Best Travel The World Itinerary – In 2014 and 2015, we spent 13 months traveling around the world. If you’re thinking about long-term travel and need some inspiration, or just want to know what we’ve been up to, here’s our trip around the world.
Nine of the 13 months were spent in Asia. We had several reasons for doing this. Asia is one of the cheapest places to travel, so our money can go a long way here, helping us stick to our budget. Second, it takes a long time to get to Asia from the East Coast of the US, so we wanted to fully explore the region while having a good time. And finally, Asia is a MUST SEE, a continent that was new to us before starting this trip around the world.
Best Travel The World Itinerary
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We spent less time in more expensive countries such as Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Japan didn’t even make it on our first trip simply because it would be too expensive, but we ended up adding it anyway. It was a big decision; Japan is now one of our favorite countries.
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We did not visit South America on this trip. One of the reasons is that we ran out of time. Plus, it’s easy to fly from the US to South America so we can visit the continent when we’re back home.
From Maryland we took the Bolt bus to New York. We took family photos in Times Square and boarded the plane to Europe. Hello world, here we come!
We stayed in Copenhagen and had a six hour layover before flying to Rome, Italy. It was just in time for lunch in Nyhavn and before we knew it we were on our way to Rome.
Since we were traveling as a family, we had to adjust to being together every minute of the day. We wanted to join this new adventure, traveling through a place that felt familiar. For us, that “normal” place was Europe. We didn’t want to face culture shock, unfamiliar places and a new way of traveling at the same time, so Italy was our first destination.
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After a few days in Berchtesgaden, Germany, we made Garmisch-Partenkirchen our home. From here we explored Liechtenstein (with a very brief visit to the quaint town of Buchs in Switzerland), Innsbruck in Austria and Rothenburg in Germany. From Munich we flew to Africa, a new continent for us.
For six weeks we went to southern Africa on one of the most important trips. We traveled thousands of kilometers through Botswana and most of South Africa.
Our flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to Kathmandu, Nepal landed in Abu Dhabi. We turned this resort into a retreat, spending just three days here, just enough time to climb the world’s tallest building and drink gold-sprinkled cappuccinos, before entering Asia first.
We planned our trip around the world to be in Nepal at the end of September, at the beginning of the trekking season to Everest Base Camp. Most people travel from early to mid October. We took our chances starting a week in advance to reduce the number of people on the road. We were lucky that the monsoon season didn’t come late and had a great experience.
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With a daily fee of $250 per person (about half the cost for children), Bhutan was a budget option. We almost didn’t include it in our world tour because of the high daily costs. But with Nepal and India on our trip, we were so close to Bhutan that it seemed a shame to skip it.
It was an amazing decision to include Bhutan in our round the world trip. Bhutan is currently one of our favorite destinations in the world…
We only spent a week here, long enough to see the highlights and fall in love with Bhutan. I have a feeling we’ll be back again one day…
Our big tour of India started in Siliguri on Diwali. We were immediately inspired to get acquainted with the colorful and interesting culture of this country. After a few days in the cool hill town of Darjeeling, we flew to Mumbai where we went to Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Agra, Delhi, Varanasi, Khajuraho and Kolkata.
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I got dengue in India and Kara struggled with homesickness. It’s no secret that we weren’t big fans of India during our five-week visit. In fact, a few weeks ago we considered skipping it, cutting our round-the-world trip short and visiting Myanmar or Thailand early. But our time in India changed us in many ways…how we travel, who we are as a family, and how we think about our place in the world.
In Myanmar, we spent our first week in Yangon, looking at visas to go to Thailand, visiting the places below, and keeping busy with things like going to school and planning future trips. We then took a bus north to visit the temples of Bagan. From Mandalay we flew to Bangkok, Thailand.
Bangkok is an amazing city and a great place to start your journey through Southeast Asia. We spent a few days here before flying to Krabi, Thailand. We wanted to be somewhere special for Christmas and with beautiful beaches, rock climbing and snorkelling, Krabi was perfect.
After nine days in Krabi, we flew back to Bangkok, then took public transport to Ayutthaya, Sukhothai, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. We spent the most memorable New Year’s Eve night hanging paper lanterns in the sky, which is a unique and unforgettable Thai experience.
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We only spent one week in Laos, and that time was not enough. Laos exceeded our expectations and I wish we could have spent more time here.
After leaving Thailand, we drifted down the Mekong River for two days, ending our trip in Luang Prabang. This small French town in the jungles of Laos was fun to explore. From Luang Prabang, things continued to improve on the flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
We spent two weeks in Cambodia. Our first week was spent exploring the temples around Siem Reap. From Siem Reap we spent a few days in Phnom Penh visiting the Killing Fields and ended up in the wonderful little Kampot.
We explored Vietnam from the bottom up, starting at Phu Quoc Island and slowly moving north, ending up in Hanoi. From Hanoi we entered mainland China, took several buses to Nanning.
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From walking the Great Wall, visiting the Forbidden City, cycling through scenic Yangshuo and visiting Zhangjiajie, our time in China was exceptional. Hong Kong was just as amazing, although our side trip to Macau was a disappointment.
For two weeks, we visited the most famous places in Taiwan, the highlights of which were Taipei City, climbing Teapot Mountain, exploring Taroko National Park and eating at night markets.
We also turned the rest area into a bus stop. Our flight from Taiwan to New Zealand went through Fiji, so we landed in paradise for one amazing week.
New Zealand was our favorite country on our trip around the world. It is beautiful, cosy, clean and quiet and a joy to explore.
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Australia was one of our most expensive countries on the list, but that’s okay, we really enjoyed our time here. Tasmania was our favourite, but Melbourne, the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru were also great.
With some much needed downtime, we relaxed in Bali’s traditional center of Ubud, followed by surfing and beach time in Seminyak.
As we neared the end of our trip, we started hopping from one country to another, trying to see as much as possible before this amazing trip came to an end. We saw the best of Singapore in a quick five days before heading to Kuala Lumpur.
Tim found a series of cheap flights connecting Singapore and Japan, and Kuala Lumpur was on the list. We were here long enough to see the Petronas Towers and find that Kuala Lumpur was more interesting than we expected.
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We were in South Korea during the MERS outbreak. Unfortunately, the DMZ was “closed” due to MERS, so we didn’t see it, which is a big setback. In just one week, we spent a few days in Seoul and spent some time exploring Jeju Island.
Japan is amazing. It is also very hot and uncomfortable in the middle of summer. The food, the culture, the temples, the history… Japan is a place we can’t wait to explore again… just not in the summer.
From Tokyo we flew to Los Angeles. How wonderful it was to be back in the beautiful USA. At this point in the trip we were tired and really longing to be “home”. Thing is, we didn’t have a house because we sold it to go on this trip, but still
