Around the World

It was 20 years ago today when Emily and I climbed on board a 747 bound for Bangkok, and started an 18 month round the world trip:

  • 3 months in South East Asia (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore)
  • 9 months in Australia (East Coast, Alice-to-Adelaide, Sydney for 6 months, Great Ocean Road, Western Australia)
  • 7 weeks in New Zealand
  • 4 months in South America (Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Easter Island, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil)

To say that the trip was transformative would be an understatement. They say no-one ever regrets travelling, and we couldn’t agree more.

Some random thoughts 20 years later:

  • We were worried that we wouldn’t find a job when we finally settled in Sydney, and then back in London. In the end it took a few weeks of grift, but if this is holding you back from travelling, don’t let it!
  • We decided when starting a family to have the kids close together so we can eventually resume independent travel more quickly. And now we’re on the cusp of kids going to university, we find ourselves spending a good chunk of time thinking about the adventures ahead…probably too much time…
  • We’ve done our best to carry the travel bug with us into parenthood, but it ain’t so easy dragging smaller kids around. But as soon as they could carry their own bags, adventure travel was back ON! In fact some of our favourite family bonding moments have been when trying to overcome challenges in less developed countries.
  • Seems weird now to think that we started the trip without a digital camera. They became affordable and practical shortly after our departure, and once we realised we could afford it we picked up a Canon Ixus 2. After this point our memories are so much clearer. Photos from the trip are on Flickr, which only came along four years later. Back in 2003 we had to pay for photos to be burned to CDs, two copies, one saved in our bag and one sent onto Sydney or London (for backup)…
  • I’m sure we got more out of our trip than we would’ve done today. No smartphones, no social media, no MP3 players, no laptops…just lots of book swapping (including counterfeit Lonely Planets from Khao San Road) and interacting with locals and other travellers.
  • Communicating with friends and family back home was still a little tricky. We had to rely on the occasional internet cafe with varying ranges of bandwidth (worse than dial-up in places like Laos and Bolivia, both in terms of speed and reliability). We get a lot of pleasure from reading the emails sent at the time, roughly once per month. These were all uploaded onto my fledgling website, so you can see them at the bottom of the posts page.
  • I still remember the financial shock of going from Malaysia into Singapore and then onto Australia. Our daily budget went from £30 a day to more like £100. That included all food, transport, lodging and excursions. Scary. My advice to young backpackers now is to avoid USA / Europe and instead head to countries where your money goes much further. That is, of course, unless you intend to work there to earn some of that precious local currency.
  • Had no regrets then, got none now. We fell in love with Sydney of course, and it wasn’t long back in London before we decided to move back permanently. The irony being that part of the allure was how much we loved the rest of Australia too, and we’ve hardly seen any of it since returning in 2011! We were so lucky to have the time and freedom to travel around in a van. Never took it for granted, but will definitely do more of it one day. Carpe Diem.