July 9, 2025 • 51 mins
Tracy and Doug reflect on their incredible nine-month journey across 22 countries and four continents, sharing candid insights about their favourite destinations, practical tips, and lessons learned from long-term travel.
• Morocco and Sri Lanka emerged as top destinations with their rich cultures and warm hospitality
• Food tours provide the perfect introduction to new destinations, offering local knowledge and culinary insights
• Strategic packing with thermal layers proved essential for navigating between European winters and Asian heat
• Leaving luggage at a "base location" solves the challenge of packing for multiple seasons and climates
• Balancing work and travel requires designated work days and dividing responsibilities based on strengths
• Christmas markets in Germany create magical winter experiences worth braving the cold temperatures
• Train strikes and unexpected weather can derail plans, highlighting the importance of flexibility
• Comprehensive travel insurance is non-negotiable – "if you can't afford travel insurance, you can't afford to travel"
• Checking for local festivals and holidays before booking helps avoid unexpected disruptions
• Slower travel with longer stays in fewer destinations provides a more rewarding experience
If you're dreaming of your own extended adventure, visit globaltravelplanning.com for detailed itineraries and practical planning advice from our journey around the world.
Show notes - Episode 62
🎧 Listen to next
- Episode #5: Navigating Long-Term Travel: Insider Tips from Travel Content Creator Tess Moone
- Episode #8: Planning the Ultimate Travel Adventure to Asia and Beyond
- Episode 48– Moroccan Adventure: Highlights, Culture, and Travel Tips fro
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
After nine months, 22 countries, 17 flights and
travels across four continents,we're reflecting on what it's
really like to take a long-termtrip around the world discover
our favorite destinations,biggest lessons and top tips for
planning your own globaladventure.
Hi and welcome to the GlobalTravel Planning Podcast.
I'm your host, tracey Collins,who, with my expert guests, will
(00:22):
take you on a weekly journey todestinations around the globe,
providing travel inspiration,itinerary ideas, practical tips
and more to help you plan yournext travel adventure.
Hi and welcome to episode 62 ofthe Global Travel Planner
(00:42):
Podcast.
This week, karen is back tointerview Duggan me about our
recent nine-month trip aroundthe world.
As you remember, karen was herea few weeks ago to chat to us
all about Sri Lanka, so if youhaven't heard about that, pop
back to that episode and take alisten.
But today we are going to besharing our full itinerary
across Europe, north Africa,asia and a short stop in the US
(01:02):
and and talking through how wefind it all ourselves as
independent travellers, fromfavourite destinations to
practical tips, tours we lovedand what we'd do differently
next time.
We cover a lot and, if you'reinterested in specific
destinations like Spain orMorocco, some of those episodes
are already out and there's morecoming soon, so over to you,
karen.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Hey there, thanks for having me back again.
Tracy and doug um, my name iskaren.
I'm from the new life inaustralia podcast.
I'm friends with tracy and dougand you might recognize my
voice because I interviewed themin episode 59 about their sri
lanka trip.
So let's get straight on tofinding out about your amazing
trip.
It's been huge.
You've been away for a reallylong time.
Can you give us a quickwalkthrough of your whole
(01:42):
itinerary and where you visited?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
right, well, it was nine months.
Yeah, doug wasn't there for thewhole entire bit.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
We, you know no, I had to come back to australia
for a few weeks, yeah yeah, hecame back, I think for two
months, didn't he, and then hecame back yeah, but, um, but
doug had long service leaves,which is something we get in
australia, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Um, so kind of we knew that was coming up, so that
was one reason we kind of builtthe trip around that, because
he had six months off, butbasically the entire trip was
nine months.
I was away for nine months andwe were in Europe, we were in
North Africa, asia, and weactually started off by flying
over to the US for a few daysjust to break the flights up,
(02:20):
because I'm not a big fan ofmassive long flights and flying
from Australia to the UK is 20odd hours, and so that's what we
decided to do.
So, to give you a quick, kindof brief overview of it, we had
17 flights, 22 countries andnine months Wow that's huge.
It was pretty big, so let'sstart talking about some of the
destinations, which ones reallysurprised you, which did you
(02:41):
love, which did you not?
It was pretty big.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So let's start talking about some of the
destinations.
Which ones really surprised you?
Which did you love?
Which did you not love so much?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Well, we went to a lot of places, some places we
hadn't been to before.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, morocco and others we'd been to before which
was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, I think we both fell in love with Morocco.
We absolutely loved it.
I can't wait to go back and see, and I think Sri Lanka would be
another highlight was amazing.
And then in Europe itself, Iwould say Finland and Sweden.
We went to stay with a friendof yours in Sweden who was.
It was lovely to go and see.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah that was magical .
All the Christmas marketsstarted in Berlin yeah, yeah and
we did so many christmasmarkets and you had to have much
more wine.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh, it was fantastic, it was lovely, yeah the um
sweden experience.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
And yeah, it was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And then on my own, I guess, um, I spent three weeks
in italy in november in pulia,uh, with my friend shelly, who's
another of the uh guests, comesand comes on the podcast every
month to talk about differenttips that we share and the
ladies that travel segment.
So I went to spend some timewith Shelley in Puglia, which
was an area of Italy that I hadnot been to before, not really
(03:54):
considered before, and, oh mygoodness, wow, amazing.
Shelley's actually going to becoming on soon and we're going
to do a bit of a deep dive intoPuglia oh, that sounds great.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So so many amazing places you visited on the way.
Were there any places that youwish that you'd been able to
stay longer?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
morocco morocco, without a doubt I think I I
would say, yeah, we can't bothof us can't wait to go back to
morocco.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
We met some lovely people on on a tour there as
well, but just the people thatwe met.
It was just such a but just thepeople that we met.
It's just such a contrast to somany other countries we've
visited and such a rich historyas well, which you don't always
realise.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
It's culturally just so different to any other
personal experience before.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So yeah, and they meant that you'd set foot on the
African continent for the firsttime, as well, that is also
true.
And Moroccan food is myfavourite, so it was wonderful
food for me actually.
Yeah, I could eat Moroccan foodevery day and be really happy.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Tagine for breakfast, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Absolutely.
I mean just the vegetables,they're just fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I just love it.
It's so healthy.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, I do love sweets, though there's a lot of
sweets Moroccan people have alot of very sweet things, but
you can avoid them.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So were there any other places that you wish you'd
kind of skipped or stayed likeshorter trip?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I don't think anywhere necessarily shorter.
I think probably Istanbul.
I think I'd probably want tospend a little bit longer
exploring Istanbul.
We were there for a few days,yeah, turkey in general, I think
I'd like to go and explore farmore of.
We just feel like we dipped ourtoes into that, I think.
Um, and also we had awfulweather when we were in Portugal
(05:37):
, really dreadful, particularlyPorto.
Lisbon was okay, but Porto wehad really bad weather.
So you know, we just couldn'tgo out and explore as much as we
wanted to.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, and in Spain, I wanted to travel a bit more
around by Spain, butunfortunately there was train
strikes on at the time, so Iwanted to do some of the high
speed train lines, which not aproblem.
I mean, it was a problem thefact I didn't do it.
Just save it for next time.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, it's one of those things.
You can't plan those things canyou?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
They just happen, and it's about being flexible and
also, yeah, I'd say Sweden andFinland would be other ones that
I'd want to see more of, mostdefinitely.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
And then next, time that way between Sweden we're
allowed to go across on theferry to Estonia as well.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, we didn't do that this time.
Yeah, so that was something wecould do do wow.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
so how do you approach seasonal travel?
You were mentioning thechristmas markets and I'm
guessing there was a lot ofpacking of warm things or a lot
of buying of warm things whenyou got there.
Like, how do you even plan forfor that kind of travel,
thermals?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
thermals yeah, because it's it's you clothes.
From a male perspective.
You're talking about warmth.
It's not sort of sweaty clothesand you've got to wash them
every day, sort of thing.
So it's about literally keepingwarm.
So it's more, you know, thermalclothes, it's thicker socks.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And things you're not really used to in Australia as
well.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
We don't really have that here that is very true,
yeah, but that all adds to thespecial feeling, particularly at
Christmas time.
It's freezing cold.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, it was pretty chilly but we, just we did.
We went to Marks and Spencer'sin the UK and just bought
thermals, so thermal um, andalso Uniqlo.
I bought some some really coolwell cool, actually warm, but
very thin uh, tops that you canwear underneath the clothes.
That were amazing.
So just the layering aspect isreally, is really important, and
also hand warmers.
(07:24):
We bought hand warmers which are, they were actually invaluable
when I was in Italy, because inPuglia it was actually freezing
in November and I was staying ina tulli which is a traditional
tullo tullo I forgot its nameright a traditional home in the
Puglia region and it was very,very cold.
So hand warmers in the bed werethe best way to keep warm but
they are honestly, I wouldn'ttravel anywhere in winter
(07:46):
without having hand warmers yeah, I assumed houses would be
really warm there.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Like I know, in the UK obviously everyone's got
double glazing and centralheating, and so inside you're
normally quite hot and then yougo outside and it suddenly gets
very cold.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I don't know, because I think there's rules, because
when I stayed in Rome to startwith, and, um, we were quite
cold and I spoke to the peoplefrom the the apartment and I
said, oh, actually they weren'tallowed to turn the heating on
yet, because it's a rule in Romethat there's a certain day the
mayor will say yes, you can turnthe heating on.
So yeah, I think that there'sthere's more to it.
I think, like in when I stayeda pool year, there was a fire
(08:19):
which I but I didn't want to dothat sort that out on my own, um
, you know, set the fire and doso.
So, basically, um, and I wasthere with a friend for the
first few days and then she flewback to the uk and I was like
I'm not gonna mess around withthe fire, open fire, so just
hand warmers, honestly, and thatwas at night, and then during
the day, just have layers, makesure that you've.
You know, you plan for that.
(08:39):
But yeah, seasonally we wentfrom the very cold to the very
hot during this trip.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I was gonna say, and how you plan for packing with
that.
That means a lot of extra stuffin your suitcase yeah, well, I
think because we because we're alot of time.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
We spent a lot of time based in the UK.
We we then left a lot of stuffin the UK that we knew we
weren't going to need on thissecond part of the trip.
So we left um mid-February forthe last kind of push of the
trip and we knew we were onlygoing to be in a few places like
Spain and Portugal, turkey,where it might be cooler but not
as cold.
So therefore we took far lesskind of warmer clothes and we
(09:15):
took far more of the things thatyou need in a warmer and a hot
climate.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, and we just talked about in your Sri Lanka
episode how you had a base atthe beginning and at the end of
your trip where you were able toleave all of your luggage as
well, so you could just kind ofpack what you needed for your
for your travels around theregion as well.
So that was a really good tipthat you shared there and we did
that in Morocco.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I will just say we did that same thing in Morocco.
We stayed in the same hotel.
We actually we did a tour,which we'll talk about in a bit,
but we we, we deliberately leftbooked in the hotel in
marrakech that we were endingthe tour in, even though it
started in casablanca.
We flew in, stayed at thathotel in marrakech and then got,
got, made our own way tocasablanca, but it meant we
(09:53):
could leave the luggage andstore it there, so we didn't
have to take the luggage againon this tour all around morocco.
So then, when we got back tothe hotel, I think everybody was
amazed, because then we broughtall this luggage out from the
storage suddenly wearingdifferent clothes.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah now, were there any standout experiences
or bucket list moments, likesome amazing things you've been
wanting to do your whole livesthat you were able to do on this
trip?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
well, go to.
Portugal, portugal.
Now others have been portugalso we're determined to get there
.
Um, but I said the weather waswas not great, I think chef
showan for me was just somewhereI'd seen on the race around the
world in morocco.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
so this is the blue city in morocco and I'd seen it
on the race around the worldprogram that was a bbc one, I
think um a few years ago, and Iwas like I want to go and see
this and see this place.
It's blue, it's called Blue Seaand it is amazing and that, oh,
I just loved it.
I just thought that wasabsolutely fantastic.
So that was beautiful.
Going to Istanbul actually wassomewhere that just everybody I
(10:53):
know has been to Istanbul, sothat was amazing to go to.
On a kind of sadder note onsomewhere that I don't know it's
not a bucket list destination,but I think it's somewhere that
I'd wanted to go to um for along time.
(11:14):
Was was Auschwitz, birkenau.
So we did that um, and I thinkyou know that I had I couldn't
sleep for for nights after that,so that was that had a huge
impact.
Um, yeah, so, and I think Iguess, in terms of happier
things than some of theChristmas markets I mean you
can't, you know, especiallyGermany, germany new Christmas
markets to to an outstandingdegree, they really really do.
And what about?
