Wow. What a journey it has been. The 68-day “Trip of a Lifetime” has come and gone, and I haven’t been more glad to be finally back in Australia! It has been a week since I’ve touched down, here in Australia and I’m still losing sleep, reminiscing the wonderful things that have happened in my life these past three months.
Excuse me while my mind goes off on it’s own little world.
Maranello. A city hidden away, 200km south of Milan in Italy. A city drenched in red and gold. A city littered with supercars from both Ferrari and Lamborghini. A city where if you listen closely enough, you may here the roar and whine of a V12 engine of a Ferrari being tested at the test track. We only spent a day here, but we were instantly overwhelmed by the extraordinary experience, that is the world of Ferrari - past, present and even the future. From the vintage F1 cars raced in the mid-19th century, to the history of the man himself - Enzo Ferrari, to the future of Ferrari - the LaFerrari.
We are now two weeks into our “Trip of a Lifetime”, and I thought I might give you a quick update on what’s been happening and what will happen.
We have traveled a whopping 10,811km on an airplane and collected seven passport stamps in the past fortnight, from Melbourne, to Singapore, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Bangkok in Thailand, Doha in Qatar, and finally, Milan in Italy. Looking back on what has happened in the past fortnight, I’ve never had so much fun and experienced such a variety of cultures in my entire life.
From the haze from illegal burns in Indonesia crossing Singapore, to the tuk tuk rides and unbelievably cheap alcohol in Phnom Penh, to the shopping sprees and sunshine in Bangkok & Pattaya, to the serenity of each small street in Milan, I will certainly not forget anything that has happened in my life these past two weeks.
So, you all might be asking, what’s next? Well, to be frank, we don’t know. From the day that we left Melbourne, we didn’t know what we were going to do in Asia, and look at how many things we’ve managed to scavenge up! I mean, we didn’t even plan in going to Pattaya until lift off! No tours booked in advance - everything was done with the flow.
We believe that the stuff that we do, is best when we don’t expect or plan it in advance. We just take it as it comes. What we do know is which cities we’ll be visiting, and next up, we’ll be travelling to Calabria in Italy, where we will be travelling my bus from Milan tomorrow night. It’ll be a whopping 10-hour bus ride and I’m definitely not looking forward to that!
In the last blog post, I stated what we will be doing (and when), during our Europe/Asia trip next month. As we are still uncertain on what exactly we’re doing, we will keep this blog post updated as we confirm plans and flights. We will continue updating this as much as we can until the take-off date. Plans may still change after we leave. Watch this space!
UPDATE (2 June 2013): The itinerary is now complete. No further updates will be made to this post, but plans may change closer to the take-off date.
The itinerary and older updates to the itinerary are after the break.
After months upon months of planning and constant checking for cheap flights, we have finally booked our main flights! Yep, the dates are now set in stone and we are ready to go!
So far, we’ve got this confirmed. The take-off date is June 20, and the trip will last a total of 67-days, so we will be returning in August 26. We will also be visiting the following countries. Singapore, Thailand, Italy and Belgium. But the planning hasn’t finished just yet and we’re still at the drawing board on the lookout for more countries to visit.
As we are yet to confirm all flights and plans for this trip (note that we have only booked the main flights so far), we will update our itinerary/plans HERE as they are confirmed.
It’s been over a month since our last ‘Europe 2013’ post so I thought I’d give you a little update on what’s happening.
Planning for the June 2013 Europe trip is still underway (if you’re wondering) and our budget has allowed us to add new cities into our itinerary! Wonderful!
As most Australian travellers would know, buying flights out of Australia are inflated as heck. It breaks the bank. Buying a separate flight to Asia and then flying into Europe with another airline could possibly cut your airfare costs in half. As we are flying into Asia anyway, we thought, why not make a holiday out of it?! So the plan is - in the first week (and a bit) of our trip, we will be touching down in Cambodia & Thailand (and maybe Singapore as well). Phew! Almost three countries in seven-or-so days. We ain’t messing around that’s for sure!
The day that I was looking forward to has come. Four months of vigorous planning and the continuous drooling over the videos and photos, have all come down to today. The ticket release of the Tomorrowland 2013 Music Festival.
In the previous “Europe 2013” blog post, I mentioned that the Tomorrowland 2013 Music Festival was the ‘heart’ of this Europe trip and if I failed to get my hands on tickets, then the Europe trip will collapse. The ticket sales have begun, and guess what?
I’ve always loved the great outdoors. Rain, hail, or shine, I always wanted to stay away from the house for as long as I possibly could. Now that I’ve been increasingly independent, away from my parents, I thought, “Why not fly to Europe?”.
The idea of flying overseas was on my mind ever since I flew to the United States with the family back in 2009. The only other international flight since then was to Vietnam with the family (again), in 2010. I guess I could argue that I’m clearly overdue for another international trip. Something in me is just telling me that I need time away from everything in life. I’m sure most, if not, all of you out there are feeling the same way.