2

Initial planning

Deciding where to go, how to get there, what to do and how long to stay is a lot easier than it sounds. In this chapter, the planning process is dissected into small, easy-to-chew pieces that will get you under way, from choosing which treks and courses to consider to avoiding troublesome weather or catching festivals you won’t want to miss.

How do you calculate how much time you need for your trip?

With 195 official countries (the U.N. only “recognizes” this many, though it includes 249 in its standard list – the one you use to fill out internet forms) stretched around the planet’s 40,000-kilometre girth, it would take several lifetimes to see it all and do it all. Almost everywhere you go, you’ll meet travellers who will tell you about amazing places you won’t have time to visit. The truth is, you won’t know how long you’ll want to go for until you get out there. Your best defence, therefore, is to try to carve out as much time as you can for your trip beforehand, since it’s easier to come back early than try to push back deadlines once you’re on the move.

If you already know how long you’ve got, you should be thinking about the pace of your trip. How many countries, cities, festivals, courses, jobs and so on should you try to tackle in that amount of time? While it may not be a scientific formula, a good guideline is this: don’t plan more than four major activities per month in advance. (Sorry, visiting India does not count as a single activity. Nor does visiting a region. But things like a two-day cooking class, short stay with a relative, a few days exploring a major city and a hiking trip do.) If you plan to see, say, Paris and Rome in June, that doesn’t mean you just see these two cities. It means you get to make up the rest of your plans on the move as you travel between them. This approach allows for ample flexibility, plus any transport delays you may encounter.

If the length of your trip is largely dictated by budget, check out Chapter 5 to help calculate your time on the road and maximize the funds you have (rough budget estimate: £15–50/$23–77 a day not including major transport costs). However, you don’t necessarily need to let your initial funds shorten your trip. Chapter 6 covers jobs and volunteer projects, so you can leave home with minimal funds or stretch your trip for years.

A year off has a nice ring to it. Besides, most round-the-world tickets are designed with that as an upper limit. It almost seems like this is the length of time society and the travel industry have deemed appropriate. Much shorter and you may get accused by “hardcore” travellers of not getting a real taste of the road. Much longer and people back home may start to think you’ve completely lost it. Even if you have to be back in a year, better to tell people (and yourself) that you’re returning when you’re ready. It’s not worth keeping going just to reach an imaginary time limit, or cutting your trip short just when you find a great travel job or fall in love.

SHOULD YOU SEE THE WORLD ON A TIGHT BUDGET?

Independent budget travel isn’t for everyone – especially if you’re not thrilled about riding on buses that use the horn as a turn signal, greeting and emergency brake. Or using toilet paper better suited for removing barnacles from the underside of harboured yachts. Or spending the occasional night in a place that considers the urine stain on the mattress all the decoration the room needs. If this little sample didn’t faze you (much), you’re in luck. The cultural and social pay-off of budget travel is enormous, the experience invaluable and it’s unlikely to bankrupt you, or your parents.

This guide is primarily designed for the independent budget traveller because… well, they’re the ones who need the most information. If you’re not planning to travel on the cheap, you’ll still get plenty of essential information and itinerary ideas from the following pages, but you should be aware that a thick wallet has a tendency to insulate you from the very culture you’re trying to experience. Also, you may have to limit your time on the road, or knock off a bank. A year of air-conditioned tours, meals served on real tablecloths and comfortable hotel rooms could set you back $100,000/£63,000, whereas it can be done for as little as $10,000/£6300. Or, with a few tips from Chapter 5, for even less than that.

< Back to 2 Initial planning

Where should you go? (not where you might think)

Since no traveller can do it all, the tendency is to head for the “best” places. What are the best places? It feels like a natural question, but you’re better off refraining from asking it as you gather information about your upcoming trip, because it isn’t going to reveal much useful information. Ninety percent of your travel experience will be made up of the people you meet, the weather, spontaneous adventures and little cultural discoveries you make along the way. It goes the other way as well: a bad experience is coloured with random mishaps ranging from bus breakdowns to bed bugs to boring travel companions. I’m not a big fan of Bangkok, for example, but my perspective includes the fact that I was run over by a car and spent time in the hospital there. I know others who love it. Besides, what may seem awful at the time may, in retrospect, prove to be the most life-changing event of your journey.

The only person to ask where you should go is yourself. Grab a pencil, take a look at the four points here, and start jotting down places, sights and activities that sound appealing. You can figure out how to connect them later. You can also get some ideas from the sample round-the-world itineraries in Chapter 3.

Go where you speak the language

No, not English. A second language. (Although an English-speaking country is a fine place to start your travels. Think of travel like learning to ski… hit the “easier” places first and work your way up to the lands with more cultural and logistical challenges.) Even if you can just read a menu and a few street signs, you’re off to a good start. You can begin to interact with a country in a real, independent way. And once you start using a language, once you start looking around and trying to decipher the words or communicate where you need to go, the learning curve becomes nearly vertical.

Go where you have family or friends

Don’t be afraid to look up that childhood pen-pal in Ghana or your third cousin once removed in Hungary. To cover your bets, bring along some kind of document or a snapshot to help bridge any language gaps. With a little luck, you’ll find you’ve got yourself a cultural guide. You’ll almost certainly get a free place to stay and, if nothing else, an inside look at the way they live, from food and interior decor to bowling and strip clubs – whatever, in fact, your friends and relatives happen to do for fun. If you’re still at university, take the opportunity to get involved with international groups. Students visiting your campus from other countries for a year (or several years) are typically members of an international club, and tend to want to make friends with locals. Hanging out with club members is a nice way to start travelling while still at home and, better yet, you’ll have some new friends to visit (and maybe free places to stay) during your trip.

Go somewhere you’ve longed to see

A little wanderlust goes a long way. If you’ve read about a place, heard other people talk about it for ages, or had some sort of childhood fascination with it, that’s not a bad reason to go. At the very worst, it’s a decent starting point (many of the travellers who end up in Timbuktu are there because they like the sound of it).