I mean the must, and obviouslywe shrank.
You did a train trip that youreally enjoyed.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, I like all train, you know, but that was
special.
I enjoy the train journey fromMadrid down to Seville, know,
but that was special.
I enjoyed the train journeyfrom madrid down to seville.
That was a one train journey Iwanted to do and civil as a
place.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
We thoroughly thought , enjoyed it.
It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Seville was beautiful um, and then in barcelona, just
outside barcelona, we went backto the town of sigis, where I
used to go when I was growing up, and that was nice, a special
place to visit again takingtracy.
I wish you enjoyed that I did.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I really did enjoy it and also I'm just going to
throw in there as well I went toJersey in October for 10 days
doing a house sit.
Now I've always wanted to go toJersey because of one thing I
was a big fan when I was growingup with Gerald Dorrell, so I
managed to go and visit JerseyZoo.
I managed to go and visitJersey Zoo.
I managed to go and pay myrespects, shed a tear or two, I
have to say.
I was always such a big fan ofGerald Durrell, and so that was
(12:30):
a real highlight of me, for meof that trip just being able to
go.
I actually just spent a weekchilling out, house-sitting in
Jersey.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
But that was the one thing that I really wanted to do
, so that was a huge, since,since I was 11 or even younger,
I wanted to go there.
So that was fantastic, yeah,yeah, I have to say back into
the uk, I thought I enjoyed thehouse that we did in edinburgh
just in the new year, hog nightinto the new year and lots of
train journeys from there, whichI did as well.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, yeah, I did.
Yeah, we did a lot of them.
We went to belfast.
I've not been to northernireland, so there was just a lot
in this trip that when I starttalking about it now.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I could probably talk forever about all the
highlights because there's somany, but it was amazing yeah, I
mean, you've been to so manyplaces and like how did you even
begin to like think about this,what inspired you to take on
such a big trip for a nine month, traveling with all these
different countries?
And like, how did you envisageputting it all together?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I think it was where we, where we kind of wanted to
go to some places we knew wehadn't been to before, so Spain
and Portugal were definitely upthere.
Turkey was up there.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
We've shopped into Spain many times, but there's
lots of places, but some placeswe hadn't been to in Spain.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
We hadn't been to the southern part of Spain and I
wanted to do that.
So it wasn't necessarilycountries, but it was also
places we hadn't been to, placeswe hadn't been to.
So I guess it was that when youhave the whole world to choose
from it's when do you begin?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Where do you begin?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I think when you were going to, because obviously
we're doing a lot of research inthe UK and London travel
planning websites, so basingourselves in the UK and also
catching up with family wasreally important.
So I guess it was then.
We just took opportunities asthey arose, for example in
January.
I wasn it was then.
We just took opportunities asthey arose, for example in
January.
I wasn't sure where we weregoing to go in in February and
(14:07):
then I happened to see thatIntrepid had a sale on and I
said let's have a look where wecould go, and Morocco was really
reasonably priced on sale.
I went let's go to Morocco.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I was going to say when you left and you were going
off, I didn't know quite what aspectacular trip you had
planned.
And you didn't know at the timeeither, because you didn't have
it all locked in in advance.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So I kind of winged it a lot of the way, like
deciding where you know, becauseof the flight thing, about not
having flights longer than fivehours, it was kind of like, oh
well, where can we go for that?
And then I guess we knew in inDecember we kind of dug arrived
back into the UK, flew back inand it was like, well, we've got
a house it's starting into theUK.
Flew back in and it was like,well, we've got a house
sit-starting on the 29th ofDecember in Edinburgh, where
(14:46):
should we go in Europe?
And it had to be Christmasmarkets and you know I love the
heat but also I was like I wantto see some snow.
So that kind of drove that tripa bit.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, so you were kind of trying to plan a little
bit ahead, but being spontaneousand flexible and also it's a
long time since I've taken theEurostar from London St Pancras
to Amsterdam since the newstation opened up.
So that was the starting pointand then we took it from there
where we're going to head toafterwards.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, and just followed your interest from that
point onwards.
So where did you turn to to getinspiration and practical
advice for all of this?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, we talked about it for hours, didn't we?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
We did.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
You know, it was more of a question where we're going
to leave out as to where we'regoing to go, but then it had to
logically follow.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Because we didn't want to be going one direction.
Doubling back, doubling back,so it seemed a lot.
We wanted a logical sequence.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah.
So, for example, like going toMorocco, we were then, well,
where should we go from Morocco?
Well, it was very easy, just tohop across to Spain.
Then we're in Spain, well, wemight as well go to Portugal.
So then then we were actuallyinitially what we wanted to do
was to travel from Portugal toIstanbul and Turkey just by
train, and that was the plan.
But then, to be honest, werealized it wasn't that
(16:02):
practical because we had toomuch luggage, and that was the
plan.
But then, to be honest, werealized it wasn't that
practical because we had toomuch luggage and it was just not
something, and if we did that,we were going to have to knock
on the head something else, likeSri Lanka, which we didn't want
to do.
So we will do that on anothertrip, because we talked about it
a lot and we we looked atlogistics so we could easily do
it, and I planned some placesthat I hadn't seen in Italy that
I wanted to go to.
There was a few issues with someof the trains.
(16:23):
When we started looking at it,it wasn't around Romania, I
think, was a bit more tricky.
Serbia, serbia, yeah, was a bitmore tricky.
So I think that would haveneeded a longer planning time
than we wanted to give it, to behonest.
So we kind of just gave in anddecided we're going to just have
to fly.
So I think it was just thenwhich have to fly, so that I
(16:45):
think it was just then which arethe key destinations we haven't
been to that we want to go to.
I knew we had a bit of Portugal, we had a bit of Poland, we had
a bit of Morocco.
We hadn't been to Qatar, whichwe hadn't been to Sri Lanka, we
hadn't been to Turkey before.
There's actually a lot ofdestinations we actually hadn't
been to and I'm keen to see asmany places as I can, I think
there's only about threecountries or four countries in
Europe that we haven't been tonow.
So, yeah, trying to cover asmuch as possible.
(17:06):
Again, trying to do as muchresearch as possible for the
websites global travel planningwebsite as well, because we're
kind of focused on train traveland planning train travel around
the world but also you're goingto consider is how much it's
going to cost you yeah so you'vegot to wait, or what might want
to do that, but that is crazyexpensive, so that's gonna have
to wait till next time.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah, iceland, yeah, you'll be practical, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Iceland was high, high, high on my wish list.
It was probably it was in thetop three and I looked at it.
I could have actually gone fromGlasgow, flown from gone to
from Edinburgh to Glasgow, gotthe flight over and spent a week
in Iceland who I'll do.
We stayed at the house, it, andI did look at it, but then Doug
kind of went.
I really want to go.
I did, I did so so Iceland,ghana got pushed back, so
(17:48):
that'll that'll be on anothertrip.
Like you can't do everything,you just can't and there will be
other trips, you know.
I mean, it's not like this isthe only trip, so there'll
always be other trips for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
But yeah, there's so many logistics involved in it,
like whether it's luggage,whether it's flights, whether
it's time, whether it's budget,this.
You have to kind of compromisesomewhere on every trip that you
do, don't you?
It's just about fitting inthose really important things.
So you traveled a lotindependently and you also did
some tours as part of the trip.
Can you tell us a bit aboutsome of the tours that you did
and which ones stood out well?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
we like food, we do tend to look at food tours
wherever we go, don't we?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Yeah, and we were very spoiled by Walks and Devour
tours and that they invited usto experience some of their
tours.
So a huge thank you to Walksand to Devour for that and
honestly, we highly recommendthat you do a food tour as the
first thing that you do when youarrive at a destination,
because you will find out aboutall the best places to eat.
(18:44):
You will learn about what toeat because you might not be
aware of all the different localspecialities and what's around.
So we did food tours in Madrid,we did a food tours in Seville,
we did food tours in Barcelona.
I'm spotting a theme here, yeah,yeah we've done food tours in
London, with Devour as well, Imean.
So they were fabulous.
(19:04):
And one food tour we did, thetapas and flamenco one in
seville oh, that was justoutstanding.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Stand out, stand out.
I cannot think of the word.
I can't even find the words todescribe that evening with the
flamenco dancing oh no, and abig shout out as well sophie,
who took the tour.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
She was fabulous, absolutely fabulous, and her
love for flamenco came throughas well.
So we were all kind of reallyexcited by the time I got to
watch it and it did notdisappoint, and actually Sophie
said it was one of the best onesshe'd seen.
So she was five.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
All of the walks and devour guides are outstanding,
outstanding and one thing I willsay is they also incorporate a
little bit history yeah, yeah,you learn about the location and
the country.
Yeah, just a nice lovelybalance yeah, it's not like a
history lesson.
It's just a little bit in there.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, just to give it a you know a theme, just to
yeah, and they do say that it'snot just about food, it's about
learn about the culture andhistory as well, and that is
important.
Otherwise you have no contextto put it in.
Yeah, um, so you learn aboutthe history of the different
places that you go to eat, aswell as the foods, and it's
important and in kind of theregion and the history and
culture of the people of thatarea, so that's really important
(20:10):
.
Other, we did some walkingtours as well.
With walks, again, huge thankyou.
Big standout for for me was thetour in Seville with with Alba.
Oh, yeah fantastic.
Hi, alba.
Big shout out to you becauseyou were amazing.
You were fantastic.
I've got a lovely reel onInstagram with Alba so I will
share that in the show notes.
(20:31):
She was outstanding and we hadsuch a lovely, lovely time with
her and it was it was a day inSeville tour with her and we
learned about history, welearned, we walked around
Seville, we saw so much.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
We had some lunch with her afterwards.
We had lunch with herafterwards.
We learned about history.
We learned.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
We walked around Seville.
We saw so much.
We had some lunch with herafter we took our lunch, because
we just absolutely amazing.
Um, we did some fantastic toursin Barcelona as well, learning
about Gaudi we say it right,gaudi which were also fantastic.
You know, and I recommendhighly, if you visit a place to
do a tour, because if you walkaround yourself, you don't learn
or you just don't get to knowas much as you would if you do a
(21:09):
tour.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, I love going on tours.
I think it sounds like youblended traveling independently
with day tours with somemulti-day tours to get the best
balance of everything absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
yeah, we did a lot of those, a lot of day tours, and
we also did a multi-day tour inMorocco and that was through
Intrepid.
I've toured with Intrepidbefore.
I did two tours in India lastyear with Intrepid, so I know
they're an excellent, excellentcompany and you know it was just
brilliant.
It was really, really enjoyableand it was the first time that
(21:39):
Doug's actually done a multi-daytour and that, you know, he's
never done something that wasn'tindependent.
Um, so I had to talk him intothat because he was a bit like I
don't know if I want to travelwith these people, I don't know,
but you loved it.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I did.
Yeah, a big shout out there tothe tour guide, fred, who really
looked after me.
Before I left the UK I'd beenin hospital, so he looked after
me when I said I needed certainthings and certain conditions.
And you, you know privacy.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, you know he's brilliant.
It was really good.
All the tour guides werefantastic.
Big shout out to Fred.
And we did other tours andother destinations as well.
So again, just highly recommendyou do a food tour If you're
only in destination for a shortperiod of time.
Do a day in tour with walks, solike a day in Seville, a day in
Barcelona Because you withwalks.
So like a day in Seville, a dayin Barcelona because you, you
(22:23):
get everything kind of condensedinto the day but all the main
highlights of a destination,yeah that's like the perfect
balance.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So what did you pack for your trip when you were
going away for that long?
Like, did you actually know youwere going away for nine months
when you went away?
I can't remember if you did orif I knew.
You knew you were going for alonger trip.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
But how do you even begin to pack for something like
that when you're just kind ofgoing off and yeah we didn't
have a, we didn't have adefinite we'd have a flight back
, but we knew we had to be backfor going back to work in the
middle of May.
So we knew, I knew I was goingto be away kind of nine month
ish.
And I did say to people when Ileft I'm not sure when I'm going
to be back exactly.
And, and you know, our daughteras well was like we'll, we'll
(22:58):
be back sometime in.
May.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
One day?
Yeah, we'll be back in May.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So packing look at that.
I do have a lot of things atmum's house, probably too much
stuff at mum's house in the UK.
So she did have some of myclothes there and I did buy
stuff.
I'm terrible, I do buy clothesand I go.
I just I'm terrible in the UK.
She's terrible everywhere.
Yeah, I bought some scarves inMorocco and so on.
Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
The amount of clothes I carry seems to get less.
It does.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
He was like how come do I have like a third of one of
the suitcases and you have twothirds and they're all of the
other suitcases.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
You see my husband and I are opposites.
