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So ever since I left high school I've been putting travel aside to focus on my education/career. The upshot is that I'm now 24 with a pretty decent amount of savings and no serious assets or family responsibilities keeping me in place (while also realising the end of that freedom isn't too far away). By the time I'm looking to take off (~2 years from now) I should have enough saved up to go backpacking anywhere and everywhere for 2-3 years. Obviously this is a pretty huge undertaking - I'm thinking back to how different everything was two years ago and trying to imagine spending all that time travelling. At this point I'm not even sure what questions to ask, or how many people can answer them. Does anyone have experience with travelling for that length of time? Is this a stupid idea? Thoughts/comments?
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Dec 24, 2015 06:31
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 14:59 |
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Do a shorter trip first to see if you'll actually like it. I'm just finishing up a four month backpacking trip right now and I'm really glad we didn't take more time. It's also been an awesome experience, but I'm ready for the comforts of home.
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Dec 24, 2015 16:26
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I've done multiple year long trips. The key is to do some travel, settle down a while, repeat. Like 1-2 months traveling, 3-6 months living somewhere. You see a VERY different side of a culture when you get place to live and a lovely bar job to pass the time and meet people/learn the language. Also think about starting off traveling in another western country to get into the flow, then jump into the developing world adventure. A few months in aus then Asia is a common but great start. Otherwise don't overthink it! It's not so serious. Just make sure you couchsurf or stay in hostels, hotels are depressing and lonely/sterile ways to travel.
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Dec 24, 2015 18:14
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I'm 2 months into a year(?) long trip and it is by far the best choice I've ever made in my life. I've been to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines so far and I'm loving every minute of it. Definitely stay in hostels it's the best (only?) way to make friends as a solo traveler. It's super nice to be welcomed to a new country by an instant set of friends eager to show you the ropes. Engaging and befriending locals is my favorite activity to do by far. All of your time will be free time, finding things to occupy all that time can be difficult. I love to Pennyboard and spend a pretty good chunk of my time skating around and trying to encourage locals to have a go on my board. They love it. So maybe bring a hobby from home with you if possible. I highly recommend Southeast Asia. Safe, cheap, friendly, lots to do, and excellent food. Hop on over to the Southeast Asia megathread for advice from people who know way more about these places than I do. Good luck!
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Dec 24, 2015 18:42
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When staying somewhere for 2-3 months do you rent or stay in hostel?
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Jan 17, 2016 21:58
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If you're traveling by yourself and not staying in hostels you're doing it wrong. Staying in a hotel or renting an apartment would be so drat lonely. I only stay in hostels, you meet tons of cool people to go do fun things with.
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Jan 18, 2016 18:22
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Stay in a hostel on your trip. Since you're there for a while, do some work for the hostel that results in either free nights or extra spending money.
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Jan 21, 2016 09:53
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Stay in a hostel and make sure you show everyone how many condoms you bought along for the trip (I shouldn't have to tell you that at this point that you need to be in possession of a lot of condoms) until you get too horny and need some alone time outside of a shared shower then you rent a hotel room for a night or two. Repeat.
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Jan 21, 2016 12:55
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I LIKE COOKIE posted:If you're traveling by yourself and not staying in hostels you're doing it wrong. Staying at a hostel is doing it wrong. CouchSurfing.com. Meet locals instead of travelers. Hostels are for when you're too lazy to find a host. Though long term CS can be difficult.
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Jan 21, 2016 16:18
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Staying at a hostel is doing it wrong. CouchSurfing.com. Meet locals instead of travelers. Hostels are for when you're too lazy to find a host. Though long term CS can be difficult. It depends where you're going though. CS is pretty lousy in a lot of parts of the world, in particular it's basically garbage in Latin America, with the possible exceptions of Chile and Argentina. E.g. Cartagena, a major tourist city in Internet-use-heavy Colombia only has 84 hosts who have logged in within the last week, nearly all of whom have response rates < 10%. Naples, Italy, has 336 hosts with the same criteria, of whom on the first two pages have response rates > 90%. AirBNB works well in Peru and Colombia (and Argentina and most of Latin America really) but then you have to pay $$. I haven't rented too many shared flats through AirBNB but have had mixed success with that.
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Jan 21, 2016 16:49
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Saladman posted:It depends where you're going though. CS is pretty lousy in a lot of parts of the world, in particular it's basically garbage in Latin America, with the possible exceptions of Chile and Argentina. E.g. Cartagena, a major tourist city in Internet-use-heavy Colombia only has 84 hosts who have logged in within the last week, nearly all of whom have response rates < 10%. Naples, Italy, has 336 hosts with the same criteria, of whom on the first two pages have response rates > 90%. Sure, that's the case in many places, especially touristy ones, and looking for a host in many places takes ages and it's easier to just settle for a hostel, but if you're doing 1-2 week stays it's much better.
