Flying Tonight

I booked my ticket. Itinerary 1. An RTW that starts at Hawaii on 20th July, and ends in Bombay in mid January.


This makes it brilliantly, frighteningly real.

I looked so wide eyed and shocked when I bought it that the rep I bought it from dropped the facade a second, and said "did you mean to come in here today and buy this?"

Silent shocked nod.

There's so much more I need to jot down here to remember, but no computer access stymies the organisation.

Here's the path I'll be taking; each new line is a time-jump of about two weeks to a month:

• London - San Francisco - Hawaii


• Hawaii - Auckland (? dunno how that happened)


• Auckland - Raratonga, in the Cook Islands


• Raratonga - Fiji, just in time for September to kick off


• Fiji - Auckland - Singapore


• From Singapore, I'll be travelling overland through Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, ending in Bali - then back again to Singapore. It's a bit of a faff - I can only get a 30 days' visa to enter Singapore, so have to change flight details, visa details and dates once I get there


• Singapore - Hanoi, Vietnam


• Hanoi - Bangkok (I have to confess, I don't know what's in Bangkok, or what I'm doing there)


• Bangkok - Kathmandu, Nepal (in time for Christmas and the Himalayas to be completely snowed in)


• Nepal overland to Bombay


• Bombay - London for mid January

I tried to leave longest gaps in cheapest travel countries, or according to how enraptured the person who recommended the place was. Several weeks of enrapturement equalled amonth long stay ...

No doubt the times and lengths of stay are rather random, so the next itinerary (lakes, rivers, islands of north America) needs to wait till my next break in London, in January. I'm sure I'll have learnt quite a few lessons about planning by then, and I don't want to fuck up the entire year in advance without that hindsight.

It might also be nice to catch up with people in London for a week or two while I arrange visas. Who knows, I might be sick of travelling and have abandoned the whole thing as a bad job by then...

Next on the agenda: Insurance. Think I've found a decent policy that's got higher coverage than normal backpacker rubbish, and covers all activities. I need to get that sorted by the end of April.