The Travelling Fund; £10,000 in 10 months!!!

clippy_girl

one of my colleagues at work used to go on cycle holidays with her husband before they had kids. they went all over to places like Vietnam. she said they used to just take their bike and a small bag and just cycle around stopping where they liked the look of without planning anything!

nsk when i was in new zealand i met a guy who had stayed in oz for a while and he had bought a motorbike there and traveled about loads on it. he said it was absolutely amazing! perhaps if you would like to do it you could buy (and the sell) or hire one for places you feel more confident of it being safe, being able to fix etc.. and do that for a bit. the freedom must be amazing!

right all this talk of travel- i am going to research india in for oct/nov to make sure weather is ok (i was going to go in march but decided to get debt free first :A) and contact my friend to see if she is up for it. sta are doing their deposit offer again where you can pay £49 deposit and rest 10 weeks before travel so i could book the flight and tour for about £150 now and then save up once i have cleared debt :j

NinjaSavingKat

Good Morning Diary Hunters...

Well I have been getting on with things over the last few days. I was not very busy at work on Friday so took to researching visa's as although I thought perhaps £2000 extra might cover all bases I needed to check that this was possible.

So if I were to do the train through to Almaty as suggested the visas would be totalling £610 minus the ones that I can't get on-line due to the country restrictions (Iran and one other I can't remember) so I would allow a further £200 for them estimating about £800 for visas alone...

I would list them for you but I left my diary at my friends house last night - we were chatting about the benefits about taking / not taking a small laptop with me...:rotfl::rotfl:

THEN I went out for a couple of hours to meet a guy to has returned from Africa for the holiday period to get tyres for his epic motorbike ride to Cape Town having left his bike in Gambia.. he has taken a laptop with him and he made sense - so that is sorted. I am taking a laptop not that I would have even considered going without one but this puts me at ease... He is a friend of a friend and decided to have a chat with me about my epic travelling - glad I did. Makes me want to leave even more....

So the visas were located after a quick search here but I intend to have a better look and contact the embassy although there are concerns with some of these countries there's no harm in trying right..?:T:T:T

Inoculations were next on the list - considering where I want to go I am looking at diphtheria, typhoid, HEP B and HEP A, Japanese B Encephalitis, tetanus, polio, measles(?), Rabies, Cholera, Tuberculosis, and not to mention the malaria tablets I would have to invest in... so considering most countries only suggest a few and Burma wants all of them I will be covered.... They might be roughly £75 each masimum - hopefully - estimating another £825...

SO we are already up to £1625 - without passport prices, basic equipment ( rucksack etc ), meds that I need to carry with me.. stuff like diarrhoea tables (nice) and flights....

So I am pushing that up to a rough £3500 extra just in case.. Which means I need to tuck away £1350 each month.... and there is a sudden desperate need for more overtime.

I can see this turning into a mad hash of overtime again like last year....:rotfl::rotfl:

Anyway I am currently attempting to down-size everything I have as I have mentioned a few times too many. I have books for sale on eBay about to go today, another lot of vintage teacups etc that will end in a few days and plans to give my bed to my friends, camping gear to my church, more books to the charity shop ( already sold £250 worth of books back to Amazon and these are the ones that weren't accepted), and clothes to get sent to the charity shop...

Baby-sitting today and procrastinating - need to get my butt in gear as I am at work early tomorrow and out all day.. so I shall answer questions in a little bit....

Fmess

Kat I seem to remember you saying you have too many towels? My local animal shelter is always asking for towels and blankets for the animals, so you may have a local shelter that would be grateful of your surplus? Just a thought....

lionheartedgirl

Happy New Year Kat, and what an exciting one it's going to be!

If you haven't got it already, check out the Adventure Motorcycling Handbook by Chris Scott - a few years old now but simply awesome. I met him at a travel expo and he's a great guy years ago I had half planned a trip to Morocco on my bike but ended up with an injury from something else and it all went by the by.

This year's trips will involve travelling within my new adopted homeland of Scotland

I haven't been to India but did go to Rio and while I didn't visit the favelas as such, I was very, very deeply affected by the rich/poor divide there and the conditions people live in. I'm never sure how I feel about going - I always question my motives for visiting, I feel that some go to gawp and think that giving a bit of money will ease their conscience and leave it at that, and I question where the money goes, especially as you can do favela tours over there and I found this very distasteful. Very cynical maybe

Hope your new place is lovely

PurpleJay

Hi Kat

We did the Trans Mongolian a few years back before M was born. We went from our door in derbyshire with our bags in wheels walking to the train station and went to Hong Kong with stops in London, Moscow and Beijing. We flew back from Hong Kong.