Best way to figure out where to go: follow your interests

The concept is simple enough: instead of thinking about what you’d like to see, think about what you’d like to do. Approach the trip as a chance to collect unique experiences, not postcards. If you’re a golfer, you might pursue the sport to its roots with a round at the Old Course in St Andrews in Scotland. Or try a twist, and stop for a game of sand golf in the United Arab Emirates. There’s even ice golf in Finland, where you can play with a bright orange ball, tee it up on an ice cube you hack out of the fairway and putt on icy “whites”. If you like to cook, you may take a pastry course at the world-famous Cordon Bleu school in Paris or try a day of curry preparation at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. The more original your approach, the more memorable your experience is likely to be.

IS IT ETHICAL TO VISIT OPPRESSED COUNTRIES?

Should you go to Uganda and allow your tourist dollars to fuel a government that has not managed to put a stop to warlord Joseph Kony? Are you lending legitimacy to a Chinese-occupied Tibet with even a quick visit to Lhasa?

A limited influx of tourist money might make those in power realize that they could make more by catering to tourists’ desires with a free society. It might also deter them from taking action; they could argue that tourists are coming anyway. Some say boycott visiting. Nobel Laureate and spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama is encouraging visitors to Tibet. In both cases, some money goes to the oppressed, some goes to the oppressors. Should you decide to visit one of these places, while you’re there you can help a little, or rather, you can minimize the damage. You can steer clear of government-run tour agencies, hotels and shops, so that more of your money buys bread instead of bullets.

To some extent, your real impact depends on what you do afterwards. Your visit in and of itself may not help the causes of the oppressed, but what you learn about them and pass on to others can. The Dalai Lama is counting on visitors’ tales to fight the giant Chinese propaganda machine. You can give money or volunteer your time to various good causes, such as Amnesty International. You can write to your local representative and insist on more political pressure to not do business with those in power. Even a “Free Tibet” bumper sticker on your car is a step in the right direction.

Can you do these things without visiting the country? Of course. But if you plan to raise your voice in protest, it can be helpful to get a first-hand look.

But where should you draw the line? You don’t like the death penalty in the USA? Maybe you shouldn’t spend your tourist dollars there either (or shouldn’t go to the states where it’s permitted). Historically, Australia hasn’t been kind to Aboriginals. The Brazilians are wiping out the Amazonian rainforest. The Turks, Iraqis, Armenians, Iranians and Azerbaijanis have it in for the Kurds. The Norwegians and Japanese are hunting whales. The more you think about travelling ethically, the trickier it gets. Just about every country on the planet has dozens of skeletons in the closet if you choose to look closely enough. And once you start down that path, it’s hard to know where to stop. It becomes a very personal decision, with few whites and blacks, just a vast collection of greys. The best thing to do is arm yourself with as much information as possible, and pass on what you learn to others.

“Wonders of the World”

Nothing seems to attract visitors like a Wonder of the World. And, once you start travelling, these Wonders seem to be everywhere. You may start to wonder yourself which wonders are actually Wonders (not to mention UNESCO World Heritage Sites, a status currently conferred on 1031 places in 163 “states parties”).

Only one of the Seven Ancient Wonders remains intact today: the Great Pyramid. The list, first referenced in the History of Herodotus in the fifth century BC and then by chief librarian Callimachus of Cyrene (305–240 BC), proved to be such a public-relations success that historians, writers and architects have been trying to create updated versions ever since. Not surprisingly, they can’t quite reach consensus. Some assert, for instance, that the ancient list was flawed because the Greeks were unaware of such marvels as the Great Wall of China, and have filled in the gaps with a list of “forgotten wonders”. Today, several lists of geological anomalies and man-made structures have also emerged, each with its own merits. With so many attractions touting their particular wonder, this round-up may provide some perspective to the PR you’re bound to encounter.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

• The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
• The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Iraq
• The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece
• The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Turkey
• The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Greece
• The Colossus of Rhodes, Greece
• The Lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt

Natural wonders

• Angel Falls, Venezuela
• The Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada
• The Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA
• The Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• Iguaçu/Iguazú Falls, Brazil/Argentina
• Krakatoa Island, Indonesia
• Mount Everest, Nepal/Tibet
• Mount Fuji, Japan
• Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
• Niagara Falls, USA/Canada
• Paricutín Volcano, Mexico
• Uluru (Ayer’s Rock), Australia
• Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe

Forgotten wonders

• Abu Simbel Temple, Egypt
• Angkor Wat, Cambodia
• The Aztec Temple in Tenochtitlán (Mexico City), Mexico
• The Banaue Rice Terraces, Philippines
• Borobudur Temple in Java, Indonesia
• The Colosseum in Rome, Italy
• The Great Wall of China
• The Inca city of Machu Picchu, Peru
• The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy
• Mayan Temples of Tikal, Guatemala
• Moai Statues in Rapa Nui, Easter Island
• Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, France
• The Old City of Jerusalem, Israel
• The Parthenon in Athens, Greece
• The rock-carved city of Petra, Jordan
• The Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar (Burma)
• Stonehenge, England
• Taj Mahal in Agra, India
• The Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque, Mexico
• The Throne Hall of Persepolis, Iran

Modern wonders

• The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE
• The Channel Tunnel between England and France
• The Clock Tower (Big Ben) in London, England
• The CN Tower in Toronto, Canada
• The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France
• The Empire State Building in New York, USA
• Gateway Arch in St Louis, USA
• Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, USA
• The High Dam in Aswan, Egypt
• The Hoover Dam in Arizona/Nevada, USA
• Itaipú Dam, Brazil/Paraguay
• The Kremlin in Moscow, Russia
• The Millau Bridge over the River Tarn, France
• Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, USA
• The Panama Canal, Panama
• Statue of Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• The Statue of Liberty in New York, USA
• The Suez Canal, Egypt
• Sydney Opera House, Australia

< Back to 2 Initial planning

The trick to timing your trip right

On a long trip you can’t be everywhere at just the ideal time. And it’s not worth trying. Usually, if it’s too hot inland, you can head for the coast. And if it’s too hot on the coast you can move to higher elevations, where temperatures are milder. If there are monsoon rains in one place, an overnight train or bus can usually take you to the coast that’s getting all the sun. This only requires one thing: flexibility. In general, you’ll find your timing is great for 75 percent of your trip and you’ll take a few hits for the other 25 percent. What you need to investigate, therefore, is not the ideal time to be in each location, but if there are any dates to absolutely avoid (see A planning must: figuring out when NOT to go). Much of this depends on what you plan to do. Vienna in January may be chilly but fine for city exploring, especially if you plan to be inside museums and churches, whereas a bike trip around Austria would probably be punishing at that time of year. If you plan to hitch sections of your journey on yachts, make sure you check out the seasonal schedule; same for rough overland trips that could get snowed under or rained out. Likewise, you’ll want to know if there are any dates not to miss. If you’re applying for a seasonal job, there’s usually a tight window. And it’s a pity to unwittingly arrive in Venice a day after Carnevale has ended: you’re stuck with the crowds but have missed the event (see 30 festivals and events around the world).

