Thinking about traveling? Maybe we can help...

Our recommendations for planning a trip around the world:

- Everywhere you go, there will be many more things to do and places to see than you have time or budget for.
- Staying in one place for at least several days both helps the budget and your sense of getting to know a place.
- Booking individual one-way flights well ahead of time may be cheaper than a round the world (RTW) ticket. Give travel agents a wide window for checking flight prices (i.e. any time within a week) because prices fluctuate wildly!
- Basic things like soap, shampoo, bottled water, sunscreen, and batteries (and even stuff like Oreos and Coke!) are available everywhere - even in tiny towns in the middle of Africa.
- All inclusive packages (i.e. safaris, liveaboard dive trips, island resorts) usually don't include water or snacks, which can add up.
- Endeavour off the beaten path to visit places that are non-touristy to give yourself a more authentic experience in a place: attend cultural events, eat at night markets, ride the local bus, strike up a conversation with shop keepers, etc.
- Check baggage weight limits ahead of time when flying to avoid tearing your bag apart in the airport or paying big extra fees.
- Don't necessarily go by other travellers' opinions of a place - we heard that Bangkok was awful and loved it, and vice versa for Phnom Penh.


Things you can't leave home without:

- headlamp
- universal sink plug
- power plug adapters
- bed liner (silk sleeping bag)
- Lonely Planet guidebooks
- duffel bag to put big packs in for planes and buses
- money belt
- hand sanitizer
- Visa card
- passport (duh)
- clothesline & pegs
- tons of memory cards for camera
- sunglasses & sunscreen
- toilet paper for developing countries


Things we should have left at home:

- mosquito nets (some places had them, other places just didn't have mosquitos!)
- extra toiletries (you can buy them absolutely everywhere)
- most of the first aid kit stuff we brought (though if we needed it we might think otherwise)
- cell phone
- half the cards in our wallets
- heavy cable lock (but used our small/light cable locks often to lock bags closed)
- reusable water bottles (most places you had to buy 1 or 2L bottles rather than refilling from bigger ones)
- jewellry (who was I kidding - you don't need pretty earrings to go with trekking pants and grubby shirts!)
- travel sized chopsticks and cutlery
- any notion that we could stick to our budget!


Observations we've made while traveling around the world:

- Beer is cheaper than water in Cambodia.
- Wild elephants are really scary when encountered on foot.
- Nothing ever dries in the jungle.
- Chickens and stray dogs are friggin' everywhere!
- Most countries leave dirty sheets on hotel beds for multiple guests (so nasty!).
- Canada seems to have a good reputation everywhere we went.
- Vietnamese women are obsessed with lightening their skin.
- "Moderately spicy" means very different things to different countries.
- Nobody recycles anything.
- Plastic bags are given away for every item you purchase, even when it's completely unnecessary. Some places had never seen reusable bags before.
- Men everywhere smoke - almost all men in Indonesia do, yet almost no women smoke anywhere we went!
- People in small towns, from Zambia to Thailand, were friendly, welcoming, and happy to see visitors.
- Fresh mangoes and pineapples make ours at home taste like cardboard.
- Religion is the focus of so many cultures that it dictates not only how people live their lives, but why.
- Sand dunes are a bitch to climb.
- Southeast Asian people love their babies and their motorbikes equally, but the babies get washed once a week and the bikes get washed every day.
- Things cost about 5 to 10 times less in southeast Asia than in Europe and North America.
- Thai ladyboys aren't as convincing as we thought they would be.
- There are dozens of types of bananas.
- Australia's roads have more animal warning signs than anywhere else - kangaroos, koalas, bats, emus, cassowaries (huge birds), crocodiles, womats, and even hedgehogs!
- National Geographic moments really do happen on safari in Africa.
- There's no point in trying to order western food in eastern countries, as the dish is almost always a lousy attempt at a western replica, never satisfying the original craving.
- Australia's roads have stupidly high speed limits - often 100km/hr on narrow bumpy country roads where 60km/hr barely feels safe!
- Some of nature's most memorable sounds include kookaburras laughing, waves crashing, elephants trumpeting, hippos chuckling, and the chorus of thousands of frogs at night.
- Unthinkable amounts of rainforest have been destroyed for the crops of palm oil, rice, and sugar cane all over the world's tropical regions.
- Gecko-like lizards live on walls in warm countries all over the world!
- Coral reefs are being harmed on a daily, routine basis by divemasters around the world who have bad habits (not to mention careless visiting divers). We were led by supposed professionals in every country we dove in (Tanzania, Malawi, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, and Fiji) who repeatedly touched coral, kicked or stood on coral, and intentionally handled marine life (like agitating a puffer fish to make it puff up for the tourists, petting eels and turtles, poking frogfish, etc.). Collectively, their careless behaviour will not only slowly destroy the reefs, but it will encourage the hundreds of divers they are in contact with each year to do the same. Rant over.
- Thais, Fijians, and Indonesians consider it masculine for men to wear sarongs (wrap skirts) and a flower behind their ears.
- People are always happy when a visitor tries to use a few words of their local language.
- Politics and government were corrupt and ineffective in many of the countries we visited.
- Most countries in the world have a reckless regard for garbage, and few have the infrastructure to deal with it.
- Celine Dion and Shania Twain songs followed us everywhere we went - from Malaysian jungles and Vietnamese cities to Fijian cafes!