He packs all the cases and Itravel really light with hardly
anything.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So yeah, I think A um I mean it was a lot of layers
you took.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, I did take.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I guess because we knew we were going to be in
europe for winter, so we did buythings like, say, the thermal
things when we're over there.
We've got coats that werebought in australia from where
was it not anaconda?
From what's the shop inaustralia?
We bought them from catmandu,catmandu, that's it.
We bought from katmandu.
So we had those, um, and then,you know, bought, probably
bought some more.
I mean, you can't have too manyscarves.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I've got lots of stuff in these.
I have some trousers thatconvert to shorts.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
The practical stuff yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Actually, what we did find, or what I did find, is
that I didn't have enoughclothes for hot climate.
That's where I struggled morewhen we were coming back,
because we left a lot of stuffin the UK.
I just didn't have enough.
I didn't have enough shorts.
It was short.
Specifically, if you're goingto mention one item, it was
short one pair of shorts.
That was a big mistake,considering we're really hot
(24:29):
climate and you just want to bewearing shorts and you probably
got a heap of shorts here inaustralia and sandals and
everything kind of I had onepair of sandals.
I'm always very strict withfootwear, so I took one pair of
sandals, one pair of flip-flopsand I had one pair of trainers.
I'm very strict with withfootwear.
And I did have a pair of bootsin the UK which I've left at
mom's, but I think it was more.
(24:49):
Yeah, I think I've come backand I can't just add some like
35 pairs of shorts.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I could have done these when we're in Malaysia and
Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, this is a juggle you have to.
I mean, thank goodness forcompressing packing cubes, yeah
an expandable suitcase yes, yes,that is very good.
That's the other thing isbuying things.
When you go, it's like we youknow I bought things, so yeah
not to mention 20 000 fridgemagnets.
I know, I know people go fridgemagnets.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I don't care, fridge magnets they're not that heavy,
they don't take any room, youknow when you got three ton of
them?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
yeah, because you've got to think about like in
europe for flying they're sostrict about weight so I had to
pay extra weight before I gotonto the flights for everything.
I just knew we were gonna andwe ended up buying a bigger
suitcase in where were uhseville?
Seville, barcelona cities and,yeah, just near barcelona, we
ended up buying a big suitcase.
I had to buy another suitcase.
Yeah, wow, wow.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You should box it all up and use Send my Bag to send
it home.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, you know what?
I think that's what we'll bedoing, and we're thinking about
that actually when we're in theUK, about we've got a few
suitcases left, and I was like,and I know you talked about Send
my Bag, so that's something,things as you go around, yeah,
um.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So how did you manage things like insurance, visas
and money across the countriesthat you're traveling in?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
well, insurance.
We've both got um global travelinsurance for 12 months, so we
just made sure that it coveredall the countries and
destinations that we're going toand some things like the
intrepid tour you've got toprove that you've got insurance
um.
So you know, I would nevertravel without travel insurance
at all.
It's just too risky.
So we all make sure that wealways make sure we have full
cover.
I got sick last year, anotheryear before when we were in
(26:31):
Vietnam, and ended up having togo to hospital with pneumonia
and it only costs, I think, $400Australian dollars in the end
Cause I had cover Um.
So we went to private hospitaland had everything done and
could claim it all back.
So just think it's it's soimportant to make sure, so
that's something we always havejust check it covers the
destinations and the things thatyou're going to do.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I mean, we don't go skiing I was going to say you're
not skydiving.
No, no, no, no, you have tocheck it too.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
It's like we're not that adventurous so just make
sure it's got the cover.
When it comes to um was money,the other thing that you was
visas visas.
Okay, yeah, visas.
Well, you just have to checkwhat visa you need for a
specific country.
Now we were traveling on ouraustralian passport and what I
(27:15):
hadn't realized was that youdon't need a visa for turkey if
you're traveling on your britishpassport so.
I, if I traveled on a Britishone, I could have gone to Turkey
and would have saved us a lotof money, but because we were on
our Australian one, I ended upgetting visas.
I need to renew my Britishpassport.
So so that was one thing.
So do check that.
If you have two passports,because you've got dual
(27:37):
nationality, just check, becauseone place may not you may not
need a visa for um one of thepassport, so that might save you
money.
Yeah, so just make sure tocheck a lot of places as well.
You just have to pay online,like Sri Lanka, there's a $50
tourist tax, so just make sureyou do that before.
And other visas you have to donot visas the more, like a
(27:58):
health declaration for Singaporeyou have to do before you
arrive, I think.
Malaysia, you do it on arrival.
Morocco I don't think we neededa visa for, and obviously
anyway in europe we didn't.
We've got.
We've got british andaustralian passports, but it
just just check.
And also because there's now alot of things like etters and
esters and all these otherthings that are coming in etias
(28:19):
and all I don't know.
But you've just got to checkwhat, what you will need to go
into a certain destination.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Because, going back to the UK now, if you don't have
your British passport up todate, then you need to get an.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Etta as well.
Yeah, so there's all sorts ofthings like that.
So I know when it came to SriLanka, we did check with our
friend who had been therepreviously a few months before,
in fact that was it also Shelley.
We picked her brains a lotabout Sri Lanka we're plundering
about like cash.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
With regards to finance, we do keep a
spreadsheet of expenditure whenwe book things in advance, which
ones are paid for the cost ofthings.
That's why we try and use anaccommodation range, so it's in
really nice places, yeah to workfor budget, but I think that's
one way of dealing with it,isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Coping with the kind of work and budget?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's a really good idea as well.
It just helps you sort of keepon track of what you're spending
in a different destination andwhat expenses you've got coming
up, especially when you'retravelling to lots of different
countries and you're managing abudget for nine months while
you're travelling.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, yeah, in terms of money for travelling were you
generally using cash while youwere like morocco we needed cash
and in sri lanka we needed cash, but I would say I mean I don't
think we had a few euros whenwe're traveling around calamari,
but, honestly, contactlessreally christmas markets was
(29:37):
contact.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah, it was contactless.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I really think you just need it far less.
Malaysia, we used a lot ofcontact less.
We had some cash as well.
Um singapore, we just hadcontactless.
So a lot of it was it wasmainly contactless in in some
destinations that europe wasmainly contact was contactless.
But we found sri lanka you haveto have cash and definitely
morocco, yeah so did you runinto any transport or
(30:03):
accommodation problems orhiccups along?
The way?
I don't think.
So I think everything wasfairly, went fairly smoothly.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
There was the one in Spain with the train strikes, we
had to look at our plans.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
yeah, we had to book a flight, sort of last minute
because we couldn't take thetrains.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
That's a good point.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Yeah, we were actually going togo by train.
The plan was to go to northernSpain, so we were actually going
to get the train from Porto, inPortugal, to northern Spain and
then go back to Barcelona thatway, which I was really excited
about doing and spent ages kindof planning it and figuring it
out.
And then, unfortunately, therewas a train strike announced in
(30:42):
Spain which really would havemeant the journey was going to
be impossible to do.
So we hung on, and hung on, andhung on and literally I booked
the flight and an hour laterthey cancelled the.
They cancelled the strike Toolate.
I booked the flight.
So I'm like we're going to fly.
So Duke was like upset for aday or two Going oh, we want to
do the train trip.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm like, well, wasn't really going to be very
easy to do, and then we booked acoach instead, and then the
strike was moved or cancelledand you do have to move around a
little bit and be kind of readyto change your plans.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
You have to be flexible sometimes because you
just don't know what those sortof things around just have to go
back and do it again.
Yeah otherwise I thinkeverything else went fairly
smoothly.
Accommodation you know, yeah,it was, it was all pretty good,
and I always book with freecancellation for accommodation
because you just don't know ifyou're going to change your
plans, which actually we did insri lanka.
We changed changed accommodationoptions a few times because I
(31:41):
decided to stay somewheredifferent yeah so it was just
give us that flexibility andthat, you know, I remember we
went to paris a few timesbecause I decided to stay
somewhere different.
Yeah, so it was just give usthat flexibility and that, you
know, I remember we went toParis a few years ago and I got
sick on the day, so well, theday before.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So we managed to kind of cancel what we're going to
do and I was just going to saywhen, like, we travel with kids
so they can get sick and thingslike that, so you might need to
change things or you might getanother recommendation on the
road from somebody that makesyou want to change where you're
going to stay yeah, so it's goodto be flexible and open to new
options.
Um, what were the biggestchallenges and low points during
the trip?
Were there any low points orwas it all exciting?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
and I was disappointed in spain because
I've got sick a few times.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It seemed to be recurring every six weeks, where
I would just get a sore throat,a bit of a cough and feel a bit
just tired, um, and then I'dhave to take a couple of days or
like a whole day just restingin bed, and that just seemed to
recur every six weeks.
But I think you said I need toprobably go and have a check on
my vitamin levels or somethingand see if it was Um and I.
(32:37):
I think that wasn't a low point, it's just something that
happened.
I didn't get too sick, thankgoodness, because I think that
I'll never forget the trip wedid in 2023 when we did a lot
around Asia and I got pneumonia,because that did impact hugely
on the trip.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
I don't think we had a lot of low points, because
we're just quite flexible withthe actual elements booked in a
day.
If we need a little bit moretime than the day after
yesterday, type of thing, we'lljust take it slower today.
Yeah, a bit less today, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I think it's disappointing.
I mean, it's nothing you can doabout it the weather.
I was going to say the weatherwe were very, very unlucky in
Spain and Portugal in the entiremonth of March and they said
there was a cloud over Spain andPortugal the entire time, which
is unusual and it can theentire time, which is unusual
and I can rain a bit, but itjust didn't budge.
(33:29):
So that did impact particularlyPortugal, particularly Porto,
um, where it was torrential rain.
So I got we can you go?
I mean we've got rain jacketsall the rest of it, but when
it's that torrential youcouldn't really do anything.
Yeah, um, so that was a bitdisappointing yeah, that's it,
we just took advantage and justdid work um, but I guess I guess
that's just these days withchange of climate.
You don't know exactly, youcan't guarantee what you're
going to get.
No, yeah so do you.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Did you ever feel overwhelmed while you were
traveling, or homesick, or burntout or just exhausted from the
whole experience?
Speaker 3 (33:57):
or you just kept enjoying it the whole way around
.
I think part of having thespreadsheet and planning out we,
we keep our targets achievableand realistic, yeah, and adjust
and have that flexibility.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I don't think I think one thing that I did feel at
the end of that, coming to theend of the trip, was that I was
less inclined to want tonecessarily go and see something
like a museum or a or a kind ofyou know must-see landmark or
not another museum yeah, I was abit.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I was just a bit like .
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I don't know.
I think I got a bit historydoubt, which sounds a bit crazy,
but I just was like a bit a lot, I want to know the history and
about the destinations, but Ijust didn't think I wanted to
know it in so much detail.
I just so, and I think it wasjust that.
Yeah, I think we learned a lotin Spain and I know that was a
lot of history, and I kind ofwent wow, wow, that's a lot of
(34:45):
detail from some of these places, but I think that would
probably be it.
I was like I don't know if Inecessarily want to.
I probably just want to staylonger and I think that would be
the kind of key thing staylonger in a destination.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And maybe balancing different types of trips.
So not just history history,but do like a wildlife or a
safari type trip or something abit more outdoorsy after it to
balance yeah, I mean I probablyhadn't done that much.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I just I guess I just felt like by that point I
remember saying to you I don'tknow if I want it, but even
things like it were in singaporeand we'd plan to go and see, um
, the, the, the super grove, thetrees, super trees grove, what
it's called, near Goddesby theBay, and I've seen it a few
times and I was just I reallywanted to go, but I was like I'm
too tired, I can't.
So I think, and that's okay,just give yourself that bit of
(35:34):
kind of flexibility and thinkabout just how much we had done
and learned and seen.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
But I think that it becomes more mechanical?
I think yeah, when it.
But I think that it becomesmore mechanical?
I think yeah, when it does.
It's just, you know, I'mcatching the train today, I'm
catching the flight today andwe're going to go to this
shopping centre, we're going toget that museum and it becomes
if you're not careful yeah, toomechanical a little bit routine.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yes, so I think that was one thing that I felt that
I'd like to stay longer andreally kind of immersed myself
in a culture more than actuallyfeeling like I'm going here,
there and everywhere and got youknow, even if it's a fun, like
we were 15 days in Malaysia andit was like five days in Kuala
Lumpur, five days in Ipoh, fivedays in Penang, um, but it was,
(36:16):
it was I could have spent longer, and I think that was the thing
.
It's like I, we, we had a listof things we want to do in EPO
and we kind of didn't doeverything because it was like
actually, let's have a few days,just break, yeah, um.
So I think that's something.