How (and why) to beat the travel seasons

Tourist season is climatically favourable but plagued with crowds and, as a result, more expensive. The advantages of travelling out of season are numerous: low-cost and less-crowded flights, better chances of finding a room at the cheapest hostels, shorter queues at museums, less need for reservations, and – best of all – fewer visitors to distract you from the culture you came to observe. However, you may be looking at some hidden expenses. Some of the cheapest hotels shut down in the off-season, so you may be forced into nicer digs. If it’s cold enough to rattle your teeth loose at night, expect to pay extra for a room with heat. If you’ve arrived in the hot and sweaty season, be prepared to pay more for air conditioning. Sure, you can combat these with a good sleeping bag or a cold, wet sarong wrap, but you might not always be in the mood. As a general rule, the best times to visit are often at the beginning and end of the tourist cycles, the so-called shoulder seasons, when you get most of the good weather without the crowds.

A planning must: figuring out when NOT to go

The regions listed below don’t necessarily share a common weather pattern, so it’s difficult to broadly apply monsoon or dry-season dates. Besides, climate change is wreaking havoc with these weather patterns anyway, so predictions are more preliminary than ever. Consult the “Where to go” section of this guide for more information, plus country guidebooks or specific books on weather.

• Africa March–June: rains in eastern Africa can soak a safari and make roads muddy and impassable. May–June & Oct: northern parts of Africa experience prolonged sandstorms. May–Nov: rains in western Africa bog down roads and render Sahara transit difficult. Christmas season: southern African coastal resorts and safaris fill up with locals.
• Australia/New Zealand June–July: freezing nights in the Outback. Dec–Feb: sweltering heat in the Outback. Dec–March: heavy rains in northern Australia can flood roads. Christmas summer holiday: resorts and transport busy.
• Caribbean & Central America June–Nov: hurricanes (can usually be avoided if you stay flexible and monitor the news).
• Central Asia Nov–March: north central Asia can be wickedly cold. Mid-Dec to March: Himalayan trekking routes may get snowbound. (The Karakoram Highway, normally OK Oct–June, has been closed since a landslide in 2010 and the road between Srinagar and Leh is officially closed.)
• Europe and Russia Aug: summer crowds along the coasts. Nov–Feb: northern and central Europe and Russia is cold and rainy and snow can disrupt travel, especially in the Alps.
• Middle East June–Aug: the heat can get downright uncivilized, especially if the Med isn’t nearby for a cool swim. Keep an eye on the Jewish holiday calendar in Israel, as public transport and hotels can be swamped.
• North America May–Aug: central USA is prone to tornados (and high temps). June–Sept: hurricanes can hit the southeast coast, but are easily avoided. Dec–Feb: in mid- and northern USA, winter storms cause slow travel and severe cold can limit time possible outdoors.
• South America Jan–April: Inca trail can get awfully wet, and closes completely for clean-up in February. The Galápagos Islands are hot and rainy, although the waters are warmer and gentler for divers and the seas can be a bit rougher in late summer when many visit. Mid-Dec to Feb: Christmas holiday rush in Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile – coastal resorts and transport fill up.
• South Pacific Jan: rains can get heavy in the southern islands.
• Southeast Asia March–Oct: on the west coast, southwest monsoon rains disrupt diving visibility (and tanning opportunities). Nov–April: northwest monsoon drenches the eastern coast of Thailand and the islands, and the east coast of Malaysia.

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE “ADVENTURE” IN ADVENTURE TRAVEL?

These days, with 70-year-olds waiting for hip replacements signing up for “adventure tours”, it’s hard to know exactly what the term means.

An adventure used to involve exploring uncharted waters and lands with hidden dangers. It meant not knowing where it would end up or how or if. Similarly, safari (borrowed from Swahili, originally meaning “a trip”) was once used to describe a hunting expedition in Africa and now encapsulates taking pictures of animals from a bouncing minivan, then relaxing by the pool with a dry martini.

“Adventure travel” is typically applied to whitewater rafting, bungee-jumping, trekking and getting spun about in jet boats, especially when these activities take place in foreign countries. The fact is, they’re completely packaged activities with an outcome nearly as predictable as a fairground ride, rendering them closer to the X Games than what any explorer would dub an adventure. Does that mean you should avoid them? No. A little adrenaline is healthy and good fun. Does that mean there are no “real” adventures left? No. Just make sure you understand which kind you’re signing up for. Come to think of it, if you need to sign up for the adventure, that’s a pretty good indication of what kind it is.

How to plan around local holidays and events

Consider this scenario: your overnight train pulls into the station, you stagger over to the tourist information bureau, take a number and wait. When your number pops up, you head to the counter and say you’re looking for some budget accommodation for a night or two. The person behind the counter is already shaking their head vehemently before you finish the sentence. There’s a Rotary Club convention in town that has taken up all the rooms. The best the tourist office can do is find a room at the Ritz for £300/$462. Or, you can stay an hour’s journey outside the city at a little hostel next to an active construction site.

Occasionally, scheduling conflicts occur. A rock concert, business convention or sporting event unexpectedly disrupts your travel plans. So what do you do? First, just try to avoid the situation by keeping an eye on your guidebook for national holidays or other events that might cause a hotel-booking frenzy. Then, if you expect the local accommodation to fill up, either email ahead for a reservation or stop at another town on the way and delay your arrival until a more auspicious day. It’s an opportune time to head somewhere not mentioned in a guidebook. If you’ve already arrived, the easiest and most common solution is to simply move on to the next town. For this, the tourist office can be quite helpful. But before you do, ask for a list of accommodation the tourist bureau represents and try to get online. Crosscheck their list with the one in your guide and on the web. Often, there are several hotels, especially the cheaper digs, not on the tourist office’s list. Give those places a call first; they’re the most likely to have room. Or look for less conventional places to stay, such as camping grounds that rent out tents or university dormitories. Better yet, try  airbnb.com and other similar private rental solutions ( tripping.com aggregates many). Or stay for free with a local via a service like  couchsurfing.com. If the weather is favourable, don’t forget to ask about rooftop sleeping at hostels.

