91 days around the world – dejags and mr dejags are trying to decide and need help

[dejags]

We have been umming and ahrring about this for what seems like forever see our procrastion here

Ok here is the deal. DH (who will contribute to this thread I am sure) and I have got incurable itchy feet. We watched Nappybaglady?s thread with more than a small touch of the green-eyed monster. We want to do the same thing but before making any final decisions and starting the booking process I?d like the input of the www (a totally subjective view provides an excellent sanity check).

At the moment our idea (stress just an idea) is as follows:

1 year from now we will depart South Africa and spend 91 days going round the world with our 2 DS?s (who will then be 5 & 2)

Our preferred route would be:

Cape Town to London
London to New York
New York to San Diego
San Diego ? San Francisco (overland ? we will spend four weeks in an RV touring the west coast of the USA)
San Francisco ? Honolulu
Honolulu ? Tokyo
Tokyo ? Beijing
Beijing ? Singapore
Singapore ? Cape Town

Big factors are :

Weather ? don?t care how hot it is, but hate the cold
Money ? we will only have a budget of around US$200 a day (obviously the round the world tickets will be extra)
Accommodation ? we don?t care how fancy it is but it must be clean with our own bathroom

So for those of you who know these areas, or have any advice or criticism in general , we would be most appreciative
TIA
dejags & mr dejags

dejags,try Travelbag. They are brilliant for competitive prices,and I should now-have booked well over 50 flights with them.
(Also Trailfinders)

ooooooooh just found this. Can't stop now but will come back later in week to read thread and offer my words of wisdom (need a special wordly and experienced emooticon but will have to make do witha {wink}

And I can't even do that properly so don't listen to aything I say

Trailfinders for buying tickets. They have loads of offices aroud UK and Oz but also do phone and I think email bookings. We got our tickets with them and they were great.

Sounds fantastic Dejags!

We flew to LA and drove North along the coast stopping at Monteray, San Fransisco, portland, fresno and on up to Vancouver Island - stayed there for a week then came back more inland and went to Yosemite, La - Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Rodeo drive baby,Disney, universal etc... and then travelled down to San diego - went to Seaworld, we took a coach trip into Tijuana, mexico (horrible!!!) Then drove back up to LA for our flight home. Probably other places that I can't remember along the way!

All that took 3 weeks - no overnight driving, we stayed in Hotels using accommodation vouchers every night except in Vancouver where we stayed with my Aunt. It didn't seem rushed and we got to see everything we wanted to see in that time.

wow, I am so - that would be the first thing I would do if I won the lottery.
I kinda agree with moondog tho, if it is a once in a lifetime thing, it would be nice if your youngest can remember it. Personally, I wouldn't worry about school, think how much he will learn from travelling - he can catch up with acaemics later.

On our last big holiday before DD, DH and I travelled through Vietnam, starting in Saigon and working our way up to Hanoi. We met an Australian couple en-route who had taken their son (about 7) and daughter (5) out of school for a year and were travelling around the world. The mum was a school teacher, and every morning they had a maths and english lesson, but related to the place they were in - in Hanoi they were doing shopping, and counting dong (currency) and they each had a journal - some of their stories were fantastic - about temples, Cu chi tunnels and how vietnamese children lived. The mum said that the school in Aus thought it was a great idea and encouraged them to go. They were emailing their school friends whenever they got chance.

I think their travelling must have been a great time for learning, how much better than worrying about SATS and getting into the 'right' school!

dejags
sorry I haven't been back sooner. Bit chaotic in nappybaghouse at the mo. Life's much easier when you're on the road

Do it, do it, do it. I think i said that somewhere before didn't I. We are broke now but don't regret our trip for one second. DD is 4.5. DS is 2 next month. DD will remember quite a bit and DS probably won't remember a thing. It doesn't matter. Both kids will gain enormously from the time and adventures they share with you. The aim of our trip was to build some memories for ourselves because the nappybaglets are growing so fast. The trip made us 'bond' as a family more than ever before. Of course it wasn't all easy or even pleasant but we have days like that at home too.

OK then, nitty gritty. Have you had an RV before. We hadn't but we do go camping and caravanning. The RV was the hardest bit of our trip. We booked it very last minute because our plans changed so we ended up witha pretty small and dirty model. It was slow to drive, wobbled in the wind and was so cramped inside that the kids were constantly bumping into things. if it had been bigger and easier to drive we would have had more fun I think.

It might be worth borrowing or hiring an RV for a few days before you go to see if you like it. Or I guess you could just book in plenty of time to make sure you get a decent van. However they are expensive and you'll probably want to stay on campsites some of the time which hikes the cost further.

Don't be put off by this. Just be better prepared than we were. I feel as though the kids were a bit too young to be confined in the tiny space that we had. I seemed to be constantly telling them to sit still and not touch things

Our budget was £100/d so your budget of $200 looks generous.

OK that's all I can think of right now

If you've any specific questions just ask or CAT me

DO IT - you'll have a great time

ooooh dejags what a totally fabulous idea.....

just my humble opinion but:

you MUST try to go to new zealand most fabulous place spectacular, baby friendly not expensive due to exchange rate

also if you can tahiti on the way there, just gorgeous

south america, chile is safe and meant to be v beautiful.

