THE END OF AN ADVENTURE AND A NEW BEGINNING
As we were nearing the end of our trip, we were filled with mixed feelings. All at the same time, we were a bit sad that our fantastic adventure was coming to an end, apprehensive about returning to day-to-day life (and work) where weekends are treasured short pauses you look forward to all week but also excited about our new adventure of arriving in a new city with opportunities to explore Australia.
It’s the Little Changes
As the end of our trip was more relaxing, we had more opportunity to reflect on the past six months, and we wanted to take this opportunity to share some of these with you. It’s never easy looking back, counting your blessings and recognising how you’ve changed, especially when it’s composed of so many little things that you might not notice at first.
1. People and Learning
Looking back, we realise we’ve learned so much about the countries we visited, their different cultures and the people who live within them. It was amazing how much kindness and decency we met all over the world, even amongst incredibly poor people living in astonishing circumstances. We developed a much greater appreciation for how fortunate we are both for being able to take this journey, but also to be able to return to our normal lives at the end of it, where we have clean beds in a spacious flat, not to mention a reliable supply of electricity, (drinking!) water and transportation. Nearly two weeks have passed since we arrived in Australia, and it still feels strange drinking a glass of water from the tap! We are also very thankful that we were only ever sick once in the whole journey, back in Quito, when we both got food poisoning pretty much on the very first day of our trip.
2. Possessions
We learned how to manage with much fewer possessions! It is a relief having a bit more belongings than what can fit in a backpack, but at the same time, we’ve realised how few of the things that clutter our lives we actually need (the volume of our backpacks combined was less than 2% of the volume of stuff that we shipped from London to Australia). As a result of our experiences we’ve become better at adapting to different environments, at bargaining and at coping in very basic circumstances. It feels strange now to have a choice of long trousers to wear – this makes the preparation in the morning much longer, perhaps unnecessarily!
3. The Impact of Nature
We also have a greater appreciation for nature’s power and impact. Even though we were never in danger, nature had a much bigger impact on our lives – from rainy seasons to El Nino, volcanos and earthquakes (in Kumamoto, Japan) – than in our previous daily routine in the office, where it pretty much didn’t matter whether it was raining outside or not. We also learned so much about nature and wildlife in the various places we visited, how the natural balance is increasingly being disrupted and the direct impact it already has on peoples’ lives.
4. Acquired Skills ans Special Moments
Finally, there are the tangible skills we learned. We tried to do something new whenever we could, so this list would probably be too long to list – or even recall! We tried countless local delicacies (even when they looked slightly unappetising), took cooking lessons in 4 countries, did our Advanced Open Water scuba diving course, took a beginner’s surfing lesson, learnt to cut a pineapple in a couple of minutes in the Vietnamese way, went to a Colombian salsa class, bathed in a mud volcano, tried horseback riding and white-water rafting, did a yoga retreat and learned how to get by (and navigate!) without Google in China. We hiked on the Great Wall in China as well as an ancient Japanese pilgrimage route, Kumano Kodo, not much after getting buried in hot sand. We climbed the mountains above Machu Picchu and descended into the Colca Canyon in Peru, visited both the lush Amazon and the splendid desert and salt flats in Bolivia, and did an Easy Rider motorcycle tour in Vietnam. We swam with sea lions, penguins, turtles and sharks; on land we spotted desert foxes, jungle tapirs, hummingbirds, caimans, monitor lizards, more kinds of monkeys and birds than I could count. In short, it’s been a lifetime experience, and we wanted to thank you all for sharing it with us! Knowing that we have such enthusiastic readers has kept us motivated to continue writing no matter how exhausted we were, and the blog will be a great diary and souvenir for us to remember this journey! We sincerely hope our stories will serve as motivation for the more cautious amongst you to strike out on your own and experience new adventures, or as a set of ideas for the more adventurous. If you are travelling to any of the places we visited, we would be happy to share some advice, or if have general questions about travelling, please also don’t hesitate to ask!
The Distance We Covered
In the early days of aviation, a journey from Europe to Australia (the “Kangaroo Route”) involved 42 refuelling stops over 12 days. Most common people made the journey by sea, and even in the 1950’s an airplane ticket cost around as much as a house in England. It’s a reflection of how much the world has changed even in the last 50 years, that while we chose to take our time and spend 6 months travelling on our way to Australia, we were able to see half of the world, rather than being shut up in the hold of a passenger liner.