STUCK IN A TYPHOON

I can’t even remember how many typhoons passed through while I was working in Hong Kong.

The most common local response to a typhoon warning is to shop. The stores might close while the storm passes, so people gather up food, flashlight batteries, that sort of stuff. The bread gets picked clean by the end of the day, but it’s far from panic shopping. There’s enough advance notice to keep things calm. You just pick up enough to get you by for a few days. Besides, you probably won’t be going anywhere since the airport and the public transport to and from it are shut down during the worst of the storm.

When you’re picking up some food, it’s probably not a bad idea to get some Scotch tape as well. They say if you make a giant X across the window with it, it minimizes the danger of shattering. More commonly, though, the driving rain eventually seeps through the window – or bleeds through – so your things might get wet if you put them in the wrong spot.

The stronger typhoons are serious – flying trees and the like – but if you’re inside you’re fine. In fact, many places have typhoon parties with cheap beer and offers to “Come weather the storm here”. If things officially close down due to weather, it becomes a designated typhoon shelter and everyone already inside is allowed to keep on partying.

Where I lived, when the eye of the storm passed over, everyone ran out to body surf. It was the only time we had big enough swells to do it.

Ron Gluckman, Correspondent ( gluckman.com)

How much time should I spend in each place?

Travelling too fast and trying to see too much may be the most common traveller mistakes. Spend at least two days longer in each city than you think. Maybe even two weeks. The faster you go and the more ground you cover, tempting though it may be, the less you’ll see. The same way that slowing down improves your peripheral vision when driving, reducing your speed allows you to take more in while you travel. If you’re not pressed to press on, you may take an extra day to forge a friendship with another traveller you met over breakfast, or find out your favourite musician is giving a concert in an ancient amphitheatre nearby, or that the local cultural centre is offering free palm-tree-climbing lessons. With enough time and curiosity, something interesting is bound to happen.

One of the most important things to plan: a break

Travel may sound romantic and adventurous, but finding your way around a city, coordinating train schedules, locating a place to stay, carting around three kilos of unexchangeable small coins, taking the stairs up every tall structure for a scenic overview, using perplexing toilets, sampling palate-numbing foods and happening on nose-tweaking smells – the things that give independent travel its bite – combine to form an exhausting experience, especially if you do them daily for months. Travelling is not the same thing as being on vacation, so give yourself a chance to relax.

To some extent, taking a break is going to happen on its own. You might stumble on a place you can’t resist, get stuck waiting for a visa application to process or for a transport strike to end, find a fun person or group of travellers to hang out with or just hit the sensory overload wall.

The last one will occur if the first four don’t. This exhaustion – think of it as cultural burnout – may creep up on you, or just descend on you all at once. It typically occurs after two to four months of continuous, fairly fast-paced travel, but you’ll need to find your own threshold. Here’s the main symptom: you spend more and more time in cafés and hostel lounges and less out exploring towns and museums. There’s a simple remedy for recharging your wanderlust: stay put.

Give yourself a chance to absorb and process what you’ve seen. Write some long letters, pen a song, start that novel. Get to know a few locals. Take the opportunity to earn some money. Who knows, stay in one place long enough and you might even fall in love.

On a long trip, allow yourself the flexibility to stop when you need it, or plan ahead so you end up at your dream white-sand hangout. If you hope to work or volunteer (see Chapter 6), or take a course or pay a relative an extended visit, you might try to plan some of that ahead of time as well. Whether or not you schedule a pit-stop in advance, you should factor in some “down time”: approximately two weeks for every three months on the road.

The art of hanging out

It’s been said that one of the most problematic aspects of doing nothing is that it’s hard to know when you’re finished. Hanging out, though, is hardly doing nothing. There’s an art to this inertia.

Travellers who used to visit hangouts for weeks and end up staying for months or years are now more typically coming for days and leaving after weeks, or coming for days and leaving in days. They have tighter itineraries, more energy, and are about as politically active as Bart Simpson. You can still hear Pink Floyd tunes wafting through café terraces, but increasingly common is thumping electronic beats beckoning travellers to nightclubs or outdoor raves.

In popular hangouts, it’s rarely just enough to find a beautiful beach with palms jutting out over cheap bungalows; they more often come equipped with traveller cafés and offer “adventure” activities, from diving to camel safaris.

Returning hippies may only recognize a few traits left on the Trail (namely, the funkadelic outfits derived from local handicraft), though the new hangouts still serve as gathering points for gaggles of travellers in search of an escape from the very countries they came to see. The places may not be the bargains they once were, but they’re still relatively cheap (£5–10/$8–15 for bare-bones accommodation). And the police seem to be employing the same law-enforcement techniques: a blind eye coupled with the occasional bust.

The classic refuges for relaxing and revelling are listed here.

Byron Bay (and Nimbin)

Where are they? Australia’s east coast, 12hr north of Sydney by bus.

What’s the attraction? Originally the surfing was the major pull in this otherwise sleepy town with 30km of unbroken sandy beaches. For some, it still is. The surfers were followed by the hippies, who brought with them enough crystals, herbs and tarot cards to transform it into Australia’s New Age centre. It was then discovered by the backpack set, who have been slowly pushing the once enchanting small community the way of Times Square, with mainstream developers licking their chops. If you don’t mind the rather intestinal sound of Westerners trying to learn the didgeridoo, it can be extremely relaxing. The town of Nimbin, an hour inland, is known for its cookies and status as the unofficial marijuana capital of Australia.

STAYING AND LEAVING

A friend of mine would never leave a place until he’d had a good time there. Another friend would not leave a destination until he had learnt something encouraging about the people and their culture. Both are currently stuck in Brisbane.

