Itinerary

In April 2011, I set off from Perth, Western Australia with grandeous plans to explore Europe for 2 years.

“2 Years?” my Dad said “You’ll be back in 3 months. Europe is bloody expensive. You’ll get bored of it.”

The original plan included a 2 year working holiday visa for the UK; and completely obeying the Schengen Visa limitations of 90 days inside the zone, for every 180 days passed.

But one thing you learn once you start travelling, is things don’t always go to plan. Travel teaches you to be flexible, and adaptable, and to keep an open itinerary.

My itinerary has changed many times since I started back in April, 2011. I never did work in the UK, I never even saw the UK outside of London (and a quick stopover to visit a friend in Stevenage). Amazing how things change.

I’ll give you a very quick summary of the year that was, and show all the major players in changes to my itinerary. This isn’t all that happened on the trip, for that you should subscribe to my RSS feed, and read all the posts from start to finish.

 

Europe

When I first learnt about the Schengen Zone and its limitations I’d planned on starting in Spain for Ibiza and Running of the Bulls and travelling for 90 days towards Germany for Oktoberfest. Back then it was all about the Bucket List.

Then I went ahead and delayed my travel plans to train harder for my blackbelt (which I never did get). So the new itinerary was to start at Oktoberfest, leaving Running of the Bulls for the following year. I was training so hardcore I also gave up drinking for 7 months, and just happened to get in the best shape of my life at the same time.

After getting my 2 year working holiday visa, I gave my boss notice and quit my job to travel; I started getting organised and working towards a September departure date for Oktoberfest.

But I was rehired as a contractor for a few more months of work; that ended up being 3 months, finishing up in February 2011. Which meant I missed my departure date (and festivals); so my plans changed again, starting the trip in Turkey for Anzac Day (in April 2011).

This was all before I even left Australia.

Once I got to Turkey, I went on a 15 day tour, saw Galipoli, and met many awesome Australian & New Zealand characters. I’d planned on making friends on the tour and following some of them to the Greek Islands, but I discovered that no one was going because in April the water isn’t all that warm. So plans changed again, and I headed up to Bulgaria after my first CouchSurfing experience in Cappadocia.

By this stage, I was still a nervous and a new traveller, but I adopted the 3-day rule, which I have sworn by ever since.

Bulgaria was having much the same weather as Greece, so heading to the Black Sea was no good. Instead I went to Plovdiv, and from there on to Sofia, back down through Greece (across to Corfu), and finally to Athens. In Athens there was a whirlwind romance, where my travel plans changed again to accommodate. From there I went on to the Greek Islands ending in Crete where I flew to Berlin to meetup with a CouchSurfer to travel Italy with. We were going to get a Eurail pass for 2-3 weeks, but that ended up being a disaster as well, so we decided for the slower, cheaper form of travel and managed just fine.

In Florence, I was robbed.

That really screwed up my travel plans again. I managed to get a temporary passport in Milan, and changed my plans to stay in Italy for a while longer (and cheer myself up). Eventually I went to Madrid in Spain, back to the embassy again to inquire about a more permanent passport. They issued me one, but it was going to take a while to process. I travelled on using the temporary passport.

I travelled up through Slovakia, Hungary, and down to Croatia. That’s when the Spanish Consulate got ahold of me and told me to get back to Spain to pickup my new passport, or they would destroy it. Plans changed again. I travelled onward from Croatia to Italy to Greece then fly up to London for the Oktoberfest tour I had booked. Timing it just right to finish in London and head down through France to Spain to pickup my passport before it got destroyed.

Eventually I burnt myself out from all the travel, and decided to stay in Spain and rest for a while. I started to learn Spanish, and met an awesome group of friends. And after celebrating New Years in Prague, I decided I would get the hell out of Europe and check out North Africa.

North Africa

After a week of exploring the South of Spain I made my way to Tarifa where I tried to escape Europe after spending almost 9 months inside the Schengen zone. There was a bit of trouble at the border, but luckily I wasn’t jailed or deported, and got into Tangier, Morocco successfully by ferry.

I managed to find a CouchSurfing host in Tetouan, so headed straight there from Tangier, since I’d heard how dodgy that place could be. More trouble found me in Tetouan, and from there I travelled independently all across Morocco for almost a month. From Marrakesh I headed back to Europe to Geneva for a 3-day layover because it saved me 400€ on flights. Then straight down to Egypt.

I was in Egypt for almost a month as well, where I learned how to dive, took a cruise on the Nile, and checked out the Pyramids of Giza.

I eventually made my way from Cairo (Egypt) to Istanbul (Turkey) to make use of a free flight home. It would have been faster/better to book the flight from Cairo straight to Dubai, but I didn’t even know I was going to be in Egypt back when I booked the flight from Istanbul (Turkey) to Perth (Australia) to make use of the free ticket and surprise my Dad for his 60th birthday. After a 3-day stopover in Dubai (UAE) I was just glad to be going home after 314 days on the road.

If you’ve managed to read all this, you should have a vague idea of how much adventure I packed into my first year of independent travel. I learnt so many valuable lessons on the road, and definitely plan (and pack) a lot less nowadays. Next up on the itinerary is Central & South America. I was going to stopover in India for a month, but after talking to some Indians I met in Dubai, they suggested I visit India later in the year to avoid the heat in the South.