How's it going?

Any plans yet?

just to add - tokay can be very expensive. Spent time there visiting my sil who was living just outside tokyo. I did not have to pay for accommodation and was thankful as just standard hotel room was very expensive. SIL and I stayed one night in Tokyo before we headed off to where she lived.

If you do - you must take the bullet train to Hiroshima - amazing place. I caught the train from Tokyo down to Hiroshima - fab views despite the speed. Spent the night in the Youth Hostel - was the only one there - toured Hirshoma and the Peace PArk especially - then caught the train back late afternoon.

A tip for travel - buy a JR rail pass before you leave - can't buy them in Japan - and they allow you unlimited travel on Japan Rail Trains for the time period you have the card - I was there for two weeks and bought a 10 day card - it is valid from the first time you pick up your card and get it stamped. Was worth it - despite it still being expensive - the pass was cheaper than my trip to Hiroshima would have been had I not had the pass.

But I loved Tokyo - just amazing contrasts - of busy city streets - peaceful parks with Shinto Temples.

oops that should have been Tokyo can be very expensive.

Second for Trailfinders of Flight Centre - have used both and found them fab.

Right everybody - the past couple of weeks have consisted of a flurry of decision making in our house but we have finally decided that life is too bloody short to forgo this trip.

The main thing preventing us from going was a logistical issue with our Permanent Residence application in Australia - we have resolved this. I am unhappy in South Africa so we have made a final decision on our life path for the next year.

Here it is:

In April 06 we will leave South Africa on a 6/8 month round the world trip. We have chosen our tickets - the agent is currently planning the route and it should all be confirmed in the next two weeks!!!

We will go from SA to the UK, onto the USA (New York - Miami, then overland to the West Coast), then onto New Zealand (Via Fiji & the Cook ISlands), then Australia, then Japan, China, Singapore and back to South Africa. By the time we return in late 2006, we should know exactly what's happening with our Australia application and if that falls through we'll probably return to the UK permanently.

I am so excited and happy that we have finally made a decision. I keep thinking that we must be insane to do this with a 4.5 year old and 18 month old - but we are close family unit who like nothing better than to spend time together.

I CAN'T wait.

So Nappybaglady, RTKangamummy (not sure what your alias is now) and any of you others with experience travelling long-haul with small children, I'll be relying on you for loads of info.

This is a fantastic thing to do. Just a word of warning though - I thought when I did this (RTW in 11 months) it would also be a one off. 5 years later I finally came back to the UK with a husband in tow, stayed for 1 month and then left again! TBH I doubt that I will ever live in the UK again, I have so far only managed to live there for 18 months in the last 15 years and that was 10 years ago!
Your budget sounds very generous to me, no worries there. I would also consider missing out Honolulu, when I stopped there I changed my ticket so I could leave early, it's only tourists and tacky touristy attractions. I don't think you'll have a problem with meeting your accomodation needs either. Do join the YHA though, even with all the backpackers around some hostels still insist you are a member and then you can get a family room with attached bathrooms for a good price. In my expereince YHA hostels are more suitable to families than backpacker hostels (which are great if you are single and like drunken parties). Ref the comments about the ages of your children, if one DS is only 2 you will pay less than if he were 3 on the airlines and possibly won't have to pay at all in the hostels!
But whatever happens make sure you do this, otherwise you will spend the rest of your life saying 'if only...'

Thanks OnceInRoyalAlbertCity - we are definitely giving Hawaii a skip - the fare we have chosen Global Explorer uses Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand and Virgin so we have a couple of free stops in the South Pacific with ANZ. We might also skip Japan because the mileage limitation might mean that we will have to pay additional for this leg. I'd rather spend more time in China.

I know what you mean about not being able to settle down - we left South Africa in 1993, 12 years later we tried to return here and settle down and it is just not working. I am English by birth and just don't feel at home in SA, despite being schooled here.

Out of interest where are you living now?

WOW that sounds DEFFO BRILL

When we went round the world in 2002 we didn't have a strict budget some days were cheap and some were more expensive

Fiji is wonderful and New Zealand too

Are you using campervan/RV in NZ cos the company we used were deffo brill?

if you want to take it across the water on the ferry need to book especially in high summer actually I guess from your itenery you will be there in winter or spring

where are you going in Oz ???

Hi RT, was wondering if you would see this thread.

We would love to use an RV (although it will have to be hardy to withstand the onslaught of my boys). Those details would be fab.

We hope to fly into Brisbane and out of Melbourne - make our way overland (combination of whatever transport is viable) via Sydney. This is our "look-see" portion of the journey so we are bit disappointed to be going in winter but we timing wise we can't avoid it.

How are you doing?

Our biggest worry as I think I mentioned before is carseats. In the USA/NZ/Aus it shouldn't be too much of a problem as I am sure we can hire them. China and Malaysia/Thailand/cambodia should be more interesting. I have scoured the internet for a travel harness type thing but they don't seem to exist.

How old are they?

one of my friends just did a trip around the world. he kept a blog with photos. he went to such beautiful places.

They will be 5 and 19 months when we start