Hello there,
I am currently living in Melbourne on my working holiday visa and now that I saved a good bit of money for future travels I want to go on.
A plan that seems quite appealing to me is to go from here via great ocean road to adelaide, from there via ghan train (which is cheaper through rock tours I guess) to alice springs, do the ayers rock tour and go to darwin to go to the kakadu national park. Rock tours also offers a 2 day trip through this park.
My whole outback experience would therefor be in the hands of a tourguide, whcih does not trouble me too much as I heard it is quite hard to get around and get around well on your own. I would like to hear your opinions and experiences on this as well, but here I come to my main question.
I really want to go to south east asia from darwin but here I am not too sure how to and how easy it is in the end.
I would like to see as much as possible but as a backpacker I have only a not too high budget.
As there is so much I would like to see, I stumbled upon tours form e.g. sta travel.
here for instance is a 30 days tour from bangkok to bangkok via vietnam kambodia laos and thailand http://g.statravel.co.uk/trips/indochina-discovery/ATID/2013/
would this be an advisable tour to do? or do those kind of tours make you feel more like a tourist than you wish? I am of course looking for the most unique travelexperience I can get but I am not an advanced traveler just yet.. would it be doable or even cheaper without a tour? how easy is it to get around there on your own, book flights on the spot etc and accomodation.
I also wish to go to Indonesia and Philippines, but I am sure there are also great places I haven't even thought of which someone of you traveled through and loved!
As you see, I barely know anything of traveling through this region and the region itself, but i can not wait to see a lot of land culture and people.
In relation to my other plans (NZ, australia etc) and my visaexpirationdate I guess I can give this whole trip up to 2 months, maybe more, maybe less.
I am so looking forward to hear your guidelines tips and also stories!
Thank you all so much,
Sophia x
Can't really help you on the Oz part...maybe you should post that on the specific branch.
I did all that by hire car and bus,and then flew Darwin-Indonesia...not sure on the current availability of those flights though
On the SE Asia part...absolutely no need for a tour.
It is easy to do 'alone',it is much cheaper to do so,and it is a much more interesting and fulfilling experience.
Plus..you don't have to be 'alone' if you don't want to...there are loads of backpackers,especially in the most famous parts of the area.
Two months for the whole trip is not a lot though...SE Asia is quite slow to travel in (unless you just fly from major 'sight' to major 'sight'...lots of large,spread out countries (in particular Indo and the Philippines).
SEA does not require a tour, it's very cheap and easy to travel on your own. You can book cheap flights using AirAsia, and once on land busses from place to place are pretty cheap. The usual daily budget is around US$25-$40ish. I averaged about US$30 in 2009. Malaysia and Laos I found a tad more expensive, but not by that much, and Indonesia was the cheapest.
trusted partner