I would never suggest that you set yourself such stringent criteria on what is in essence such an arbitrary decision. If you’re having a good time – stay. If you’ve met someone you fancy and who fancies you – stay. If you’re too buggered to move – stay. If the police are closing in on you – go.

Peter Moore, Author, Vroom with a View and Swahili for the Broken-Hearted

Cape Maclear (Chembe)

Where is it? Lake Malawi, Malawi, 5hr by bus from Blantyre, then a 20km lift in the back of a pick-up truck. Or, 6hr bus from Lilongwe to Monkey Bay, then 1hr in a pick-up or private minibus up to The Cape.

What’s the attraction? It’s a classic backpacker watering hole on the shores of the 570km-long freshwater Lake Malawi, serving up cold beer, thatched tents and a dreamy selection of hammocks. For the less lethargic, there’s a full range of water activities, from kayaking to scuba diving.

Dahab

Where is it? On the Red Sea coast of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, 8hr by bus from Cairo.

What’s the attraction? It’s not as much of a clean-cut backpacker magnet anymore, but the mix of divers and windsurfer dudes still makes for a mellow vibe. Cushioned and carpeted Bedouin tents right on the shoreline with sweet-tobacco octopus-shaped water pipes offer a welcome break. Sadly, the quality of the diving and snorkelling is not what it used to be. The coral reef, or what’s left of it, has been trashed over the years and fished out by local restaurants. New “mini-Dahabs” are popping up all along the coast.

Dali

Where is it? Southwest China, 5hr by bus or 7hr by train northwest of Kunming.

What’s the attraction? It’s said to be the best place in China to get away from China. Even among the Chinese in the region, it’s known as a backpackers’ paradise. Travellers are inclined to stay in the centre of the ancient city on Yangren (Foreigners’) Street, which isn’t more than a short stumble away from the town’s popular cafés. Pagodas, temples, lakes, mountains – it’s a visual delight.

Gili Islands

Where are they? In Indonesia, east of Bali, just northwest of Lombok.

What’s the attraction? The major draws are beaches, beer and bongs. There’s also diving, snorkelling and nightly beach bashes. Most of this just occurs on the party island of the three, called Trawangan, with a ring of cottages and restaurants that stretches nearly all the way around the shore to house and feed all the merry-makers. Depending on the island you’re headed to, it takes 20min to 1hr by jukung, a small outrigger that leaves from Lombok’s Bangsal Harbour. For more modern transport, there is also a public ferry and a speedboat. It can be crowded at certain times of the year and many travellers find more tranquillity in Lombok.

Goa

Where is it? Southwest coast of India, about 12hr by bus south of Mumbai.

What’s the attraction? Once known for its status as the crown jewel of do-nothingness on the Hippy Trail, Goa has turned into one of the world’s largest rave scenes. Despite the place being almost completely taken over (and overrun) by Russians, thousands of techno-loving revellers (many over from Europe on a two-week holiday charter) continue to arrive and decorate the forests with fluorescent orange and lime paint. Groups of travellers rent dumpy cottages for weeks or months at a time, but short-term accommodation can be scarce. The beaches are spread out and each has its own scene with the exception of two common seaside roamers: hungry cows and hawkers.

30 FESTIVALS AND EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD

Festival planning usually takes some advance legwork, as cities and towns can get booked up over a year in advance. Last-minute accommodation, if indeed there is any, usually gets snatched up several days before the event. But the extra effort it takes to attend a festival is almost always worthwhile. There are thousands to choose from. In some you can participate, in some the spectators become part of the spectacle whether they want to or not, but the exuberance is nearly always palpable. See  festivals.com

AFRICA

Great Migration Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. When a million wildebeest do anything together, it’s pretty exciting to watch. Add 18,000 eland, about 200,000 zebras and up to half a million Thompson’s gazelles. Now throw in a few crocodile-infested rivers that must be crossed and hundreds of hungry lions, and it gets really interesting. People pour in from around the globe to see this moving smorgasbord migrate, with hot-air balloons providing great lookouts for highly inflated prices. May to early June  andbeyond.com/tours.htm

AMERICAS

Burning Man Project Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA. This pop-pagan, post-apocalyptic gathering of 65,000 “burners” (gun-wielding prophets, nude chainsaw-jugglers and so on) has only one stated mission: to burn a giant wooden thing that, even in poor lighting, only barely looks like a man. Aug/Sept  burningman.com

Carnaval Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Brazil. Carnaval is huge in all of South America, but these two are the biggest shows of all. You get a choice: you can watch the world’s most colourful parade in Rio (two days, starting around 7pm and lasting until 5am), after which you’ll never look at Liberace or Zsa Zsa Gabor the same way again. Or you can samba away three kilos a night dancing down the streets behind giant trucks loaded with loudspeakers in Salvador. Feb/March (the week prior to Ash Wednesday)  ipanema.com/carnival

Day of the Dead Oaxaca, Mexico. There may not be life after death, but there’s at least a party. The line between the breathing and the buried gets chucked aside for a day so the deceased can come out and play, complete with skeleton costumes and graveside bashes. End Oct–Nov  mexonline.com/dayofthedead.htm

Greenwich Village Halloween Parade New York, USA. If you think New Yorkers are frightening in the daylight, check this out. The freak show gets even freakier during Halloween with over sixty thousand kooks and spooks and two million spectators. Oct 31  halloween-nyc.com

Junkanoo Nassau, Bahamas. Even Santa takes a back seat at this Christmas-time Caribbean-beat blowout. Bring a whistle, cowbell or anything else that makes noise. Dec 26 & Jan 1  bahamas.co.uk/about/junkanoo/what-is-junkanoo

Mardi Gras New Orleans, USA. Good times have been rolling here since 1699. Even the mayhem of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 couldn’t stop this mother of all American streetfests, a bacchanalian party with parades that begin on January 6 (Epiphany) and build to a feverish pitch that culminates on Shrove Tuesday. Feb–March (the week prior to Ash Wednesday)  mardigrasneworleans.com

Monarch Butterfly Migration Angangueo, Mexico. With 100–250 million monarchs attending, it’s likely the most spectacular convention of insects in the world. There’s a butterfly carpet everywhere you look, and orange and black clouds in the middle of the day. The deep shade of the oyamel fir trees in the forests outside Mexico City lure these beasties from as far as two thousand miles away. The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008. Dec to mid-March  monarch-butterfly.com,  whc.unesco.org/en/list/1290

