Were really going Travelling

The flights have been booked, it is all feeling real now, we are actually going travelling.

After many weeks of searching the Internet, telephone calls and emails to find which company to use to book our flights, we decided to book with STA Travel. We sat in the Guildford branch for over 4 hours searching for the best deal. With a lot of date switching and swooping one airline for another we found the route we wanted at a price we were very happy with. Andy, the travel agent at STA Travel who we were dealing with was fantastic and a massive help. I think it would be fair to say though that as we walked out the door he was probably glad to see the back of us.

Booking some of the flights have been a little difficult due to airlines only releasing seats 11 months in advanced. As some of the flights are more than 11 month in advance the dates for the latter part of the trip have to be dummy dates until the seats are released later in the year. This however shouldn’t be too much of a problem as STA offer a package which allows unlimited flight changes for £99, this is something that we managed to negotiate into the price of our ticket, and now allows us to change the later flights in out trip to dates that suit our timetable.

The flights are as follows:

Flying with Emirates - Heathrow to Bangkok - Tuesday 4^th October 22:00 London

Singapore to Brisbane 12^th December

Sydney to Christchurch – date to be confirmed

Auckland to Fiji – date to be confirmed

Fiji to LA – date to be confirmed

LA to home – date to be confirmed

Having now booked the flights I think its fair to say that we are more than a little excited at what lays ahead. Travelling has all of a sudden become real. We leave for Bangkok in four and a half months.

The Initial Ideas

Ok so hear it goes for the first post of many. I guess we need to talk about our plans and what we want to achieve on our travels.

So the basic plan that we have so far is as follows....

October: Leave England and head to Thailand

Start of November: Head through Cambodia to reach Vietnam

November: Get to Vietnam and spend the month travelling from the south to the north

December: Catch a flight from Hanoi to Bangkok

December 12^th ish: Fly to Australia where we are going to look to buy a camper-van.

December 25^th: Spend Christmas in Brisbane

January 1^{st :} Celebrate New Year in Sydney

January, February and March: Explore Australia and carry out some part time work so we dont forget that nasty working feeling.

April: Fly to New Zealand, working our way round the South Island before moving up to the North Island.

May: Spend a week or so in Fiji, have a bit of a holiday

Middle of May: If your lucky we may come home.