Average travel costs in the places we went (Canadian $):

- Average cost per person per day (staying in cheap double rooms and eating basic food, including buses and some activities but excluding things like flights and scuba diving):

London $80, Africa in general $70 (on organized safari), Singapore $45, Malaysia $25, Cambodia $30, Vietnam $35, Thailand $30, Indonesia $30, Australia $50 (camping in campervan), Fiji $70

- Average cost of 1.5L bottle of water:

London $3, Africa in general $0.50, Singapore $2, Malaysia $1, Cambodia $1, Vietnam $1, Thailand $0.50, Indonesia $0.50, Australia $3, Fiji $3

- Average cost of a beer:

London $5, Africa in general $2.50, Singapore $5, Malaysia $3, Cambodia $1, Vietnam $1.50, Thailand $2 (huge bottles!), Indonesia $2, Australia $4.50, Fiji $2.50

- Average cost of a cheap double hotel room:

London $100, Singapore $65, Malaysia $25, Cambodia $10, Vietnam $19, Thailand $10, Indonesia $15, Australia $55, Fiji $30

- Average cost of a guy's haircut:

Africa $6, Malaysia $5, Vietnam $4, Thailand $8, Australia $13

- Average cost of 1 hour of internet time:

Africa (in general) $0.50, Singapore $2, Malaysia $1, Cambodia $0.50, Vietnam $0.50, Thailand $2, Indonesia $2, Australia $4.50, Fiji $5

- Average cost of cheap dinner (per person):

London $15, Singapore $5 (street markets), Malaysia $4, Cambodia $6, Vietnam $9, Thailand $7, Indonesia $8, Australia $12, Fiji $10


Resources we used:

- Flight Centre (http://www.flightcentre.com/) Cheap flights and great agents
- GAP Adventures (http://www.gapadventures.com/) Awesome package trips all over the globe
- Air Asia (http://www.airasia.com/) The cheapest way to hop around Asia
- Hippie Camper (http://www.hippiecamper.com/) The best budget way to get around Australia
- Taka Dive (http://www.takadive.com/) Awesome liveaboard dive trips on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
- Similan Dive Safaris (http://www.similan-diving-safaris.com/) Good, cheap liveaboard dive trips to the Similan Islands, western Thailand
- Lonely Planet (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/) You'd be crazy to leave home without a LP guidebook. Good online forum too.
- Wayalailai Eco Haven Resort (http://www.wayalailairesort.com/) Perfect budget spot in Fiji's Yasawa Islands