Itinerary Update #1
I’m taking a long-shot guess here that this won’t be the last itinerary change/update. So, I’ve decided to name it the first, numero uno, #1.
So, here’s the updated table:
| June ’08 | July ’08 | Aug ’08 | Sept ’08 | Oct ’08 | Nov ’08 | |
| Peru | Peru Ecuador |
Ecuador | China | China | China | |
| Dec ’08 | Jan ’09 | Feb ’09 | Mar ’09 | April ’09 | May ’09 | |
| Thailand* | Thailand* | Thailand* | Greece Bulgaria |
Romania | Hungary France |
|
And here’s the why.
Peru. Originally Peru was sort of a maybe. We both wanted to go see Machu Picchu, but it’s towards the South of Peru, and Ecuador is at the North of Peru and it’s a fairly long country when you take into account (what I’ve learned to be) the almost complete lack of good train/buses running through it. But after looking into it some more, Peru sounds like a really awesome place to visit with much more to do and see than just Machu Picchu. So, we’ve pretty much officially added it to the trip plans, and have bumped it into first on the list since it appears to be cheaper than Ecuador to fly into from New York City. Who knew? I need to do a little more research into how to get from Peru to Ecuador safely, but I think it’ll only be a cheap plane ticket (here’s hoping).
New Zealand. Ahh, New Zealand. How sad I am to give you the ax. Basically, it’s just too expensive. To add New Zealand to just the initial plane ticket adds about $1,500 to the price. And since we’d only be there for a short time to do a hiking trip and maybe rent a car and drive around (it’s too expensive for us to do anything more there or stay longer), it just doesn’t seem worth the extra expense. It’s going to stay very high on my personal to-see list, though. But I think it deserves it’s own private trip when we have more cash and time to spend there. It deserve to be done right. And I’m still quietly pushing for Steve to apply for graduate school there. That would be amazing.
Egypt. We’re cutting out Egypt because neither of us were really set on going there, and the extra plane ticket expense plus feeling the need to stay in nicer hotels because of the safety issues just seems like too much. But we’ll see. Since it’s the second half of the year, it might still happen. I spoke briefly with a travel agent, and they informed me that plane tickets are only good for one year from the purchase date (I had no idea!), so we’ll be buying our tickets in two sets. Which is good, actually. That way we can see where our budget is at after 6 months and buy our next set of tickets accordingly. If we have the funds for Egypt, then Egypt here we come.
Greece: Greece just seemed to make sense. When doing preliminary ticket quotes, I noticed that when flying from Thailand to Eastern Europe, they had us going through Athens. It’s right there, so why not check it out. And it just looks so pretty. Steve was there briefly during his Europe trip, but only went to one dingy island that wasn’t very impressive. So, we’re going to try to start are E. Europe wanderings with the islands of Greece and then work our way up and over. That’ll help too with the weather issue, since we’ll be arriving there so early in the year.
*A note on Thailand. Thailand is most likely going to include a lot of the surrounding countries as well. Most likely we’ll go to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, and maybe Malaysia to the different islands, or Bali in Indonesia, or Vietnam… who knows?! The point is that all those countries in S.E. Asia seem like fun places to explore. And this awesome plane company Air Asia has ridiculously cheap plane tickets all around those areas. So, we’ll just play it by ear when we’re there.
Tags: cheap airfare, Itinerary, Pre-Trip Planning, Thailand
montarsig
I am glad you guys have decided to do Peru. It looks like such an incredible place! I just watched the “1000 places to see before you die” episode when they went to Peru, and it made me want to go there even more! I have some friends who just did a month there, I will ask them for some suggestions for you OK?
That sounds great! I’m really excited about Peru now, too. It’ll be a fun place to start our trip.