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Jan 21, 2016 23:56
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Geriatric Pirate posted:Sure, that's the case in many places, especially touristy ones, and looking for a host in many places takes ages and it's easier to just settle for a hostel, but if you're doing 1-2 week stays it's much better. I can't speak for Central/South America but CS is absolutely the best choice for anywhere in Europe, I got back a few months ago from travelling for 11 months in Europe and Morocco and almost always was able to find a host the entire time, even in less touristy places like Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. I think I stayed in a hostel 3 or 4 times. You do have to be persistent with sending quite a few requests though, and be open to changing your destination from time to time, plus it helps seriously a lot if you take the time to write personal requests to people that show you read at least a little bit of their profile. A lot of people that I've talked to said they had a lot of success in Japan as well, and one guy even couch surfed across Siberia, so there's that. In any case the experience is far and away the best way to meet local people and actually learn stuff about the place you are traveling in, which can rarely be said for hostels.
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Jan 22, 2016 00:28
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Tannin posted:I can't speak for Central/South America but CS is absolutely the best choice for anywhere in Europe, Yeah, it's the best in the U.S. and Australia too. I bet it sucks in Southeast Asia too (though I have no experience and haven't looked online even). Very geographically dependent on where the OP wants to go. We, and many others, were surprised it was so bad in South America, even in "hipper" and less established-touristy places like Medellin or Panama City. I mean there are some hosts there sure, but like... only a handful per million residents. Id guess that chile and Argentina have decent CS scenes but again we didn't check there either for some reason.
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Jan 22, 2016 01:02
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In 2009 I travelled in Chile and Argentina extensively, for several months, couchsurfing exclusively. Got a few places in Colombia but not a lot.
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Jan 26, 2016 12:55
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I've also been wondering about travelling for a year or longer (until my savings dry up, I will keep some stashed away though). Problem is, I don't do well in hot temperatures. I live in Sweden and even here the summers are unbearably hot for me. I was in Croatia for three weeks and it was unbearably hot, I had to stay indoors most of the trip (we're talking 80-90 degree fahrenheit, nothing extreme). If I went outside I'd get dizzy and very uncomfortable. 50 degrees is my t-shirt weather  So obviously this severely limits where I could travel. Anyone got any suggestions where to go? Anywhere in the world is good? I guess it's helpful that I absolutely love mountains and forests and loathe beaches. Sorry if it's a broad and stupid question, but I'm starting the planning phase on where I could go.
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Jan 28, 2016 21:54
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Skilleddk posted:I've also been wondering about travelling for a year or longer (until my savings dry up, I will keep some stashed away though). Problem is, I don't do well in hot temperatures. I live in Sweden and even here the summers are unbearably hot for me. I was in Croatia for three weeks and it was unbearably hot, I had to stay indoors most of the trip (we're talking 80-90 degree fahrenheit, nothing extreme). If I went outside I'd get dizzy and very uncomfortable. 50 degrees is my t-shirt weather Have you considered Canada, especially the northern part? It won't get too warm for you, and it's got lots of mountains and forests and stuff.
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Jan 29, 2016 19:26
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PT6A posted:Have you considered Canada, especially the northern part? It won't get too warm for you, and it's got lots of mountains and forests and stuff. It seems kind of odd to spend tens of thousands of krona to leave Sweden in order to ... go to Sweden. New Zealand is probably also the same issue. For more variety, Skilleddk, you could look into Patagonia, west South Africa, high-altitude places like in highland Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Tanzania, Nepal (although going there right now sounds like a goddamn mess) etc, or into places where for some weird climatic reason it just never gets hot like coastal Peru. Basically none of these places have forests, but I don't quite get the point of 'traveling' for a year if you want to spend it entirely in a couple places that are (geographically) exactly like Sweden. Unless you mean you want to settle down in a particular place for a year and your idea is not to backpack around and see/explore new things?
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Jan 29, 2016 20:16
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Just travel in winter, and outside of tropical areas. The world isn't constantly in summer outside Sweden even if that's what it seems like on svt. Southern Australia (everything from Sydney down) from April/may until ~October will only rarely get above 20c. New Zealand (which is nothing like Sweden!) is the same. Perth (western Australia) in the middle of winter is basically mild Swedish summer. Most of the US won't get anywhere near hot until April. Japan, China, Korea, etc all have cold winters.... Just research the weather and book accordingly! Nobody says you have to follow the sunshine.
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Jan 30, 2016 00:03
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That's all good advice thanks! I might aswell clarify, I live in southernmost Sweden. It's not a very interesting landscape. NZ sounds great!
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Feb 10, 2016 14:33
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If you look up working holiday visas those might be a good idea, you can have a year in Australia or New Zealand to explore and work if you so desire. You could spend some time in New Zealand and still fly to somewhere warmer to see if you can tolerate/enjoy it.
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Feb 11, 2016 03:07
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lol at the idea of coming to NZ in winter on purpose (apart from for winter sports I guess), but you do you. Haven't seen any mention yet in this thread of things like WWOOFing, Workaway, HelpX etc. Has anyone used these? I'm heading to Europe in June for an indefinite period, and these sites seem like a good way of traveling and getting to know locals (and travelers) while also minimising your expenses. I haven't used them myself but a lot of my friends have used them successfully. PS Swedish poster, feel free to come ask us questions in the New Zealand thread in LAN, we're generally happy to answer any questions 
The Schwa fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 01:07
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