New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival New Orleans, USA. Ten days of mind-bending jazz, funk, gospel, blues, zydeco, folk and bluegrass – 4000 musicians-worth of it – plus great food. April–May  nojazzfest.com

New Year’s Eve Party Times Square, New York, USA. Wanna see a 500-pound ball slide down a pole? Sing Auld Lang Syne out of tune with half a million people? You may risk getting crushed to the size of this guide but that’s a small price to pay. More interesting than watching it on TV with 300 million others, anyway. Key West, Florida, offers an alternative crowd. Dec 31, arrive early  timessquarenyc.org

ASIA

Full Moon Party Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand. Possibly the best-known travellers’ party on the planet – so infamous, in fact, its popularity has waned in recent years. With twelve raves per year, it’s hard to miss. Howl at the moon, bark or just dance yourself into a trance. Thousands of lamps (and the odd fire-eater) illuminate the beach until sunrise. Monthly  fullmoonparty-thailand.com

Holi Festival Northern and eastern India. Welcome to the festival of flying colours. Powder dyes are dumped off balconies or playfully thrown at you from ground level (ears, nose, mouth… no orifice is safe from the technicolour assault). Feb–March during full moon  holifestival.org

International Dragon Boat Championships Hong Kong. Paddle-power propels the participants (fuelled with traditional pyramid-shaped zongzi dumplings) as they pull through the waters just off Hong Kong in 11.6m boats. The boats have been battling for over 2000 years to commemorate the suicide drowning of the poet-politician, Qu Yuan. The festival is tied to the lunar calendar, so check for dates. June  dragonboat.org.hk

Naadam Festival Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Sometimes called the Mongolian Olympics, Naadam focuses on three main events: wrestling, archery and horse racing. Throw in some folk dancing and fermented mare’s milk, and you’ve got yourself a festival. July  csen.org/Mongol.Nadaam/Mongol.text.html

Pushkar Camel Fair Pushkar, India. If you ever need to get your hands on thirty thousand camels, this is the place to go. In addition to the camel swap, there are races, camel polo matches and other events, but people-watching plays a big role as the town’s population increases by 2000 percent during the week. Nov  pushkar-camel-fair.com

AUSTRALIA

Beer Can Regatta Darwin, Australia. Would-be yachtsmen can chug their way to the rank of captain in no time at this event: a coupling of aggressive drinking and aggressive sailing for the sake of charity. What more could you want from a pseudo-sporting event? Third Sunday of July  beercanregatta.org.au

Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Sydney, Australia. Gays, bis, straights and synthetic fibres are all warmly welcome as LGBT pride hits the streets, maximum exposure being the order of the day. Feb–March  mardigras.org.au

EUROPE

Ascot Races Berkshire, England. You can bet on the horses, but keep your eyes on the pomp on parade. Morning suits for men and formal dresses for women, not to mention hats of all sorts, from those with the shade coverage of a patio parasol to dainty little numbers not much bigger than a cinnamon roll. Third week in June, Tues–Sat  ascot.co.uk

Carnevale Venice, Italy. A decadent renaissance festival, pyjama party and three-day rager against the backdrop of the world’s most picturesque sinking city. The costumes are as elaborate as they are expensive. And guess what? They’re for sale. Feb–March (the week prior to Ash Wednesday)  carnevale.venezia.it

Cooper’s Hill Cheese Roll Brockworth, England. People have been chasing a cheese down a sixty-degree slope here for over 200 years. Most tumble in a blur of legs, hands and dislocated shoulders all the way to the bottom. Don’t worry, there are plenty of ambulances standing by. Last Mon in May  cheese-rolling.co.uk

Glastonbury Music Festival Glastonbury, England. The biggest jam-fest in the UK. Performers on the three main stages have included Oasis, Paul McCartney, James Brown and a full cast of platinum-selling album holders. On the fringe of the concert you’ll find market stalls (over six hundred of them) offering everything from goat meat to henna tattoos. Not enough? Check out the freak show or help make a giant rhino out of mud. Late June  glastonburyfestivals.co.uk

Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Tournament Edirne, Turkey. Smear yourself with oil and wrestle for a camel and stack of cash? Believe it or not, it’s been a winning formula for 600 years and it’s still going. Over one thousand contestants sign up every year. July 5–11  turkishoilwrestling.net

Oktoberfest Munich, Germany. Just grab a seat and a frothy “mas” and start slidin’ back the brew. The atmosphere (fourteen large tents with a combined capacity of almost 100,000 happy drinkers) makes the beer taste even better. But don’t be fooled by the name; most of the event takes place in September. Sept–Oct  oktoberfest.de

The Palio Siena, Italy. With bribes, religion and dirty tricks, this horse race is straight out of the Middle Ages. To be precise, 1147. Riders representing Siena’s different neighbourhoods battle and race around the town square for three laps. Medical personnel are on alert for both riders and horses. The party starts for days before each of the two big races. July 2 and Aug 16  ilpalio.org

Paris Air Show France. You don’t need to be on the market for your own private F-15 to attend. The public, 350,000 of them, turn out to see new models unveiled and flown every other year on the spot Charles Lindbergh first landed. It’s the biggest air show going. June (odd-numbered years only)  paris-air-show.com

Running of the Bulls Pamplona, Spain. People have been testing out their insurance policies at this event for years. Eight days of drinking, revelling in the streets and, oh yes, attempting to avoid stampeding bulls on a narrow, winding, cobblestoned street armed with nothing more than a pair of tennis shoes and a hangover. Two days before, animal rights activists stage a “Running of the Nudes” in protest. July  sanfermin.com

St Patrick’s Day Dublin, Ireland. If you’re not in green, you’d better have a good excuse. And a hangover that makes you feel green doesn’t count. There’s everything from Skyfest, an enormous fireworks display, to a treasure hunt that has families scurrying around the city. The full week of craic culminates with half a million lining the streets for Ireland’s biggest parade. March 17 and 3–4 following days  stpatricksday.ie

La Tomatina Buñol, Spain. Ingredients: one small town that produces cement, one town plaza, thirty thousand lunatics (mostly drunk) and 40,000kg of tomatoes. Mix aggressively for one hour or until town is sufficiently red, then rinse at a local watering hole. Aug  latomatina.org

Whirling Dervish Festival Konya, Turkey. The famed Whirling Dervishes spin their way closer to God only once a year, but the celebrations last a week. The dizzying ceremonial dance is accompanied by drums, flutes and camera shutters. Dec  mevlana.net

Jericoacoara

Where is it? Brazil, 300km west of Fortaleza by jungle jeep.

