Now that we’re about one week into our trip to China and Mongolia, we’ve ventured beyond Beijing, our first destination. For this two month trip, we’ve packed as lightly as possible. Instead of each of us taking our normal packs (around 80 liters in size) and also carrying additional smaller packs, we’re only carrying one medium sized pack (about 35 liters) and smaller backpacks. Also, one of the smaller bags is a camera/laptop bag.
Yes, jet lag really sucks. Some say that it takes an entire day to adjust for each timezone that you cross on your flight. That could be up to 12 days if you're traveling to the opposite side of the world. Who has time for that? It's different for everyone, though, as some adjust faster than others. Younger travelers, or those that exercise often, are said to adjust faster. Whatever your specific situation, here are some tips to help you adjust to jet lag faster and prepare for your long flight.
The other day, we finally purchased our plane tickets for our trip to China and Mongolia. We’ve been planning this trip for a while, but recent life events led us to actually settle on some specific dates for our trip. However, like any good traveler (and anyone who wants to save money), we’ve been monitoring the prices of tickets for quite some time in hopes to get the best bang for our buck. This ended up being a waste of time, because on many of the popular airline booking sites, the price they give you when you’re about to buy a ticket can be much different than the price you’re shown at the beginning of the process. Let the following story be a warning to anyone trying to play this game.
The theme of this week's Photo Friday is Southern Ethiopia. This is part of my personal effort to convince as many people as possible to visit Africa. After spending several months on the continent, we realized that we had only experienced a drop in the bucket. Africa is so huge and diverse that it would take years to fully understand all of the cultures, history, tragedy, and beauty that this immense land has to offer.
In 2009, we spent 11 months traveling through Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. We want you to learn from our experience, so we put together a trip planning guide: How To Plan A Trip Around The World. We cover everything from budgeting to packing, route planning to insurance, safety to vaccinations, and visas to round-the-world plane tickets. Combining our first hand experience with tips and resources from other travelers, we leave no stone unturned.
Keith Savage, in his own words, "had an amazing vacuum of spirit." He realized that there was more to life than his 9 to 5 job and set out to travel. I recently had the opportunity to find out more about his plans and motivations.
Asia, is large, and of course diverse. But when you move beyond the glitz and glamour of Hong Kong and Singapore you can find some of the least expensive and most inspiring travel destinations. We've compiled a list of what we think are the most interesting, and cheapest, destinations in eastern Asia.
It may surprise you that Mali has enough to offer to warrant an entire month, but we dove in and didn‘t even have time to see everything.
Because the U.S. Dollar is so strong against the Syrian Pound, we found ourselves much wealthier than our Syrian counterparts. Despite this, the local people treated us as if we were the guests of honor to be looked after and taken care of - and they were not after our money. We were invited into homes for lunch, given free food at restaurants, and taken on free tours of historic sites.
Introducing Budget Your Trip, a trip expense planning resource for travelers.