When it comes to um, I could goagain, I could get on a flight
tomorrow and do it again, but Iwouldn't do 22 countries it was
(36:37):
a little bit extreme we mighttalk about it, but not actually
do it yeah, no, I wouldn't, I, Ijust wouldn't.
I mean saying that my I turned16 in a year, in a bit time.
Um, I, I'd like to spend thatwhole year in south america
exploring south america.
But then it's a 12-month trip,but then there's a lot of
countries, so I don't know yeah,well, lots to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
So what was it like trying to run a business and
creating content while you're onthe go?
And, like you said before in inthe last podcast episode that I
just interviewed you?
For?
The internet can be patchy,wi-fi can be patchy, and that
can make things really difficultum, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
We have to divide up what we do.
So doug takes videos.
I take a lot of photos.
We doug takes the notes ofeverything that we do every day.
He keeps a diary.
So that's a good way, becauseobviously now we're going back
and we've just published our SriLanka at Chimney on the Global
Travel Planning website.
But we could go through allthose notes and then put the
(37:33):
post together.
So that's how we do it, becauseI think you know that on a day,
for example, if you're out for10 hours, you're not going to
want to do a whole lot of work,so just writing notes're not
going to want to do a whole lotof work, so just writing notes,
or don't kind of stop dictatingthe notes and storing them.
That way.
That's a good system for us.
What I do struggle with I domanage to put stories out on
Instagram.
I'm pretty good with those butwhat I do struggle with are the
(37:56):
larger content, like doing reelsor doing YouTube videos.
We decided that that was toomuch to do.
We did plan to do some vloggingwhen we traveled and that was
my intention, but actually,after trying to do that a couple
of times, I realized thatwasn't really my style.
And we're gonna.
We are gonna do and be doing alot of youtube videos about our
travels, but we'll, we'll talkabout it, we'll, we'll record
(38:17):
ourselves talking about it andwe'll just use a lot of the
videos to show and illustratewhat we're talking about we also
set work days.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yes, you know, when we looked at, particularly when
we were in spain, really, whenwe saw the weather forecast, you
know tomorrow's going to behorrendously wet day, so we did
set some days.
Yeah, we did just work, yeahyeah, we did.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
We did and also when we were house sitting in
scotland.
We're there for seven weeks soit meant that I could record a
lot of podcasts.
So because obviously I've gottwo weekly podcasts, which is a
lot of podcasts, so I recorded alot in January.
I can't even remember how many,but it covered until basically
I got back in June I did thingslike wrote 26 emails.
(38:57):
My travel trip tip Tuesdayseries on UK travel planning,
which is extremely popular.
It's gone down so well.
I wrote all of those in Januaryand scheduled those ahead.
So it's kind of planning aheadand also planning what you need
in terms of getting the content,batching, yeah, when you're in
a destination as well, and alsogiving yourself some time to
enjoy it as well and notconstantly thinking what do I
(39:19):
need to get?
What do I need to get?
If you plan ahead and know whatyou need so if you know you
know, for example, you're goingto write an article about EPO
then you know exactly the placesthat you need to get photos for
and get video for and you knowwhat you're going to do and look
for yeah and we, in some placeswe stopped.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
We deliberately booked um um self-accommodation,
you know, self-cage in typeplaces.
So if we're having work daysand the weather is bad we really
would not need to go out.
And we did set those days aside, didn't we?
Speaker 1 (39:47):
yeah, we did, and we did a lot that.
We did booked apartments inSpain and Portugal.
We did have some hotels inPortugal, but it meant that we
knew that we could work, we hadmore space, we had a washing
machine as well, so we couldkeep on top of washings and your
house sitting as well, yeah, sothat really helped as well.
So I think it's that just justjust planning how you're going
(40:08):
to manage your work, um, becauseit's not a holiday in the
traditional sense of whateverybody thinks, and like you
said, knowing how you work best,because I'm the same as you.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I can't be.
I don't like creating reelswhen I'm on the go trying to
enjoy a destination.
You want to enjoy it andexperience it and then take that
away and put that into a reel,rather than feeling like you're
missing out on having funbecause you're creating content
all the time yeah, and I mean,I've got a lot of friends who
who will write up what they didevery single day and put it on
their facebook group.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
And I'm just not good and I really should be doing
that and I just find I'm tootired to do that.
But now we've got every bit ofinformation about what we did
every day so we can share thatwith the photos.
Now, um, I just you have to be,you just have to be aware how,
how you're going to cope with itand manage it, because it's so
easy to burn out with this typeof thing you work to your
strengths yeah, yeah, and it'snot just about traveling.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Traveling's exhausting anyway, but traveling
and working and creatingcontent, it's a very different
experience.
You're trying to take notes ofeverything that you're doing
because you're trying to shareall of those tips and things, so
there's a lot going on in yourmind like it's exhausting, yeah,
and you'll try things that youwouldn't necessarily try,
because you know that somebody'sgoing to ask you about that.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
So you might.
You might try different ways oftransportation so that you can
try all the different ways out,or so this you're always kind of
thinking about, and especiallybecause we were kind of aiming
to help all we do is help peopleto plan their trips, maybe for
a first time, to destinationsall over the world.
We're kind of going into it aswell with a what time?
What does a first-time visitorneed to know?
(41:39):
What do we, what?
What have we kind of taken awayas a first-time to this
destination that wish we hadknown before we went?
And that's what we're trying todo is like how can we share
those tips and that informationto make it so, if you're
planning to visit Japan oryou're planning to visit Vietnam
or you're going to go to SriLanka, we have all that
information that you need toknow as a first time visitor to
prepare yourself.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, no, that's great.
So what did you learn aboutyourselves, about travel, about
each other?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
while you were travelling.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I'm sure it was quite an experience being away
together for that long.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
It was.
I mean, we did pretty well, Ithink.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, no divorce.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
No no.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Occasionally I went off.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
You know, Tracy wanted a bit of peace and quiet,
so I went and did somethingdifferent.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
That's the beauty of the um self-catering places
where there's more than one room, because at times we're working
in different rooms, or I wentout, or you know.
Yeah, I think it's that, havingthat flexibility, we did
exactly the same.
I'm thinking about vietnam aswell.
Like you, went and did a a toura whole day to that.
I just was.
I just want to have a day andjust relax.
I need to just to reset.
So doug went and did that tourand I didn't do it.
And it's kind of recognizingthat you're going to have
different interests and that'sokay.
So one of you could go to theart museums that would probably
be more me and Doug could go tothe train museum, because that
(42:52):
would be more him.
So it's that kind of looking atwhat you both enjoy and like
and then giving yourself a bitof space as well to do that, and
then kind of working togetheron things like meals and washing
, all those things that you haveto do.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
There's mundane tasks that you need to get about
those sort of daily tasks whenyou're traveling bills to pay.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, yeah, who's in?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
charge of doing what.
So that you know you don't haveto worry about that, because
the other you know doug'ssorting that out, so that's not
on my plate to do as well.
So it's kind of knowing who'sdoing what.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, oh, I like that .
That's a good idea ofallocating tasks to each other.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
And also you've got two of you, so you're getting
double the content creation aswell, because if Doug's off
doing one thing and you're offdoing a different thing, then
you're able to kind of spreadyourself more around and do more
activities activities that willinterest different people, so
that's really good.
Um so, what would you say tosomeone who is dreaming of
planning such a similar big tripto yours?
Speaker 1 (43:49):
go for it.
Where do you?
Begin, I'll go for it, yeah, Ithink, decide where, where you
want to go and how long, forwhat your budget is realistic be
realistic, it's going to bemore expensive than you think
it's going to be, more expensivethan you think.
The reality is just going tosay it's going to be more
expensive than you think.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Well, the reality is that some countries, sometimes
some cities, are more expensivethan others.
Yeah, so you've got to thinkwhat's the most important thing
for you?
Is the accommodation?
Is that the most importantthing for you?
Or is it going out for a nicemeal?
Is that the most important?
Speaker 1 (44:26):
So you've got to find a mix that suits both of you,
kind of thing, or whoever'straveling, yeah, and kind of
yeah, have some flexibility andstuff.
I think when, like, for example, I wanted to stay in barcelona
because we were writing aboutbarcelona and dude, but doug had
spent, had gone during hischildhood to siges, which is
south of barcelona, and so hesaid, why don't we stay in siges
and we can travel intobarcelona?
And I was like, oh, okay, right, is it going to be difficult?
And he went no, no, it's reallyeasy to get.
And I loved Sijs, loved Sijs.
(44:48):
I wouldn't.
Honestly, if you're going tostay in Barcelona, don't stay in
Barcelona, go and stay in Sijs.
It's really easy to get intoBarcelona by train.
It was just lovely.
It was so, so lovely, and weweren't in the big mellow of the
big city, we're out beside thebeach in this gorgeous little
town.
You know it was that.
That was a actually bigsurprise for me and that was
something I had to kind of giveand take, because doug was like,
(45:10):
oh, let's go, and I was like,yeah so kind of listening to
each other as well was somethingthat we did in it.
Yeah, so I'd say that listen towhat you're you're.
If you're traveling solo, youcan do what you want and go
where you want.
But if you're traveling with afamily or with a partner, ask,
you know, chat about where youwant to go and what you want to
do.
So when you do that overallitinerary, you go into places
(45:30):
that you both want.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
But then when you get to the nitty-gritty, then you
know you might go and doseparate things on it on a day
and it's okay and that's truewhen you're traveling for quite
a while, you're bound to have,let's say, off days, but days
where your energy levels are notquite up there sort of thing.
So you've got to have that bitof flexibility, maybe just
setting out a bit later in themorning, a bit of a lying bed in
(45:51):
the morning, and take it a bitof a slower pace, or changing
your itinerary a little, ifpossible.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, that sounds like a good balance.
So what's one thing you woulddefinitely do differently if you
did it all over again, whichyou would definitely?
Do differently if you did itall over again, which I'm sure
you will be doing it all overagain, different places, next
time.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
But yeah, I don't know.
I think for me is I'd like tospend longer in some
destinations and I probablywould avoid Europe in winter.
Not for, I mean, december wasamazing and I loved the
Christmas markets, but I'dforgotten about the actual
reason why I moved from the UKto Australia until I realised
that January in Scotland it'sdark and grey and the weather
(46:31):
was a bit iffy.
So I think that I wouldprobably look at certainly not
going in summer.
I wouldn't go to places likeEurope in June, july, august Not
a chance.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Look at school holiday dates as well.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
It's very important yeah absolutely, I think, just
probably a bit more slowertravel, less destinations.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
More train travel.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Always.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
There's one thing I would do next time, once we've
settled on an itinerary, is havea look if there's any public
holidays that I'm unaware of orfestivals in the town, city,
country.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Like you were saying, in Sri Lanka, that impacted
your trip there.
Did not know that.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, I mean again we adjusted, you know, as required
for the sort of thing.
But I think I definitely wouldlook, do a search, see if
there's any upcoming publicholidays I'm unaware of or
festivals.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah right, final question we made it to the end.
What is one tip you would sharewith someone who is planning
their nine month or extendedtrip around the world for the
first time?
Speaker 1 (47:37):
oh, I think I think be organized with everything
back home so you know if you'releaving your, your home, make
sure you know that it how, youknow it's locked up, it's safe
that you've got people checkingon it, because then you don't
want to be worried about what'sgoing on.
That was just.
There was a cyclone gonna say wehad a cyclone here in brisbane
(47:57):
yeah, so we're very lucky thatwe've got a friend who lives
lives above our apartment so shecould check on the apartment
and keep it safe for us.
And also we planned things likewe knew what bills were going
to come out.
Doug all sorted all that on aspreadsheet Because what you
don't want to happen is, forexample, a big bill to be coming
out and you're somewhere wherethere's no Wi-Fi and you haven't
(48:18):
set it up.
So we did a lot of directdebits or late payment fees.
Yeah, so just know what'shappening back home so that
you've got everything covered,because the last thing you want
to do when you're thousands ofmiles away is have to deal with,
you know, something that youcan't sort out at home, that you
haven't already got some sortof plan for.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
Yeah, I would say, strategically, look where you
can leave luggage.
We've done it in two locations,but I would always, if possible
, so obviously travel light tostart with.
But if you're traveling acrossseasons, sometimes it's just not
physically possible to reducetoo much what you carry.
And so if you can leave yourluggage and party trip in a
(48:59):
country or town or what our area, if you can leave it in one
location, some of it, and youtravel light, I would always
look at that option.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
And there's one thing I'm going to say which I would
also say is make sure you've gotgood travel insurance.
If you can't afford travelinsurance, you can't afford to
travel.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
That's so important.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
So that would be it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Well, thank you so much for telling us all about
your trip today.
