Home: The Travel Map

Front Cover of The Travel Map 2 Book

Following on from “The Travel Map” I have just published the second travel guide book, fully documenting my more recent trips. Together the two books describe in detail 10 round-the-world trips and a separate trip to Africa, from naive beginnings many years ago to experienced backpacker status. Hundreds of photos and 1156 pages in total! Hopefully you’ll find them inspiring. Please enjoy the trip.

Back Cover of The Travel Map 2

Not sure where to travel...

Here’s an experiment. If I had the opportunity to do one round-the-world five month trip and wanted to squeeze in as much interest, novelty, cultural, climatic and geographical variation on a modest budget, what would my route be and which countries would I visit? I’m going to post a first draft here and edit it over time (swapping countries and routes for example, adding points of interest, Vietnam or Cambodia?) hopefully as a result of constructive comments. The end “ideal” backpacker trip should give an amazing and challenging experience for someone who is interested but can’t quite decide where to go.

An Ideal trip

Sept

from London:

• Egypt (Cairo, Luxor)
• Israel (Eilat scuba diving qualification, Jerusalem)
• Jordan (Wadi Rum, Petra)

Oct

• India (Delhi, Agra, Varanasi)
• Nepal (Kathmandu, Everest Base Camp Trek, Tibet)

Nov

• Thailand (Bangkok)
• Indonesia (Bali)
• Vietnam (Southern)

Dec

• China (Hong Kong, Yangshuo)
• Australia (Sydney)
• New Zealand (South Island, Queenstown)

Jan

• New year in Sydney (or Auckland)
• Cook Islands (Raratonga, Aitutaki) Timed to allow two News Years Days
• Chile (Atacama, you need basic Spanish language skills)
• Bolivia (Uyuni salt flats,  Yungas Trek, La Paz)

Feb

• Brazil (Iguassu Falls, Rio Carnival)
• Optional return via the USA (New York)

back to London.

Unless you know different!

(a cheap round the world ticket would still be roughly US $5000)
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Although the author has tried to make the information as accurate as possible, he accepts no responsibility for any loss, injury or inconvenience sustained by any person using this site.

It’s not everyday that you see a rat on a cat on a dog:

A Rat on a Cat on a Dog

Not much happening on the veranda,

The Blow Holes are still blowing along the coast

and an underwater volcano erupted on Monday, six miles off the coast throwing smoke, steam and ash 15km into the air!

Update: and there was an earthquake early this morning! (Friday)

Perhaps diving and Whale Sharks (or “Butanding”) are the compelling reasons for visiting the Philippines. I’ll know if I have managed to capture the excitement of snorkeling along with these graceful fish (some eight metres in length) when I develop the film from my disposable underwater camera. Manila is a noisy busy city in complete contrast to the quiet calm of the coastal dive resorts.

Jeepney transport in the city of Manila

Cock-fighting in the Philippines

In Donsol there are Whale Sharks!

100% genuine pictures of parts of Whale Shark as I try to keep up with them:

Whale Shark Head

with fish entourage

and mid-section

General Purpose Donsol Boat

Local Delivery in Donsol

relaxing with a large shoal of Jack fish.

Twin Rocks Dive Site, Anilao, Philippines

Diving VIDEO

I have decided that blogs with photos are the modern form of sending postcards. If you feel its cold in the northern hemisphere why not come down south, to sunny Bali? My visit to Indonesia was essentially a diving trip, from Bali to Lombok to a tiny island about a mile across called Trawangan. I’m writing from Kuta, where the shops cater to all backpacker and holiday makers’ needs, staying between “Poppy 1″ and “Poppy 2″ alleys near the site of the Bali bomb memorial.

Dive Boat off Trawangan, Gili Islands, Lombok, Indonesia

This form of volleyball using feet may be popular across Indonesia…

Keep-it-up volleyball

A short walk around Trawangan, Indonesia

Art along Kuta Beach

Now just to use up my remaining Indonesian currency on delicious food.

I entered the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (because there are paths!) in the South Western part of Uganda. It does make a difference seeing them in their natural habitat. Various named groups of gorillas are visited daily by a small number of tourists and after sheltering in the rain for six hours it was great to see them. (I’ll add some of my images and movies but at the moment my camera memory card seems to have corrupted with a formatting error which a few hours of googling and downloading tools should hopefully allow me to recover my valuable images).

The golden rule of transport in Uganda seems to be that it can only function when completely packed - and it takes longer than expected. The Bodo-bodo or motorcycle taxi is cheap and great for point-to-point jumps through the dusty and busy streets of Kampala.

I’m writing from Padangbai on the eastern coast of Bali, Indonesia in 31 degree C heat ready to take the ferry to the little islands off the coast of Lombok for some scuba diving. A hotel room here with bathroom and breakfast included for four British pounds is amazing value.

Update: here are my promised shots…

gorilla with baby

Playful Siblings

Streets of Kampala

Butterfly on my Boot

Playful Gorillas VIDEO

World Map Route

From London to Uganda, Lombok (Indonesia), Philippines, SE Australia (Sydney to Brisbane), hopping to Tonga and a stop in San Francisco to break up the time zones. The complete journey in a quick two months.

Just upgraded to latest Wordpress and am working through the differences and incompatibilities (some characters in old posts don’t appear correctly). What prompted this change was wanting to use the latest spam blocker plugin against all the rubbish I was receiving.