires you to juggle 3 factors. Money, time and interests. Money is usually fixed. Time contrary to what many think is not fixed. It may have a maximum time available but it is not fixed. So what you want to do is try and figure out how much time you can afford based on seeing/doing what interests you in descending order of priority.

If you want to visit 15 countries and figure you will need 15 months to see and do what you want to in each of them, then the first question is do you have 15 months available? If not, you remove countries based on priority of interest not cost until you meet the time available. If time is unlimited you skip that step and go on to step 2 which is eliminating countries from the bottom of your interest priority list, dependent on funds available. If your funds will only stretch to visiting the first 5 countries on your list for the amount of time you want to spend in each, then that is your final list. The rest will have to wait till next time.

What you DO NOT DO under any circumstances is put cost ahead of interests. So now 00blamal, do your homework. Decide which countries YOU want to visit in order of priority and then figure out how many you can afford given your budget.

PS.

Travel guides on an e-reader are one of the truly useful advances in technology for the traveller. The cellphone on the other hand is a just a money waster for travellers. Leave the phone at home is always my advice.

I'd agree w/ post #11 in principle. You should definitely choose places that interst and appeal to you. But there's no travel experience more frustrating than arriving in a beautiful place like New Zealand close to the end of your trip and discovering that you just can't afford to do anything or go anywhere.

The reverse order is definitely better for your budget. Whichever way you go, there is still the weather/climate to consider. You haven't mentioned your start date, or planned windows to visit each continent.

Thats for all the advice so far. Especially #11.

With regards to start date/ length of time in each country. I've not really decided yet. Just trying to decide which countries i definitely want to visit as advised. Seems like the most sensible route to take to start with. Hopefully i'll delve a little deeper into each one today and come up with a list.

All the countried mentioned earlier appeal to me greatly for different reasons. With regards to South East Asia I just want to go out and get lost in their culture as its something that currently alien to me. They live a completely different way of life.

I plan to start sometime after February next year (doesnt really matter when) when im actually made redundant but thought i'd plan ahead. I need to research climates etc. to get a better itinerary sorted.

Had an email back from Travel Nation:

They said it would be cheaper to to America, then Australia and back through SEA.

They quoted in the region of £1600 including all taxes for:

London - Las Vegas
(Make my own way to San Francisco)
San Francisco - Hawaii
Hawaii - Sydney
Sydney - Bali
(Make my own way round SEA to Shanghai)
Shanghai - London

If i took Hawaii out i'd be looking at a price of under £1400 apparently he said.

So, only question is from Bali - Shanghai taking in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Beijing.... Do-able without flights?

I may ask them if they could make the return leg from Shanghai instead and do the coast of China too.

Yes, the region is totally doable by local budget airlines, and without your RTW company. It's usually cheaper that way, because the budget airlines mostly don't make their fares available to RTW travel companies, and definitely you'll have more flexibility. But remember, even w/ budget airlines, normal rules for advance booking still apply. So, the further you advance book, the less you're likely to spend on airfare.

For starters try [www.airasia.com] and [www.tigerairways.com]. These do offer some flights to China, but China also has it's own discount airlines which fly to a few places in SE Asia, so there's plenty of competition to keep fares low. Also Indonesia has a few budget airlines of it's own.

Surely you didn't mean land travel all the way, by ferry from Indonesia to Malaysia? It's doable via Sumatra but would be a huge headache, very time consuming, and would cost more than a budget flight from Jakarta or Bali.

I did mean overland. Not really started looking at the logistics of it yet though. Might be easier to book the individual flights as and when we get to South East Asia?

How much of it it do-able by land when i get to Thailand to go through, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos etc?

Blaine

Edited by: 00blamol

You can do everything overland once you get to Singapore or Malaysia, all the way through to Vietnam if you want. It just takes time and patience. It's only the getting out of Indonesia part which is best by air.

And sure, you can book your air travel locally to add flexibility. And if you skip the travel agent and book air several weeks in advance, it can be so cheap that it competes with bus or train travel. Also, if you want to use trains in Thailand, make sure to book several days in advance. Buses are easier, but the trains seem to fill up.