It's been really fun learningall about it well, thanks, karen
.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Thanks again for coming on and interviewing us on
the podcast.
I will put a link to yourpodcast and to everything we
talked about in this episode inthe show notes, which are at
globaltravelplanningcom.
Forward slash episode 62.
But that leaves us to say, asalways, until next week.
Happy global travel planning.
Thank you for joining us onthis episode of the Global
(49:47):
Travel Planning Podcast.
For more details and links toeverything we discussed today,
check out the show notes atglobaltravelplanningcom.
Remember if you enjoyed theshow, please consider leaving us
a review on your favoritepodcast app, because your
feedback helps us reach moretravel enthusiasts, just like
you.
Anyway, that leaves me to say,as always happy global travel
(50:07):
planning.
After nine months, 22 countries, 17 flights and
travels across four continents,we're reflecting on what it's
really like to take a long-termtrip around the world discover
our favorite destinations,biggest lessons and top tips for
planning your own globaladventure.
Hi and welcome to the GlobalTravel Planning Podcast.
I'm your host, tracey Collins,who, with my expert guests, will
(00:22):
take you on a weekly journey todestinations around the globe,
providing travel inspiration,itinerary ideas, practical tips
and more to help you plan yournext travel adventure.
Hi and welcome to episode 62 ofthe Global Travel Planner
(00:42):
Podcast.
This week, karen is back tointerview Duggan me about our
recent nine-month trip aroundthe world.
As you remember, karen was herea few weeks ago to chat to us
all about Sri Lanka, so if youhaven't heard about that, pop
back to that episode and take alisten.
But today we are going to besharing our full itinerary
across Europe, north Africa,asia and a short stop in the US
(01:02):
and and talking through how wefind it all ourselves as
independent travellers, fromfavourite destinations to
practical tips, tours we lovedand what we'd do differently
next time.
We cover a lot and, if you'reinterested in specific
destinations like Spain orMorocco, some of those episodes
are already out and there's morecoming soon, so over to you,
karen.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Hey there, thanks for having me back again.
Tracy and doug um, my name iskaren.
I'm from the new life inaustralia podcast.
I'm friends with tracy and dougand you might recognize my
voice because I interviewed themin episode 59 about their sri
lanka trip.
So let's get straight on tofinding out about your amazing
trip.
It's been huge.
You've been away for a reallylong time.
Can you give us a quickwalkthrough of your whole
(01:42):
itinerary and where you visited?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
right, well, it was nine months.
Yeah, doug wasn't there for thewhole entire bit.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
We, you know no, I had to come back to australia
for a few weeks, yeah yeah, hecame back, I think for two
months, didn't he, and then hecame back yeah, but, um, but
doug had long service leaves,which is something we get in
australia, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Um, so kind of we knew that was coming up, so that
was one reason we kind of builtthe trip around that, because
he had six months off, butbasically the entire trip was
nine months.
I was away for nine months andwe were in Europe, we were in
North Africa, asia, and weactually started off by flying
over to the US for a few daysjust to break the flights up,
(02:20):
because I'm not a big fan ofmassive long flights and flying
from Australia to the UK is 20odd hours, and so that's what we
decided to do.
So, to give you a quick, kindof brief overview of it, we had
17 flights, 22 countries andnine months Wow that's huge.
It was pretty big, so let'sstart talking about some of the
destinations, which ones reallysurprised you, which did you
(02:41):
love, which did you not?
It was pretty big.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So let's start talking about some of the
destinations.
Which ones really surprised you?
Which did you love?
Which did you not love so much?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Well, we went to a lot of places, some places we
hadn't been to before.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, morocco and others we'd been to before which
was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, I think we both fell in love with Morocco.
We absolutely loved it.
I can't wait to go back and see, and I think Sri Lanka would be
another highlight was amazing.
And then in Europe itself, Iwould say Finland and Sweden.
We went to stay with a friendof yours in Sweden who was.
It was lovely to go and see.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah that was magical .
All the Christmas marketsstarted in Berlin yeah, yeah and
we did so many christmasmarkets and you had to have much
more wine.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh, it was fantastic, it was lovely, yeah the um
sweden experience.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
And yeah, it was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And then on my own, I guess, um, I spent three weeks
in italy in november in pulia,uh, with my friend shelly, who's
another of the uh guests, comesand comes on the podcast every
month to talk about differenttips that we share and the
ladies that travel segment.
So I went to spend some timewith Shelley in Puglia, which
was an area of Italy that I hadnot been to before, not really
(03:54):
considered before, and, oh mygoodness, wow, amazing.
Shelley's actually going to becoming on soon and we're going
to do a bit of a deep dive intoPuglia oh, that sounds great.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So so many amazing places you visited on the way.
Were there any places that youwish that you'd been able to
stay longer?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
morocco morocco, without a doubt I think I I
would say, yeah, we can't bothof us can't wait to go back to
morocco.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
We met some lovely people on on a tour there as
well, but just the people thatwe met.
It was just such a but just thepeople that we met.
It's just such a contrast to somany other countries we've
visited and such a rich historyas well, which you don't always
realise.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
It's culturally just so different to any other
personal experience before.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So yeah, and they meant that you'd set foot on the
African continent for the firsttime, as well, that is also
true.
And Moroccan food is myfavourite, so it was wonderful
food for me actually.
Yeah, I could eat Moroccan foodevery day and be really happy.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Tagine for breakfast, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Absolutely.
I mean just the vegetables,they're just fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I just love it.
It's so healthy.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, I do love sweets, though there's a lot of
sweets Moroccan people have alot of very sweet things, but
you can avoid them.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So were there any other places that you wish you'd
kind of skipped or stayed likeshorter trip?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I don't think anywhere necessarily shorter.
I think probably Istanbul.
I think I'd probably want tospend a little bit longer
exploring Istanbul.
We were there for a few days,yeah, turkey in general, I think
I'd like to go and explore farmore of.
We just feel like we dipped ourtoes into that, I think.
Um, and also we had awfulweather when we were in Portugal
(05:37):
, really dreadful, particularlyPorto.
Lisbon was okay, but Porto wehad really bad weather.
So you know, we just couldn'tgo out and explore as much as we
wanted to.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, and in Spain, I wanted to travel a bit more
around by Spain, butunfortunately there was train
strikes on at the time, so Iwanted to do some of the high
speed train lines, which not aproblem.
I mean, it was a problem thefact I didn't do it.
Just save it for next time.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, it's one of those things.
You can't plan those things canyou?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
They just happen, and it's about being flexible and
also, yeah, I'd say Sweden andFinland would be other ones that
I'd want to see more of, mostdefinitely.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
And then next, time that way between Sweden we're
allowed to go across on theferry to Estonia as well.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, we didn't do that this time.
Yeah, so that was something wecould do do wow.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
so how do you approach seasonal travel?
You were mentioning thechristmas markets and I'm
guessing there was a lot ofpacking of warm things or a lot
of buying of warm things whenyou got there.
Like, how do you even plan forfor that kind of travel,
thermals?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
thermals yeah, because it's it's you clothes.
From a male perspective.
You're talking about warmth.
It's not sort of sweaty clothesand you've got to wash them
every day, sort of thing.
So it's about literally keepingwarm.
So it's more, you know, thermalclothes, it's thicker socks.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And things you're not really used to in Australia as
well.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
We don't really have that here that is very true,
yeah, but that all adds to thespecial feeling, particularly at
Christmas time.
It's freezing cold.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, it was pretty chilly but we, just we did.
We went to Marks and Spencer'sin the UK and just bought
thermals, so thermal um, andalso Uniqlo.
I bought some some really coolwell cool, actually warm, but
very thin uh, tops that you canwear underneath the clothes.
That were amazing.
So just the layering aspect isreally, is really important, and
also hand warmers.
(07:24):
We bought hand warmers which are, they were actually invaluable
when I was in Italy, because inPuglia it was actually freezing
in November and I was staying ina tulli which is a traditional
tullo tullo I forgot its nameright a traditional home in the
Puglia region and it was very,very cold.
So hand warmers in the bed werethe best way to keep warm but
they are honestly, I wouldn'ttravel anywhere in winter
(07:46):
without having hand warmers yeah, I assumed houses would be
really warm there.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Like I know, in the UK obviously everyone's got
double glazing and centralheating, and so inside you're
normally quite hot and then yougo outside and it suddenly gets
very cold.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I don't know, because I think there's rules, because
when I stayed in Rome to startwith, and, um, we were quite
cold and I spoke to the peoplefrom the the apartment and I
said, oh, actually they weren'tallowed to turn the heating on
yet, because it's a rule in Romethat there's a certain day the
mayor will say yes, you can turnthe heating on.
So yeah, I think that there'sthere's more to it.
I think, like in when I stayeda pool year, there was a fire
(08:19):
which I but I didn't want to dothat sort that out on my own, um
, you know, set the fire and doso.
So, basically, um, and I wasthere with a friend for the
first few days and then she flewback to the uk and I was like
I'm not gonna mess around withthe fire, open fire, so just
hand warmers, honestly, and thatwas at night, and then during
the day, just have layers, makesure that you've.
You know, you plan for that.
(08:39):
But yeah, seasonally we wentfrom the very cold to the very
hot during this trip.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I was gonna say, and how you plan for packing with
that.
That means a lot of extra stuffin your suitcase yeah, well, I
think because we because we're alot of time.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
We spent a lot of time based in the UK.
We we then left a lot of stuffin the UK that we knew we
weren't going to need on thissecond part of the trip.
So we left um mid-February forthe last kind of push of the
trip and we knew we were onlygoing to be in a few places like
Spain and Portugal, turkey,where it might be cooler but not
as cold.
So therefore we took far lesskind of warmer clothes and we
(09:15):
took far more of the things thatyou need in a warmer and a hot
climate.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, and we just talked about in your Sri Lanka
episode how you had a base atthe beginning and at the end of
your trip where you were able toleave all of your luggage as
well, so you could just kind ofpack what you needed for your
for your travels around theregion as well.
So that was a really good tipthat you shared there and we did
that in Morocco.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I will just say we did that same thing in Morocco.
We stayed in the same hotel.
We actually we did a tour,which we'll talk about in a bit,
but we we, we deliberately leftbooked in the hotel in
marrakech that we were endingthe tour in, even though it
started in casablanca.
We flew in, stayed at thathotel in marrakech and then got,
got, made our own way tocasablanca, but it meant we
(09:53):
could leave the luggage andstore it there, so we didn't
have to take the luggage againon this tour all around morocco.
So then, when we got back tothe hotel, I think everybody was
amazed, because then we broughtall this luggage out from the
storage suddenly wearingdifferent clothes.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah now, were there any standout experiences
or bucket list moments, likesome amazing things you've been
wanting to do your whole livesthat you were able to do on this
trip?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
well, go to.
Portugal, portugal.
Now others have been portugalso we're determined to get there
.
Um, but I said the weather waswas not great, I think chef
showan for me was just somewhereI'd seen on the race around the
world in morocco.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
so this is the blue city in morocco and I'd seen it
on the race around the worldprogram that was a bbc one, I
think um a few years ago, and Iwas like I want to go and see
this and see this place.
It's blue, it's called Blue Seaand it is amazing and that, oh,
I just loved it.
I just thought that wasabsolutely fantastic.
So that was beautiful.
Going to Istanbul actually wassomewhere that just everybody I
(10:53):
know has been to Istanbul, sothat was amazing to go to.
On a kind of sadder note onsomewhere that I don't know it's
not a bucket list destination,but I think it's somewhere that
I'd wanted to go to um for along time.
(11:14):
Was was Auschwitz, birkenau.
So we did that um, and I thinkyou know that I had I couldn't
sleep for for nights after that,so that was that had a huge
impact.
Um, yeah, so, and I think Iguess, in terms of happier
things than some of theChristmas markets I mean you
can't, you know, especiallyGermany, germany new Christmas
markets to to an outstandingdegree, they really really do.
And what about?
I mean the must, and obviouslywe shrank.
You did a train trip that youreally enjoyed.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, I like all train, you know, but that was
special.
I enjoy the train journey fromMadrid down to Seville, know,
but that was special.
I enjoyed the train journeyfrom madrid down to seville.
That was a one train journey Iwanted to do and civil as a
place.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
We thoroughly thought , enjoyed it.
It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Seville was beautiful um, and then in barcelona, just
outside barcelona, we went backto the town of sigis, where I
used to go when I was growing up, and that was nice, a special
place to visit again takingtracy.
I wish you enjoyed that I did.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I really did enjoy it and also I'm just going to
throw in there as well I went toJersey in October for 10 days
doing a house sit.
Now I've always wanted to go toJersey because of one thing I
was a big fan when I was growingup with Gerald Dorrell, so I
managed to go and visit JerseyZoo.
