Backpacking with a 3 year old.......

[newnamenow]

This year, I intend to go travelling for a few months.. I have a lot of countries i want to see and I want my daughter to experience before she settles into starting school.

I am single, so as it stands, its just me and DD who will be going.
Are there any relevant organisations/ groups i could join which may give us a bit of company and support along the way?

Or any obvious advice, places to avoid etc..

If you dont know me, I have had a really tough couple of years.. and I really have to to do this and know it will be great for us both after everything. and while i have the money and before DD starts school!

I would put thailand on my list.

Obvious advise, get all your jabs before you go and make sure you get malaria tablets that are safe and not have any effect on your eyesight.

Make copies of your passports, drivers licence, credit card numbers and give them to someone in this country that you trust - in case of emergancey losing the documents that person can fax them to you. Plus keep a copy somewhere on you aswell so that you hopefully will have all the info incase of them going missing.

Use a nationwide account and use there hole in the wall system to get money. You get the best exchange rate with Nationwide and they do not charge for using the hole in the wall to get cash.

I would avoid south Asia but head for south east asia if you are going in that direction.

Travelling west -- no idea.

You are a braver woman than I am. I am not sure I'd want to dare do what you're planning.

This forum may be helpful

Wow! Very , I'd love to run away with dcs and dh again.....we went Australia, camped all the way up the Gold coast to the Great Barrier reef, our dc's were 5,4 and 2 we had a campervan as well, have to say was the best time ever and would do it again if we could scrape the money together! Dc3 (who was 2 at the time) still remembers bits, they all learnt alot. have a wonderful time and take loads of pictures and dvds of you lo enjoying the freedom!

The Foreign Office also offer advice by country. It is worth checking their site as it has some useful information

I would have a rough idea of where you want to go and have done some research into places you want to stay in the places you want to go. That way you won't end up in a party hostel full of smokers etc and can book your next stop in advance. You should probably get your own room in a hostel this works well.
Try to limit the time between your travel time we did no more than 5hrs between destinations so mapped out our 3mth journey using that in the most part. We did have a couple of overnight train journeys which weren't so bad.
Fit all your stuff into one pack!!!!! dh, dd (18mths) and I had one between us. Pack lots of zip lock bags as they are great for dirty clothes, putting dried fruit/snacks into soaps, basically everything.
It will be tiring, and there will be moments where it will be hard but it will also be great and your dd will love going over things. My dd now almost 5 still loves to look at photos of places she has been. I would love to go to Sth America and have heard great things about travelling with children there.

Bali is fab, and they love children! (though they are very keen on marriage too!! )