As we only has about 3 weeks we didn't get chance to stop anywhere else in Russia or in Mongolia and would love to go back with time to do this. Maybe one day. I would also love to spend more time in China.

On my wish list are India, Malaysia, Vietnam and Laos. I would love to return to Thailand too where we travelled round for 3 weeks for our honeymoon. Bangkok, Chang Mai, Phuket and Ban Raya.

I assume you know about seat61.com? A mine of information for travelling by train. I also used the lonely planet forums for advice when planning complicated trips.

I recall the visas were bad enough when we did the trans Mongolian, we had to get them in reverse as each country seemed to want to see docs to prove when we would be leaving before they would let us in! We had to get transit visas for Belarus and Mongolia, tourist visa for Russia where you have to pretend to have been invited by someone in our case a hotel and had to go to Manchester to apply for Chinese ones in person. Good luck with the logistics of it all!

NinjaSavingKat

PurpleJay I used Seat61 for all my Tran-Siberian information and really really love train travel... but Real Russia booked all my tickets even the London to Brussels Eurostar and were supberb apart from not warning me St Petersburg were shut on Mondays...lol! But I would use them again if I were going to try more TS travel - I might contact them again and see what else they book... couldn't rate them higher...


LionheartedGirl I will check that out.. this guy I spoke to mentioned a couple who kitted out to bikes ready to go but decided the wife would ride pillion so they are selling her bike - I am going to have a look at it though but the lack of knowledge would put me off..

However sometimes the best way to learn is to drop in the deep end....or not..

DireEmblem

All the best with your savings and travel plans. I've thought of doing something similar - I have the cash saved up, and as much as it would be great to get out and go - I think that I would struggle leaving behind the 9-5 with regular paycheque.

My original thoughts were to leave around april/may and start from Portugal, work my way around the med, and try and make it to Alexandria via boat. From there catch a flight to Nepal, and carry on nipping through India and Bangladesh to Myanmar. From there it would be Thailand/Malaysia and then back to civilisation in Australia.

I'm 29, still 50/50 on whether I should take the trip or not(its a huge chunk of cash I've saved which could be used on a deposit), and am now contemplating going straight to Australia first if I do it.

I would hope to get a job there to support myself to test the water, and if I decide to carry on I would still have my savings for SE Asia and work my way back.

I would highly reccomend South Korea- I've only passed through Seoul, and been to the small Island of Cheju. Its a bit of an American/Japanese tourist haven on the island, but there is an awful lot of culture to soak in as well.

I'm currently trying to part with my belonging as well - its quite hard though when people get you things for xmas/birthdays, and you are like "i dont really need that" - if you know what i mean? I've mentioned travel to them, but they're not interested in buying visas for me.

All the best in your savings - and enjoy the journey when you go!

lulabelle

Hey kat. I've subscribed. It sounds amazing! It's something I live to do but I don't have the balls. An ex of mine has been travelling the last 5 years, he's in Columbia right now and he's loved every minute of it - good luck and I'll be tuning in to see your progress with envy and interest! X

clippy_girl

kat- i would recommend making a doc app with a travel nurse to discuss your jabs well in advance (but prob warn them you have an epic list of visits!). about half you have listed you will already be covered for or can get free on nhs. from memory i paid £70 for yellow fever at gp but had to pay around £140 each for hep b and rabies as i went to a rip off travel centre as my old gp didnt do it hep b to get properly takes ages as i think you are supposed to get them over 3-4 months. i had a crash course with my rabies ones in 28 days but i dont think i am properly covered anymore so i need to investigate that as well! if you go early then they can start giving you some that they keep in stock so you dont end up getting loads at once! if your doc surgery doesnt have a travel person i would recommend changing surgeries to one that does as its way better value

lionheartedgirl- i know what you mean about the trips. when we went to the favela i wouldnt say it was 'tour' as such as we just went to a few places where some of the locals were happy to chat to people but we didnt go down side streets, into peoples houses etc.. we went to a school where they showed us some of the kids work. we mainly went as our tour leader (who was a local) recommended it assured us the money was used for projects in the community.

i have been having a quick read of some of the walks you can do in delhi which i will probably do which arent really 'slum tours' as you dont go into the actual slums. some of them have local children who will walk around with you and tell you about themselves and how they grew up and the proceeds will go to slum projects. they seem to be a good way of understanding how local people live without being intrusive of where they live.

NinjaSavingKat

clippy_girl wrote: »

About half you have listed you will already be covered for or can get free on nhs.

This is what I was told by a fried last night so you are not wrong. I suppose I am hedging my bets for the worst case scenario but you are right - why pay for any of them if they are free.