I managed to go and visitJersey Zoo.
I managed to go and pay myrespects, shed a tear or two, I
have to say.
I was always such a big fan ofGerald Durrell, and so that was
(12:30):
a real highlight of me, for meof that trip just being able to
go.
I actually just spent a weekchilling out, house-sitting in
Jersey.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
But that was the one thing that I really wanted to do
, so that was a huge, since,since I was 11 or even younger,
I wanted to go there.
So that was fantastic, yeah,yeah, I have to say back into
the uk, I thought I enjoyed thehouse that we did in edinburgh
just in the new year, hog nightinto the new year and lots of
train journeys from there, whichI did as well.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, yeah, I did.
Yeah, we did a lot of them.
We went to belfast.
I've not been to northernireland, so there was just a lot
in this trip that when I starttalking about it now.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I could probably talk forever about all the
highlights because there's somany, but it was amazing yeah, I
mean, you've been to so manyplaces and like how did you even
begin to like think about this,what inspired you to take on
such a big trip for a nine month, traveling with all these
different countries?
And like, how did you envisageputting it all together?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I think it was where we, where we kind of wanted to
go to some places we knew wehadn't been to before, so Spain
and Portugal were definitely upthere.
Turkey was up there.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
We've shopped into Spain many times, but there's
lots of places, but some placeswe hadn't been to in Spain.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
We hadn't been to the southern part of Spain and I
wanted to do that.
So it wasn't necessarilycountries, but it was also
places we hadn't been to, placeswe hadn't been to.
So I guess it was that when youhave the whole world to choose
from it's when do you begin?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Where do you begin?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I think when you were going to, because obviously
we're doing a lot of research inthe UK and London travel
planning websites, so basingourselves in the UK and also
catching up with family wasreally important.
So I guess it was then.
We just took opportunities asthey arose, for example in
January.
I wasn it was then.
We just took opportunities asthey arose, for example in
January.
I wasn't sure where we weregoing to go in in February and
(14:07):
then I happened to see thatIntrepid had a sale on and I
said let's have a look where wecould go, and Morocco was really
reasonably priced on sale.
I went let's go to Morocco.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I was going to say when you left and you were going
off, I didn't know quite what aspectacular trip you had
planned.
And you didn't know at the timeeither, because you didn't have
it all locked in in advance.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So I kind of winged it a lot of the way, like
deciding where you know, becauseof the flight thing, about not
having flights longer than fivehours, it was kind of like, oh
well, where can we go for that?
And then I guess we knew in inDecember we kind of dug arrived
back into the UK, flew back inand it was like, well, we've got
a house it's starting into theUK.
Flew back in and it was like,well, we've got a house
sit-starting on the 29th ofDecember in Edinburgh, where
(14:46):
should we go in Europe?
And it had to be Christmasmarkets and you know I love the
heat but also I was like I wantto see some snow.
So that kind of drove that tripa bit.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, so you were kind of trying to plan a little
bit ahead, but being spontaneousand flexible and also it's a
long time since I've taken theEurostar from London St Pancras
to Amsterdam since the newstation opened up.
So that was the starting pointand then we took it from there
where we're going to head toafterwards.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, and just followed your interest from that
point onwards.
So where did you turn to to getinspiration and practical
advice for all of this?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, we talked about it for hours, didn't we?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
We did.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
You know, it was more of a question where we're going
to leave out as to where we'regoing to go, but then it had to
logically follow.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Because we didn't want to be going one direction.
Doubling back, doubling back,so it seemed a lot.
We wanted a logical sequence.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah.
So, for example, like going toMorocco, we were then, well,
where should we go from Morocco?
Well, it was very easy, just tohop across to Spain.
Then we're in Spain, well, wemight as well go to Portugal.
So then then we were actuallyinitially what we wanted to do
was to travel from Portugal toIstanbul and Turkey just by
train, and that was the plan.
But then, to be honest, werealized it wasn't that
(16:02):
practical because we had toomuch luggage, and that was the
plan.
But then, to be honest, werealized it wasn't that
practical because we had toomuch luggage and it was just not
something, and if we did that,we were going to have to knock
on the head something else, likeSri Lanka, which we didn't want
to do.
So we will do that on anothertrip, because we talked about it
a lot and we we looked atlogistics so we could easily do
it, and I planned some placesthat I hadn't seen in Italy that
I wanted to go to.
There was a few issues with someof the trains.
(16:23):
When we started looking at it,it wasn't around Romania, I
think, was a bit more tricky.
Serbia, serbia, yeah, was a bitmore tricky.
So I think that would haveneeded a longer planning time
than we wanted to give it, to behonest.
So we kind of just gave in anddecided we're going to just have
to fly.
So I think it was just thenwhich have to fly, so that I
(16:45):
think it was just then which arethe key destinations we haven't
been to that we want to go to.
I knew we had a bit of Portugal, we had a bit of Poland, we had
a bit of Morocco.
We hadn't been to Qatar, whichwe hadn't been to Sri Lanka, we
hadn't been to Turkey before.
There's actually a lot ofdestinations we actually hadn't
been to and I'm keen to see asmany places as I can, I think
there's only about threecountries or four countries in
Europe that we haven't been tonow.
So, yeah, trying to cover asmuch as possible.
(17:06):
Again, trying to do as muchresearch as possible for the
websites global travel planningwebsite as well, because we're
kind of focused on train traveland planning train travel around
the world but also you're goingto consider is how much it's
going to cost you yeah so you'vegot to wait, or what might want
to do that, but that is crazyexpensive, so that's gonna have
to wait till next time.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah, iceland, yeah, you'll be practical, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Iceland was high, high, high on my wish list.
It was probably it was in thetop three and I looked at it.
I could have actually gone fromGlasgow, flown from gone to
from Edinburgh to Glasgow, gotthe flight over and spent a week
in Iceland who I'll do.
We stayed at the house, it, andI did look at it, but then Doug
kind of went.
I really want to go.
I did, I did so so Iceland,ghana got pushed back, so
(17:48):
that'll that'll be on anothertrip.
Like you can't do everything,you just can't and there will be
other trips, you know.
I mean, it's not like this isthe only trip, so there'll
always be other trips for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
But yeah, there's so many logistics involved in it,
like whether it's luggage,whether it's flights, whether
it's time, whether it's budget,this.
You have to kind of compromisesomewhere on every trip that you
do, don't you?
It's just about fitting inthose really important things.
So you traveled a lotindependently and you also did
some tours as part of the trip.
Can you tell us a bit aboutsome of the tours that you did
and which ones stood out well?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
we like food, we do tend to look at food tours
wherever we go, don't we?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Yeah, and we were very spoiled by Walks and Devour
tours and that they invited usto experience some of their
tours.
So a huge thank you to Walksand to Devour for that and
honestly, we highly recommendthat you do a food tour as the
first thing that you do when youarrive at a destination,
because you will find out aboutall the best places to eat.
(18:44):
You will learn about what toeat because you might not be
aware of all the different localspecialities and what's around.
So we did food tours in Madrid,we did a food tours in Seville,
we did food tours in Barcelona.
I'm spotting a theme here, yeah,yeah we've done food tours in
London, with Devour as well, Imean.
So they were fabulous.
(19:04):
And one food tour we did, thetapas and flamenco one in
seville oh, that was justoutstanding.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Stand out, stand out.
I cannot think of the word.
I can't even find the words todescribe that evening with the
flamenco dancing oh no, and abig shout out as well sophie,
who took the tour.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
She was fabulous, absolutely fabulous, and her
love for flamenco came throughas well.
So we were all kind of reallyexcited by the time I got to
watch it and it did notdisappoint, and actually Sophie
said it was one of the best onesshe'd seen.
So she was five.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
All of the walks and devour guides are outstanding,
outstanding and one thing I willsay is they also incorporate a
little bit history yeah, yeah,you learn about the location and
the country.
Yeah, just a nice lovelybalance yeah, it's not like a
history lesson.
It's just a little bit in there.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, just to give it a you know a theme, just to
yeah, and they do say that it'snot just about food, it's about
learn about the culture andhistory as well, and that is
important.
Otherwise you have no contextto put it in.
Yeah, um, so you learn aboutthe history of the different
places that you go to eat, aswell as the foods, and it's
important and in kind of theregion and the history and
culture of the people of thatarea, so that's really important
(20:10):
.
Other, we did some walkingtours as well.
With walks, again, huge thankyou.
Big standout for for me was thetour in Seville with with Alba.
Oh, yeah fantastic.
Hi, alba.
Big shout out to you becauseyou were amazing.
You were fantastic.
I've got a lovely reel onInstagram with Alba so I will
share that in the show notes.
(20:31):
She was outstanding and we hadsuch a lovely, lovely time with
her and it was it was a day inSeville tour with her and we
learned about history, welearned, we walked around
Seville, we saw so much.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
We had some lunch with her afterwards.
We had lunch with herafterwards.
We learned about history.
We learned.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
We walked around Seville.
We saw so much.
We had some lunch with herafter we took our lunch, because
we just absolutely amazing.
Um, we did some fantastic toursin Barcelona as well, learning
about Gaudi we say it right,gaudi which were also fantastic.
You know, and I recommendhighly, if you visit a place to
do a tour, because if you walkaround yourself, you don't learn
or you just don't get to knowas much as you would if you do a
(21:09):
tour.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, I love going on tours.
I think it sounds like youblended traveling independently
with day tours with somemulti-day tours to get the best
balance of everything absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
yeah, we did a lot of those, a lot of day tours, and
we also did a multi-day tour inMorocco and that was through
Intrepid.
I've toured with Intrepidbefore.
I did two tours in India lastyear with Intrepid, so I know
they're an excellent, excellentcompany and you know it was just
brilliant.
It was really, really enjoyableand it was the first time that
(21:39):
Doug's actually done a multi-daytour and that, you know, he's
never done something that wasn'tindependent.
Um, so I had to talk him intothat because he was a bit like I
don't know if I want to travelwith these people, I don't know,
but you loved it.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I did.
Yeah, a big shout out there tothe tour guide, fred, who really
looked after me.
Before I left the UK I'd beenin hospital, so he looked after
me when I said I needed certainthings and certain conditions.
And you, you know privacy.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, you know he's brilliant.
It was really good.
All the tour guides werefantastic.
Big shout out to Fred.
And we did other tours andother destinations as well.
So again, just highly recommendyou do a food tour If you're
only in destination for a shortperiod of time.
Do a day in tour with walks, solike a day in Seville, a day in
Barcelona Because you withwalks.
So like a day in Seville, a dayin Barcelona because you, you
(22:23):
get everything kind of condensedinto the day but all the main
highlights of a destination,yeah that's like the perfect
balance.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So what did you pack for your trip when you were
going away for that long?
Like, did you actually know youwere going away for nine months
when you went away?
I can't remember if you did orif I knew.
You knew you were going for alonger trip.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
But how do you even begin to pack for something like
that when you're just kind ofgoing off and yeah we didn't
have a, we didn't have adefinite we'd have a flight back
, but we knew we had to be backfor going back to work in the
middle of May.
So we knew, I knew I was goingto be away kind of nine month
ish.
And I did say to people when Ileft I'm not sure when I'm going
to be back exactly.
And, and you know, our daughteras well was like we'll, we'll
(22:58):
be back sometime in.
May.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
One day?
Yeah, we'll be back in May.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So packing look at that.
I do have a lot of things atmum's house, probably too much
stuff at mum's house in the UK.
So she did have some of myclothes there and I did buy
stuff.
I'm terrible, I do buy clothesand I go.
I just I'm terrible in the UK.
She's terrible everywhere.
Yeah, I bought some scarves inMorocco and so on.
Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
The amount of clothes I carry seems to get less.
It does.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
He was like how come do I have like a third of one of
the suitcases and you have twothirds and they're all of the
other suitcases.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
You see my husband and I are opposites.
He packs all the cases and Itravel really light with hardly
anything.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So yeah, I think A um I mean it was a lot of layers
you took.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, I did take.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I guess because we knew we were going to be in
europe for winter, so we did buythings like, say, the thermal
things when we're over there.
We've got coats that werebought in australia from where
was it not anaconda?
From what's the shop inaustralia?
We bought them from catmandu,catmandu, that's it.
We bought from katmandu.
So we had those, um, and then,you know, bought, probably
bought some more.
I mean, you can't have too manyscarves.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I've got lots of stuff in these.
I have some trousers thatconvert to shorts.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
The practical stuff yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Actually, what we did find, or what I did find, is
that I didn't have enoughclothes for hot climate.
That's where I struggled morewhen we were coming back,
because we left a lot of stuffin the UK.