What’s the attraction? Jeri reached mythical status when the Washington Post called it one of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Thanks to the poor transport infrastructure, though, only the most tenacious idlers make it here. National Park status (awarded in 2002) is keeping the area safe from development.

Ko Pha Ngan

Where is it? Thailand, 15hr by bus/ferry south from Bangkok.

What’s the attraction? Drawn by the pill-popping, fire-eating, breast-exposing rave parties on the island’s Haad Rin beach, thousands of travellers show up every month to sacrifice their cerebellums under a full moon. Naturally, you need to get there a little earlier to secure accommodation, then stay a little longer to recover. The beaches and tranquil waters are likely to lure you into lingering.

Lamu

Where is it? An island just off the northeast coast of Kenya, 7hr by bus north of Mombasa.

What’s the attraction? Since the donkey sanctuary isn’t a big draw, it must be the sloth-like pace of life (aside from the initial barrage of hustlers trying to help you find a place to stay) and dawdling dhows sailing travellers up and down the blinding beaches and off to distant islands. Zanzibar’s sleepy northern cousin has Kenya’s oldest functioning town (also called Lamu) and possesses much of the same medieval pulling power. Security issues make Lamu difficult to recommend at the time of writing, but things can change quickly in the region, so we’d rather not dismiss it completely. But please check up-to-date reports before visiting.

Pokhara

Where is it? Nepal, 6hr by bus west of Kathmandu.

What’s the attraction? Trekkers these days gearing up for or returning from the Annapurna circuit can’t seem to resist the charms of this serene lakeside town, which has one of the world’s most spectacular mountain backdrops. You can rent a canoe, shop for excellent used climbing gear or just munch fresh brownies and play Battleships in a café.

< Back to 2 Initial planning

Researching your trip

Start online. Let’s say you speak Spanish and you like scuba diving: go to your favourite web search engine. Type in “scuba” and “Spanish” and see what pops up, then narrow the search with words like “shark” or “tequila” or whatever diving aspects you deem essential. You can often find reviews and references online as well just by adding the words “reviews” or “references” to the search.

For specific activities, look in specialist magazines or their online sites. For a cooking course or fine dining, for example, you might look in Gourmet Magazine ( www.gourmet.com); for photography trips, Outdoor Photographer ( outdoorphotographer.com). If you’re looking for general ideas, major-city or national newspaper travel section websites are invaluable.

For information directly from other travellers, you might try the straight-up reviews at Trip Advisor or look for more broad and specific tips at discussion boards such as  virtualtourist.com and  lonelyplanet.com’s Thorn Tree, where you can post and read messages on thousands of specific travel topics. Not to toot our own horn too loudly, but  roughguides.com is packed with articles, features and practical information like sample itineraries taken from the RG guidebooks. Travel blogs and user-generated sites like  wikitravel.org are other great sources of first-hand – and often recent – information.

THE HISTORY OF THE HIPPY TRAVELLER HANGOUT

The original Hippy Trail grew out of the 1960s the same way just about everything else did at the time: with a search for spiritual enlightenment. Or, at any rate, drug-induced enlightenment. Or, at any rate, drugs. Throw in sex, rock’n’roll, adventure and a VW bus and what self-respecting beatnik could possibly refuse? The word Kathmandu had a magical ring to it. And, more important, it had cheap ganja. The clothing was just an added psychedelic bonus: baggy leggings from India, embroidered Pakistani vests covered in little mirrors, Afghani sheepskins for evening wear and Nepali prayer beads for all occasions metaphysical. By the early 1970s, a multi-hued stream of near-penniless travellers had created a pulsating road to Kathmandu.

The most common route passed from northern and central Europe through the former Yugoslavia – Croatia and the Dalmatian Riviera, Sarajevo, Montenegro, Macedonia – into Bulgaria and on to Istanbul. Until the mid-sixties, the trail just stopped here: most hippies were content to drift to Marrakesh or Mediterranean havens (Tangier, Ibiza, Greece). But gradually Istanbul developed into a major launching pad to the East, with travellers passing through (or out) in droves. They stayed at “The Tent”, a corrugated iron and canvas shelter on the roof of the Gulhane Hotel next to the Blue Mosque, while they gathered information at the Pudding Shop, the closest thing to a guidebook. Travellers swapped tips and directions to private homes with rooms for rent. From there, The Trail went across Turkey, northern Iran (with a stop in Tehran) and into Afghanistan. A major crossroads formed on Chicken Street in Kabul, which served as the halfway point (and halfway house) of the journey. With a fresh stash of hash, travellers traversed the breathtaking mountain passes and proceeded on to Pakistan, then over the border and into India. After paying homage in Manali, the supreme supply centre of marijuana, and Dharamsala, the seat-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, it was over to Varanasi for a toxic splash in the Ganges river, and north to Kathmandu.

Meanwhile, back on the other side of the Atlantic, American hippies had worked their way down to a charming Guatemalan volcano-surrounded lake town called Panajachel. Before long, there was a virtual stockpile of stoned foreigners wearing mismatched Guatemalan outfits, and the town was dubbed Gringotenango.

The orally-swapped travel information found its way into guidebooks, which helped pave the way for other travellers. More families turned their homes into guesthouses, and cafés started popping up to accommodate visitors reluctant to give up their Western eating habits. The quest for enlightenment, chemically induced or otherwise, has not diminished completely, but has been diluted by a newer breed in search of famous attractions, adventure excursions and passport stamps.

< Back to 2 Initial planning

How to customize your itinerary

You’ve got a few places in mind, some weather you want to miss and a few dates you want to hit for festivals or seasonal activities. Before you start stringing it together with your chosen methods of transport, there are a few more things to consider.