Overall, we’ve travelled over 72,000km (almost enough to circle the world twice!) using a very wide range of vehicles in exactly 100 journeys (a surprising coincidence) – including 30 flights, almost as many stopovers as the original Kangaroo Route! It was fascinating to see how people find a way to travel with the vehicles they have available locally, but also the impact that better transportation has on society. Reflecting on this, we’ve highlighted some of the more unique ways we’ve travelled:
A scary Bolivian 19-seater mini-plane over the jungle – the longest 40 minutes in our lives
Ferry on the Galapagos between islands with incredibly rough waves and sick people
A hitchhiked Peruvian Jehovah Witness van with palm-sized holes saving us from the pouring rain
Japanese Shinkansen and Shanghai maglev whizzing by a 3-400 km/h
Vietnamese Easyrider motorcycle behind private guides across the Highlands
Lost (but not Found) & Newly Acquired
We are proud to announce that after the balance of 10 lost items in South America in less than 3 months, we managed to make a significant improvement in Asia! And it’s not (only) because we did not have much else to lose! However, this time we only noticed missing belongings days or weeks after losing them, so there was no way to locate where they could disappear. We could only go back to our photos to see when we wore them for the last time..
Merino wool T-shirt (Sz) – no idea where it’s gone to, probably laundry?
1 top (R) - no idea where it’s gone to, probably laundry?
1 Swiss army knife (Sz) - absolutely no clue
The list of newly acquired items would be much (-much) longer from Asia than in South-America due to our slightly crazy tailor-made clothes shopping in Vietnam and some further shopping in China and Japan (believe me, we simply could not leave some beautiful stuff there, so I’d rather not list those… In the beginning of the trip we were extremely careful not to accumulate souvenirs or clothes on the way due to the limited capacity of our backpacks, and apart from a T-shirt and a picture or drawing from each country (and OK, there was also an alpaca jumper for each of us, but I guess, that’s understandable) we did well. But in Asia some offers were truly unmissable, and we also made the naive assumption that it’s not that much left from the trip so we could carry along a few extra things. In the end this assumption badly failed and we had to post 2 boxes to Australia with much gratefulness to our friend, Astrid’s contribution! Of course, now, sitting in our new apartment in Sydney it makes us happy to look at all these souvenirs from all over the world!
Cost of Travelling
Before the trip, our assumption was that travelling long-term would be proportionally much cheaper than a regular action-packed 2-week vacation, firstly because the cost of the intercontinental flight is spread out over a much longer period. Additionally, our pace of doing and seeing things (while occasionally quite hectic), is slower as well, leading to a lower cost per day. This is because you don’t feel as much pressure to see everything in the 2-week slot available, and you simply need to take it easy and rest once in a while to avoid burn-out. We were happy to see that our assumptions were correct when faced with reality, and also pleasantly surprised that overall for the trip, we actually came in below budget! We need to mention though that although our trip was slower than a normal 2-week holiday, especially the last month, we still tried to see and experience much in each country, which increased costs compared to the real slow travellers.
We’ve included here our cost breakdown for the would-be traveller amongst you, planning your next trip to any of these destinations, and for the sake of completeness we also added the previously summed up costs from the South American leg of the trip. We hope it helps!
So we can conclude that travelling long-term can be made from a relatively low budget per day compared to shorter breaks. Another point is to see how much cheaper a South American or Asian holiday can be made than a trip to Europe, for instance. A big difference is, of course, the more expensive long distance flights, but these days good deals are common, so you just need to keep an eye on them.
Farewell Thoughts
Just like there is no real ending to our journey since we have just landed at another new land, this isn’t the end of our blog either! Actually it is just the start of our explorations in Australia, a huge continent with incredible scenery and unique animals with unpronounceable names. Throughout the hustle and bustle of our new life, we will try to keep our blog updated with some of the trips we will take over the coming years. So the posts will be less frequent, but they will (hopefully) keep coming, and will aim to give you a better view of this continent and some ideas for coming here – and visiting us!!