I just didn't have enough.
I didn't have enough shorts.
It was short.
Specifically, if you're goingto mention one item, it was
short one pair of shorts.
That was a big mistake,considering we're really hot
(24:29):
climate and you just want to bewearing shorts and you probably
got a heap of shorts here inaustralia and sandals and
everything kind of I had onepair of sandals.
I'm always very strict withfootwear, so I took one pair of
sandals, one pair of flip-flopsand I had one pair of trainers.
I'm very strict with withfootwear.
And I did have a pair of bootsin the UK which I've left at
mom's, but I think it was more.
(24:49):
Yeah, I think I've come backand I can't just add some like
35 pairs of shorts.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I could have done these when we're in Malaysia and
Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, this is a juggle you have to.
I mean, thank goodness forcompressing packing cubes, yeah
an expandable suitcase yes, yes,that is very good.
That's the other thing isbuying things.
When you go, it's like we youknow I bought things, so yeah
not to mention 20 000 fridgemagnets.
I know, I know people go fridgemagnets.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I don't care, fridge magnets they're not that heavy,
they don't take any room, youknow when you got three ton of
them?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
yeah, because you've got to think about like in
europe for flying they're sostrict about weight so I had to
pay extra weight before I gotonto the flights for everything.
I just knew we were gonna andwe ended up buying a bigger
suitcase in where were uhseville?
Seville, barcelona cities and,yeah, just near barcelona, we
ended up buying a big suitcase.
I had to buy another suitcase.
Yeah, wow, wow.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You should box it all up and use Send my Bag to send
it home.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, you know what?
I think that's what we'll bedoing, and we're thinking about
that actually when we're in theUK, about we've got a few
suitcases left, and I was like,and I know you talked about Send
my Bag, so that's something,things as you go around, yeah,
um.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So how did you manage things like insurance, visas
and money across the countriesthat you're traveling in?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
well, insurance.
We've both got um global travelinsurance for 12 months, so we
just made sure that it coveredall the countries and
destinations that we're going toand some things like the
intrepid tour you've got toprove that you've got insurance
um.
So you know, I would nevertravel without travel insurance
at all.
It's just too risky.
So we all make sure that wealways make sure we have full
cover.
I got sick last year, anotheryear before when we were in
(26:31):
Vietnam, and ended up having togo to hospital with pneumonia
and it only costs, I think, $400Australian dollars in the end
Cause I had cover Um.
So we went to private hospitaland had everything done and
could claim it all back.
So just think it's it's soimportant to make sure, so
that's something we always havejust check it covers the
destinations and the things thatyou're going to do.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I mean, we don't go skiing I was going to say you're
not skydiving.
No, no, no, no, you have tocheck it too.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
It's like we're not that adventurous so just make
sure it's got the cover.
When it comes to um was money,the other thing that you was
visas visas.
Okay, yeah, visas.
Well, you just have to checkwhat visa you need for a
specific country.
Now we were traveling on ouraustralian passport and what I
(27:15):
hadn't realized was that youdon't need a visa for turkey if
you're traveling on your britishpassport so.
I, if I traveled on a Britishone, I could have gone to Turkey
and would have saved us a lotof money, but because we were on
our Australian one, I ended upgetting visas.
I need to renew my Britishpassport.
So so that was one thing.
So do check that.
If you have two passports,because you've got dual
(27:37):
nationality, just check, becauseone place may not you may not
need a visa for um one of thepassport, so that might save you
money.
Yeah, so just make sure tocheck a lot of places as well.
You just have to pay online,like Sri Lanka, there's a $50
tourist tax, so just make sureyou do that before.
And other visas you have to donot visas the more, like a
(27:58):
health declaration for Singaporeyou have to do before you
arrive, I think.
Malaysia, you do it on arrival.
Morocco I don't think we neededa visa for, and obviously
anyway in europe we didn't.
We've got.
We've got british andaustralian passports, but it
just just check.
And also because there's now alot of things like etters and
esters and all these otherthings that are coming in etias
(28:19):
and all I don't know.
But you've just got to checkwhat, what you will need to go
into a certain destination.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Because, going back to the UK now, if you don't have
your British passport up todate, then you need to get an.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Etta as well.
Yeah, so there's all sorts ofthings like that.
So I know when it came to SriLanka, we did check with our
friend who had been therepreviously a few months before,
in fact that was it also Shelley.
We picked her brains a lotabout Sri Lanka we're plundering
about like cash.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
With regards to finance, we do keep a
spreadsheet of expenditure whenwe book things in advance, which
ones are paid for the cost ofthings.
That's why we try and use anaccommodation range, so it's in
really nice places, yeah to workfor budget, but I think that's
one way of dealing with it,isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Coping with the kind of work and budget?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's a really good idea as well.
It just helps you sort of keepon track of what you're spending
in a different destination andwhat expenses you've got coming
up, especially when you'retravelling to lots of different
countries and you're managing abudget for nine months while
you're travelling.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, yeah, in terms of money for travelling were you
generally using cash while youwere like morocco we needed cash
and in sri lanka we needed cash, but I would say I mean I don't
think we had a few euros whenwe're traveling around calamari,
but, honestly, contactlessreally christmas markets was
(29:37):
contact.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah, it was contactless.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I really think you just need it far less.
Malaysia, we used a lot ofcontact less.
We had some cash as well.
Um singapore, we just hadcontactless.
So a lot of it was it wasmainly contactless in in some
destinations that europe wasmainly contact was contactless.
But we found sri lanka you haveto have cash and definitely
morocco, yeah so did you runinto any transport or
(30:03):
accommodation problems orhiccups along?
The way?
I don't think.
So I think everything wasfairly, went fairly smoothly.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
There was the one in Spain with the train strikes, we
had to look at our plans.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
yeah, we had to book a flight, sort of last minute
because we couldn't take thetrains.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
That's a good point.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Yeah, we were actually going togo by train.
The plan was to go to northernSpain, so we were actually going
to get the train from Porto, inPortugal, to northern Spain and
then go back to Barcelona thatway, which I was really excited
about doing and spent ages kindof planning it and figuring it
out.
And then, unfortunately, therewas a train strike announced in
(30:42):
Spain which really would havemeant the journey was going to
be impossible to do.
So we hung on, and hung on, andhung on and literally I booked
the flight and an hour laterthey cancelled the.
They cancelled the strike Toolate.
I booked the flight.
So I'm like we're going to fly.
So Duke was like upset for aday or two Going oh, we want to
do the train trip.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I'm like, well, wasn't really going to be very
easy to do, and then we booked acoach instead, and then the
strike was moved or cancelledand you do have to move around a
little bit and be kind of readyto change your plans.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
You have to be flexible sometimes because you
just don't know what those sortof things around just have to go
back and do it again.
Yeah otherwise I thinkeverything else went fairly
smoothly.
Accommodation you know, yeah,it was, it was all pretty good,
and I always book with freecancellation for accommodation
because you just don't know ifyou're going to change your
plans, which actually we did insri lanka.
We changed changed accommodationoptions a few times because I
(31:41):
decided to stay somewheredifferent yeah so it was just
give us that flexibility andthat, you know, I remember we
went to paris a few timesbecause I decided to stay
somewhere different.
Yeah, so it was just give usthat flexibility and that, you
know, I remember we went toParis a few years ago and I got
sick on the day, so well, theday before.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So we managed to kind of cancel what we're going to
do and I was just going to saywhen, like, we travel with kids
so they can get sick and thingslike that, so you might need to
change things or you might getanother recommendation on the
road from somebody that makesyou want to change where you're
going to stay yeah, so it's goodto be flexible and open to new
options.
Um, what were the biggestchallenges and low points during
the trip?
Were there any low points orwas it all exciting?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
and I was disappointed in spain because
I've got sick a few times.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It seemed to be recurring every six weeks, where
I would just get a sore throat,a bit of a cough and feel a bit
just tired, um, and then I'dhave to take a couple of days or
like a whole day just restingin bed, and that just seemed to
recur every six weeks.
But I think you said I need toprobably go and have a check on
my vitamin levels or somethingand see if it was Um and I.
(32:37):
I think that wasn't a low point, it's just something that
happened.
I didn't get too sick, thankgoodness, because I think that
I'll never forget the trip wedid in 2023 when we did a lot
around Asia and I got pneumonia,because that did impact hugely
on the trip.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
I don't think we had a lot of low points, because
we're just quite flexible withthe actual elements booked in a
day.
If we need a little bit moretime than the day after
yesterday, type of thing, we'lljust take it slower today.
Yeah, a bit less today, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I think it's disappointing.
I mean, it's nothing you can doabout it the weather.
I was going to say the weatherwe were very, very unlucky in
Spain and Portugal in the entiremonth of March and they said
there was a cloud over Spain andPortugal the entire time, which
is unusual and it can theentire time, which is unusual
and I can rain a bit, but itjust didn't budge.
(33:29):
So that did impact particularlyPortugal, particularly Porto,
um, where it was torrential rain.
So I got we can you go?
I mean we've got rain jacketsall the rest of it, but when
it's that torrential youcouldn't really do anything.
Yeah, um, so that was a bitdisappointing yeah, that's it,
we just took advantage and justdid work um, but I guess I guess
that's just these days withchange of climate.
You don't know exactly, youcan't guarantee what you're
going to get.
No, yeah so do you.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Did you ever feel overwhelmed while you were
traveling, or homesick, or burntout or just exhausted from the
whole experience?
Speaker 3 (33:57):
or you just kept enjoying it the whole way around
.
I think part of having thespreadsheet and planning out we,
we keep our targets achievableand realistic, yeah, and adjust
and have that flexibility.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I don't think I think one thing that I did feel at
the end of that, coming to theend of the trip, was that I was
less inclined to want tonecessarily go and see something
like a museum or a or a kind ofyou know must-see landmark or
not another museum yeah, I was abit.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I was just a bit like .
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I don't know.
I think I got a bit historydoubt, which sounds a bit crazy,
but I just was like a bit a lot, I want to know the history and
about the destinations, but Ijust didn't think I wanted to
know it in so much detail.
I just so, and I think it wasjust that.
Yeah, I think we learned a lotin Spain and I know that was a
lot of history, and I kind ofwent wow, wow, that's a lot of
(34:45):
detail from some of these places, but I think that would
probably be it.
I was like I don't know if Inecessarily want to.
I probably just want to staylonger and I think that would be
the kind of key thing staylonger in a destination.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And maybe balancing different types of trips.
So not just history history,but do like a wildlife or a
safari type trip or something abit more outdoorsy after it to
balance yeah, I mean I probablyhadn't done that much.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I just I guess I just felt like by that point I
remember saying to you I don'tknow if I want it, but even
things like it were in singaporeand we'd plan to go and see, um
, the, the, the super grove, thetrees, super trees grove, what
it's called, near Goddesby theBay, and I've seen it a few
times and I was just I reallywanted to go, but I was like I'm
too tired, I can't.
So I think, and that's okay,just give yourself that bit of
(35:34):
kind of flexibility and thinkabout just how much we had done
and learned and seen.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
But I think that it becomes more mechanical?
I think yeah, when it.
But I think that it becomesmore mechanical?
I think yeah, when it does.
It's just, you know, I'mcatching the train today, I'm
catching the flight today andwe're going to go to this
shopping centre, we're going toget that museum and it becomes
if you're not careful yeah, toomechanical a little bit routine.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yes, so I think that was one thing that I felt that
I'd like to stay longer andreally kind of immersed myself
in a culture more than actuallyfeeling like I'm going here,
there and everywhere and got youknow, even if it's a fun, like
we were 15 days in Malaysia andit was like five days in Kuala
Lumpur, five days in Ipoh, fivedays in Penang, um, but it was,
(36:16):
it was I could have spent longer, and I think that was the thing
.
It's like I, we, we had a listof things we want to do in EPO
and we kind of didn't doeverything because it was like
actually, let's have a few days,just break, yeah, um.
So I think that's something.
When it comes to um, I could goagain, I could get on a flight
tomorrow and do it again, but Iwouldn't do 22 countries it was
(36:37):
a little bit extreme we mighttalk about it, but not actually
do it yeah, no, I wouldn't, I, Ijust wouldn't.
I mean saying that my I turned16 in a year, in a bit time.
Um, I, I'd like to spend thatwhole year in south america
exploring south america.
But then it's a 12-month trip,but then there's a lot of
countries, so I don't know yeah,well, lots to look forward to.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
So what was it like trying to run a business and
creating content while you're onthe go?
And, like you said before in inthe last podcast episode that I
just interviewed you?
For?
The internet can be patchy,wi-fi can be patchy, and that
can make things really difficultum, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
We have to divide up what we do.
So doug takes videos.
