It’s hard to believe we’re 6 months into our year-long round the world trip. We’ve seen and experienced SO many things this year, it’s almost hard for me to comprehend! What’s even more exciting to think about is all the amazing things still to come in the next 6 months.
Highlights in pictures:
July – China & Uzbekistan
August – Uzbekistan & Kyrgyzstan
September – China
October – Nepal & Bhutan
November – Thailand & Myanmar
December – Thailand & Indonesia
January – Vietnam
We’ve traveled 1.5X around the globe!
The circumference of the globe is 40,075 (according to google), and so far this year we’ve put on 58,324km of travel, not including what we’ve done on foot. Let’s break that down!
- Flights: 41,414km on 27 flight segments. This is WAY more than we had anticipated as we really wanted to overland as much as possible, but we’ve had a few last minute change of plans that included flights, resulting in this number being so high.
- Train: 6370km on 10 trains, 3 of which were sleeping trains (1 in Uzbekistan and 2 in China).
- Road: 10,409km by road, with a combination of 10 buses, 5 shared taxi and multiple private cars. This was split into 30 different “legs”.
- Boat: 134km on a boat from Pak Bara Pier to Koh Lipe. I didn’t count the hundreds of km we did on our Liveaboard dive boat in Raja Ampat because it’s basically impossible, and it wasn’t getting us from point A to point B!
- On the ground we’ve used;
- metro in Guangzhou, Chengdu & Beijing
- taxis/Grab/Uber almost everywhere
- city busy in Beijing, Kashgar & Kathmandu
- a BIG truck when crossing the border from Kyrgyzstan to China
- Tuk Tuk in Bangkok & Chiang Mai
- Red Truck taxi in Phuket, Chiang Mai & Tachialek
- Boat Taxi in Bangkok
- Longboat in Inle Lake
- E-bike scooters in Bagan
- Circle Train in Yangon
- Yellow Bus in Sorong
- Our own 2 feet. I really wish I had some kind of step counter, it’s one of my regrets for the year! I’d love to know how many steps we’ve taken/km we’ve put on. I’m sure it’s thousands!
Border Crossings
We’ve visited 9 countries, and crossed 11 borders! In order, we’ve been to China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China (again!), Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Myanmar, Thailand (again!), Indonesia & Vietnam. We’ve also stopped through 2 more countries (Bangladesh and Malaysia), but we didn’t leave the airport either time, so in my mind they don’t count.
The easiest border crossing was the first entry into Thailand. We flew into BKK from Paro, Bhutan. We walked right up to the border guard, he stamped our passports, and away we went. Easy peasy!
The most painful border crossing, which was also the longest by far, was from Kyrgyzstan to China. You can read about the entire debacle here! We were stamped out of Kyrgyzstan at 9:25 am, and entered China at 5:24pm. I’m not even exaggerating, those are the time stamps from the pictures on my phone!
Where We’ve Slept
- Hostels: 11
- Apartments/AirBnB: 5
- Guesthouses/Homestays: 8
- Yurts: 4
- Trains: 3
- Airports: 1 (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
- Teahouses: 3 (Nepal)
- Camping: 2 (Nepal)
- Bus: 1 (Yangon to Bagan, Myanmar)
- Boat: 7 nights (Raja ampat)
What We’ve Spent
Our budget for the year was $200-250 CAD/day.
I’m proud to report that even WITH Bhutan, including flights to & from ($7286.73 CAD for 5 days…told you it was expensive!) AND our really expensive 16 days in Indonesia, including the dive boat in Raja Ampat and our rental Villa in Bali, plus VERY expensive flights to & from ($9370.20 CAD), we’re within budget.
So far we’ve spent $231.26 CAD per day.
Because we mega-splurged on the dive boat in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, we decided to swap our itinerary around a bit. Instead of heading to East Africa (which included a safari splurge), we’re heading to India instead. This’ll give us a chance to experience Holi festival, see the Taj Mahal, visit the Ganges, and tighten up our budget a bit! I think it’s an okay trade-off. We were in Africa this time last year, and even though it wasn’t an East Africa safari, we still saw a lot of wildlife in Pendjari Park in Benin. We’ll head back to Africa to safari another time.
And our flights…
We budgeted $20,000 CAD for flights.
So far we’ve spent $6062.41 on flights we’ve already taken.
We’ve also pre-spent a further $6962.37 on upcoming flights. The only ones we have left to book are from Central America to South America (unfortunately we can’t easily overland through southern Panama to Colombia), and then home! I believe we’ll come in under our $20,000 flight budget, even if we decide to do something crazy like fly to Toronto for a weekend in June for my cousin’s wedding!
A few fun, Random Numbers:
- Calais has thrown up in the car:
3 times4 times! (twice in Kyrgyzstan, once in Myanmar, and once today in Vietnam)…good thing we just got our kids Gravol supply reloaded! - Kacela has fallen through the drainage gates along the side of the road: 2 times (you’d think she’d learn, but she doesn’t!)
- Mountains climbed: Arslanbob (Kyrgyzstan), Poon Hill (Nepal), Tiger’s Nest (Bhutan), Kalaw (Myanmar), KengTung (Myanmar)
- Highest point: Kyzart Pass in Kyrgyzstan at 3600m, second is Poon Hill at 3210m above sea level.
- Girls have been sick from Ice Cream: Only once, in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. As I was watching the man pour the first ice cream cone back into the ice cream maker, because it wasn’t cold enough yet, should have been my first clue not to let them eat it!!
- Scooter crashes: 1.5! One was me, when I ran into a parked truck 30sec after hopping on the scooter for the first time in Bagan. The second wasn’t me but I was at the receiving end of the crash. Thankfully no one was hurt either time!
That’s 6 months in a few pictures and less than 1000 words!! We’re so excited for what the next 6 months have in store for us. Stay tuned!!
If you haven’t already found us on YouTube, you should go check it out. Randy’s done an awesome job of the videos, and you’ll get a real feel for where we’ve been and what we’ve done. You should go binge watch it now!!
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Whew!! I’m dizzy just reading about your travels!! glad you are going to be able to include India- I know it was high on your list.
Read your blog was very impressed that you did the trip with kids, congrats. just want to know being Canadian did you have to pre arrange VISA for any countries, as I am planning a road trip from Canada to India some real info and advice will be very helpful.
India required a pre-arranged eVisa, but it was easy to get online. Many of the countries in Central Asia (other than Kyrgyzstan) require pre-arranged Visas. Uzbekistan was a giant pain because we had to send our passports to Washington. Or, you can get it in one of the neighbouring countries (which is likely easiest). I’m sure there’s a whole different level with driving a vehicle through, but there are some great Overlanding forums and facebook communities that would have more info on that than me! (Although someday we hope to drive through as well, so I’ll figure it out eventually!). It sounds like you have a very adventurous trip planned!