If it’s your first big trip, which countries you visit first is important. If you’re going to India, France and New Zealand, for example, India is the most challenging of the three and won’t make the best starting point. Besides, after India, France and New Zealand won’t seem quite as exciting. If you start in New Zealand, it will still be thrilling, but much easier. Once you get a feel of getting around on your own, move on to a country like France, where there’s a solid infrastructure but, to some extent, a language barrier. After that, navigating the train stations and markets of India will be significantly easier to handle.

Take a moment and consider the balance of your trip. You want a good mix of attractions, adventure, a few courses, a little wandering, ample breaks, a measure of hiking, some kind of animal viewing, and maybe even a dose of meditation. And if you’re travelling with a round-the-world ticket, add in an overland journey and maybe even some sea passage. Chances are your trip may be thin in a few of these areas. Just remember to space them out. You don’t want to feel like you’re trapped in a Jules Verne novel or a contestant on The Amazing Race.

To find out how to connect the dots using the transport best suited to the task, head on to Chapter 3. Just remember that by changing your departure date you may be able to neatly sidestep any meteorological conflicts, and that by stopping to work/volunteer/study/hang out, you can achieve the same effect.

Is it safe to go there? Where to check political stability

Try to get into the habit of picking up an international newspaper and scanning the headlines for any turmoil in the area. America’s State Department website tends to play up the dangers. This may help prevent lawsuits, but it can also scare people away from a reasonably safe destination. Instead, or at least as a comparison, try the UK’s Foreign Office ( fco.gov.uk), Australia’s Smart Traveller ( smartraveller.gov.au)or Canada’s traveladvice website ( voyage.gc.ca), which provide more sensible synopses. Before heading anywhere you’re not sure about, get a quick update from the web and learn how to be prepared just in case things turn sour while you’re there.

Remember: a travel warning does not necessarily mean you should not go – it just means you should investigate a step further (and check if your insurance provider will cover you once you get there). There’s a big difference between the security for tourists in, for example, Iraq and in the far safer Israel or Philippines, yet both can be found on the same US State Department warning list. To figure out which countries really are dangerous and which just suffer from that misconception, but are actually safe (and often cheap and appealingly devoid of tourists), you’ll need to do some basic research. Check with local tourist offices and online travel chat rooms (see Researching your trip) to get the traveller’s perspective on how dangerous it really is. For volatile regions, it’s important to keep checking the situation once you’re on the road, too, so keep abreast of travel advice on the web during your trip, and talk to other travellers to check if it’s wise to venture into potentially hazardous areas.

Likewise, most cities have more risky neighbourhoods where you should think twice before venturing (especially at night). Check out a simple tip in the security section to figure out where not to go in the city.

EASE OF TRAVEL

Easy (traveller infrastructure, no language barrier): Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Israel, Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Scandinavia

Moderate (traveller infrastructure, but language barriers for English speakers): France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan

Tougher (less infrastructure, language barrier): India, Bolivia, Syria, Uganda, China, Cambodia, El Salvador, Morocco

Register with the Foreign Office/State Department before you leave

Government offices nowadays all offer good online travel advice and assistance. Sign up for free to get the latest travel updates, and – more importantly – many offer travel alerts while you’re on the move. If there’s a natural disaster, terrorist act or coup d’état, those who are registered are more likely to get useful alerts about the help provided and direct assistance from the embassy. Depending on how you feel about it, it can be nice to have Big Brother know your whereabouts just in case. But remember to go online and update your travel plans if they change. (And this works well with short trips, too.)

Where to register

• Australia  smartraveller.gov.au
• Canada  voyage.gc.ca/register
• New Zealand  safetravel.govt.nz
• USA  step.state.gov/step

The UK used to have a similar programme called Locate, but scrapped it in 2013, replacing it with updates on  gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice,  twitter.com/fcotravel and  facebook.com/foreignoffice.

< Back to 2 Initial planning

Why you need to book certain activities well in advance

Just because you find the ideal activity, that doesn’t mean you have to book it. In fact, you can often save more than fifty percent of the cost by forgoing the middlemen and making arrangements once you arrive. However, there are some courses and tours that fill up well in advance. You can’t always tell which these are, but it’s possible to make a decent guess, or check on the web. If you reasoned, for example, that with constant treks heading out along the Inca Trail there would be no trouble to finding a group, you’d be wrong (there are only five hundred trail passes allotted per day and no more are sold even when there are cancellations, so most book about three months in advance). There may be some size limit to a pastry course at the Cordon Bleu, a Zambezi canoe safari or a trip to see the gorillas in Uganda – so these would be worth booking in advance; at the very least, send an email to find out about availability. Guidebooks often tell you which activities need to be booked in advance and which don’t. When in doubt, check the web and follow up with a call or email. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll hear about plenty of activities from travellers as you go, so don’t knock yourself out researching. This is really only something you want to do for a “crown jewel” experience on your trip.

STAYING FLEXIBLE

When I first travelled around Europe by train, I planned to go to London, Paris, Italy and Greece. Everything else, I figured out once I arrived. Today, I do a little more background reading, but the approach is the same. Months ahead of my trip, I read novels and classics set in the place I’m going to. I don’t open my guidebook and start looking for places to stay until I’m on the plane heading there.

If you make a detailed itinerary, you take away the excitement. And then it’s easy to get disappointed because you often have to break with your plans. I think the joy and inspiration of travel comes from finding your own way.

Per Andersson, Editor, Vagabond magazine

< Back to 2 Initial planning

Hate to plan in advance? Consider this

Here’s another way to go about it: get a passport, rustle up some cash and hop on the next bus that passes. Connect to an airport, train station or harbour, and head in whichever direction cries out. If you need a visa to get there, no worries, just pick somewhere else. Or fill out a visa application, find a cheap hotel and wait for the visa to be processed. While you’re waiting, you might look into a few vaccinations, study the language and meet a few locals. Or don’t. Go with the wind and your whims.

The drawback to planning your trip, free spirits claim, is that, to a large extent, you decide in advance what you’re looking for. So, while you’ll probably find “it”, you’ll likely miss many of the unpredictable things that are subtly trying to find you. On the other hand, you may miss some of your big-ticket dream experiences… gorilla viewing, summiting a mountain, making a famous trek, catching a famous festival. If this doesn’t bother you, then don’t worry about the planning.

< Back to 2 Initial planning