I take a lot of photos.
We doug takes the notes ofeverything that we do every day.
He keeps a diary.
So that's a good way, becauseobviously now we're going back
and we've just published our SriLanka at Chimney on the Global
Travel Planning website.
But we could go through allthose notes and then put the
(37:33):
post together.
So that's how we do it, becauseI think you know that on a day,
for example, if you're out for10 hours, you're not going to
want to do a whole lot of work,so just writing notes're not
going to want to do a whole lotof work, so just writing notes,
or don't kind of stop dictatingthe notes and storing them.
That way.
That's a good system for us.
What I do struggle with I domanage to put stories out on
Instagram.
I'm pretty good with those butwhat I do struggle with are the
(37:56):
larger content, like doing reelsor doing YouTube videos.
We decided that that was toomuch to do.
We did plan to do some vloggingwhen we traveled and that was
my intention, but actually,after trying to do that a couple
of times, I realized thatwasn't really my style.
And we're gonna.
We are gonna do and be doing alot of youtube videos about our
travels, but we'll, we'll talkabout it, we'll, we'll record
(38:17):
ourselves talking about it andwe'll just use a lot of the
videos to show and illustratewhat we're talking about we also
set work days.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yes, you know, when we looked at, particularly when
we were in spain, really, whenwe saw the weather forecast, you
know tomorrow's going to behorrendously wet day, so we did
set some days.
Yeah, we did just work, yeahyeah, we did.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
We did and also when we were house sitting in
scotland.
We're there for seven weeks soit meant that I could record a
lot of podcasts.
So because obviously I've gottwo weekly podcasts, which is a
lot of podcasts, so I recorded alot in January.
I can't even remember how many,but it covered until basically
I got back in June I did thingslike wrote 26 emails.
(38:57):
My travel trip tip Tuesdayseries on UK travel planning,
which is extremely popular.
It's gone down so well.
I wrote all of those in Januaryand scheduled those ahead.
So it's kind of planning aheadand also planning what you need
in terms of getting the content,batching, yeah, when you're in
a destination as well, and alsogiving yourself some time to
enjoy it as well and notconstantly thinking what do I
(39:19):
need to get?
What do I need to get?
If you plan ahead and know whatyou need so if you know you
know, for example, you're goingto write an article about EPO
then you know exactly the placesthat you need to get photos for
and get video for and you knowwhat you're going to do and look
for yeah and we, in some placeswe stopped.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
We deliberately booked um um self-accommodation,
you know, self-cage in typeplaces.
So if we're having work daysand the weather is bad we really
would not need to go out.
And we did set those days aside, didn't we?
Speaker 1 (39:47):
yeah, we did, and we did a lot that.
We did booked apartments inSpain and Portugal.
We did have some hotels inPortugal, but it meant that we
knew that we could work, we hadmore space, we had a washing
machine as well, so we couldkeep on top of washings and your
house sitting as well, yeah, sothat really helped as well.
So I think it's that just justjust planning how you're going
(40:08):
to manage your work, um, becauseit's not a holiday in the
traditional sense of whateverybody thinks, and like you
said, knowing how you work best,because I'm the same as you.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I can't be.
I don't like creating reelswhen I'm on the go trying to
enjoy a destination.
You want to enjoy it andexperience it and then take that
away and put that into a reel,rather than feeling like you're
missing out on having funbecause you're creating content
all the time yeah, and I mean,I've got a lot of friends who
who will write up what they didevery single day and put it on
their facebook group.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
And I'm just not good and I really should be doing
that and I just find I'm tootired to do that.
But now we've got every bit ofinformation about what we did
every day so we can share thatwith the photos.
Now, um, I just you have to be,you just have to be aware how,
how you're going to cope with itand manage it, because it's so
easy to burn out with this typeof thing you work to your
strengths yeah, yeah, and it'snot just about traveling.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Traveling's exhausting anyway, but traveling
and working and creatingcontent, it's a very different
experience.
You're trying to take notes ofeverything that you're doing
because you're trying to shareall of those tips and things, so
there's a lot going on in yourmind like it's exhausting, yeah,
and you'll try things that youwouldn't necessarily try,
because you know that somebody'sgoing to ask you about that.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
So you might.
You might try different ways oftransportation so that you can
try all the different ways out,or so this you're always kind of
thinking about, and especiallybecause we were kind of aiming
to help all we do is help peopleto plan their trips, maybe for
a first time, to destinationsall over the world.
We're kind of going into it aswell with a what time?
What does a first-time visitorneed to know?
(41:39):
What do we, what?
What have we kind of taken awayas a first-time to this
destination that wish we hadknown before we went?
And that's what we're trying todo is like how can we share
those tips and that informationto make it so, if you're
planning to visit Japan oryou're planning to visit Vietnam
or you're going to go to SriLanka, we have all that
information that you need toknow as a first time visitor to
prepare yourself.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, no, that's great.
So what did you learn aboutyourselves, about travel, about
each other?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
while you were travelling.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I'm sure it was quite an experience being away
together for that long.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
It was.
I mean, we did pretty well, Ithink.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, no divorce.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
No no.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Occasionally I went off.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
You know, Tracy wanted a bit of peace and quiet,
so I went and did somethingdifferent.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
That's the beauty of the um self-catering places
where there's more than one room, because at times we're working
in different rooms, or I wentout, or you know.
Yeah, I think it's that, havingthat flexibility, we did
exactly the same.
I'm thinking about vietnam aswell.
Like you, went and did a a toura whole day to that.
I just was.
I just want to have a day andjust relax.
I need to just to reset.
So doug went and did that tourand I didn't do it.
And it's kind of recognizingthat you're going to have
different interests and that'sokay.
So one of you could go to theart museums that would probably
be more me and Doug could go tothe train museum, because that
(42:52):
would be more him.
So it's that kind of looking atwhat you both enjoy and like
and then giving yourself a bitof space as well to do that, and
then kind of working togetheron things like meals and washing
, all those things that you haveto do.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
There's mundane tasks that you need to get about
those sort of daily tasks whenyou're traveling bills to pay.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah, yeah, who's in?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
charge of doing what.
So that you know you don't haveto worry about that, because
the other you know doug'ssorting that out, so that's not
on my plate to do as well.
So it's kind of knowing who'sdoing what.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, oh, I like that .
That's a good idea ofallocating tasks to each other.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
And also you've got two of you, so you're getting
double the content creation aswell, because if Doug's off
doing one thing and you're offdoing a different thing, then
you're able to kind of spreadyourself more around and do more
activities activities that willinterest different people, so
that's really good.
Um so, what would you say tosomeone who is dreaming of
planning such a similar big tripto yours?
Speaker 1 (43:49):
go for it.
Where do you?
Begin, I'll go for it, yeah, Ithink, decide where, where you
want to go and how long, forwhat your budget is realistic be
realistic, it's going to bemore expensive than you think
it's going to be, more expensivethan you think.
The reality is just going tosay it's going to be more
expensive than you think.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Well, the reality is that some countries, sometimes
some cities, are more expensivethan others.
Yeah, so you've got to thinkwhat's the most important thing
for you?
Is the accommodation?
Is that the most importantthing for you?
Or is it going out for a nicemeal?
Is that the most important?
Speaker 1 (44:26):
So you've got to find a mix that suits both of you,
kind of thing, or whoever'straveling, yeah, and kind of
yeah, have some flexibility andstuff.
I think when, like, for example, I wanted to stay in barcelona
because we were writing aboutbarcelona and dude, but doug had
spent, had gone during hischildhood to siges, which is
south of barcelona, and so hesaid, why don't we stay in siges
and we can travel intobarcelona?
And I was like, oh, okay, right, is it going to be difficult?
And he went no, no, it's reallyeasy to get.
And I loved Sijs, loved Sijs.
(44:48):
I wouldn't.
Honestly, if you're going tostay in Barcelona, don't stay in
Barcelona, go and stay in Sijs.
It's really easy to get intoBarcelona by train.
It was just lovely.
It was so, so lovely, and weweren't in the big mellow of the
big city, we're out beside thebeach in this gorgeous little
town.
You know it was that.
That was a actually bigsurprise for me and that was
something I had to kind of giveand take, because doug was like,
(45:10):
oh, let's go, and I was like,yeah so kind of listening to
each other as well was somethingthat we did in it.
Yeah, so I'd say that listen towhat you're you're.
If you're traveling solo, youcan do what you want and go
where you want.
But if you're traveling with afamily or with a partner, ask,
you know, chat about where youwant to go and what you want to
do.
So when you do that overallitinerary, you go into places
(45:30):
that you both want.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
But then when you get to the nitty-gritty, then you
know you might go and doseparate things on it on a day
and it's okay and that's truewhen you're traveling for quite
a while, you're bound to have,let's say, off days, but days
where your energy levels are notquite up there sort of thing.
So you've got to have that bitof flexibility, maybe just
setting out a bit later in themorning, a bit of a lying bed in
(45:51):
the morning, and take it a bitof a slower pace, or changing
your itinerary a little, ifpossible.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, that sounds like a good balance.
So what's one thing you woulddefinitely do differently if you
did it all over again, whichyou would definitely?
Do differently if you did itall over again, which I'm sure
you will be doing it all overagain, different places, next
time.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
But yeah, I don't know.
I think for me is I'd like tospend longer in some
destinations and I probablywould avoid Europe in winter.
Not for, I mean, december wasamazing and I loved the
Christmas markets, but I'dforgotten about the actual
reason why I moved from the UKto Australia until I realised
that January in Scotland it'sdark and grey and the weather
(46:31):
was a bit iffy.
So I think that I wouldprobably look at certainly not
going in summer.
I wouldn't go to places likeEurope in June, july, august Not
a chance.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Look at school holiday dates as well.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
It's very important yeah absolutely, I think, just
probably a bit more slowertravel, less destinations.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
More train travel.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Always.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
There's one thing I would do next time, once we've
settled on an itinerary, is havea look if there's any public
holidays that I'm unaware of orfestivals in the town, city,
country.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Like you were saying, in Sri Lanka, that impacted
your trip there.
Did not know that.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, I mean again we adjusted, you know, as required
for the sort of thing.
But I think I definitely wouldlook, do a search, see if
there's any upcoming publicholidays I'm unaware of or
festivals.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah right, final question we made it to the end.
What is one tip you would sharewith someone who is planning
their nine month or extendedtrip around the world for the
first time?
Speaker 1 (47:37):
oh, I think I think be organized with everything
back home so you know if you'releaving your, your home, make
sure you know that it how, youknow it's locked up, it's safe
that you've got people checkingon it, because then you don't
want to be worried about what'sgoing on.
That was just.
There was a cyclone gonna say wehad a cyclone here in brisbane
(47:57):
yeah, so we're very lucky thatwe've got a friend who lives
lives above our apartment so shecould check on the apartment
and keep it safe for us.
And also we planned things likewe knew what bills were going
to come out.
Doug all sorted all that on aspreadsheet Because what you
don't want to happen is, forexample, a big bill to be coming
out and you're somewhere wherethere's no Wi-Fi and you haven't
(48:18):
set it up.
So we did a lot of directdebits or late payment fees.
Yeah, so just know what'shappening back home so that
you've got everything covered,because the last thing you want
to do when you're thousands ofmiles away is have to deal with,
you know, something that youcan't sort out at home, that you
haven't already got some sortof plan for.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
Yeah, I would say, strategically, look where you
can leave luggage.
We've done it in two locations,but I would always, if possible
, so obviously travel light tostart with.
But if you're traveling acrossseasons, sometimes it's just not
physically possible to reducetoo much what you carry.
And so if you can leave yourluggage and party trip in a
(48:59):
country or town or what our area, if you can leave it in one
location, some of it, and youtravel light, I would always
look at that option.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
And there's one thing I'm going to say which I would
also say is make sure you've gotgood travel insurance.
If you can't afford travelinsurance, you can't afford to
travel.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
That's so important.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
So that would be it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Well, thank you so much for telling us all about
your trip today.
It's been really fun learningall about it well, thanks, karen
.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Thanks again for coming on and interviewing us on
the podcast.
I will put a link to yourpodcast and to everything we
talked about in this episode inthe show notes, which are at
globaltravelplanningcom.
Forward slash episode 62.
But that leaves us to say, asalways, until next week.
Happy global travel planning.
Thank you for joining us onthis episode of the Global
(49:47):
Travel Planning Podcast.
For more details and links toeverything we discussed today,
check out the show notes atglobaltravelplanningcom.
Remember if you enjoyed theshow, please consider leaving us
a review on your favoritepodcast app, because your
feedback helps us reach moretravel enthusiasts, just like
you.
Anyway, that leaves me to say,as always happy global travel
(50:07):
planning.
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