It was March in Varanasi, and I had arrived as part of a three-week tour around India. I hesitated signing up for it all those months ago, when I was still mapping the route I’d take through Southeast and South Asia, an eight-month adventure that I’d thought of for years. I had never taken a tour of any kind, and I envisioned a bus full of khaki-wearing, sunburnt tourists, the kind who refused to eat street food or use a public toilet. As a solo traveller, I finally decided it would be easier and safer to travel with a group, even if it meant our days were sometimes planned down to the hour.
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These past few days, I’ve thought a lot about trip-planning. I’ve flip-flopped between being totally nonchalant about it (“I’ve got loads of time! It always works out, no matter what!”) to totally stressed about it (“I’m flying to Zurich in two weeks and I have planned NOTHING! I need flights, hostels, hotels, trains, buses, AND I need to book a nice place for a Christmas dinner…”). This is actually quite unlike a lot of trips I’ve done, because it actually does require the booking of flights, hostels, hotels, trains, and buses – over the holiday season, there’s no way I’m leaving these things to chance. This isn’t like my recent trip to Berlin, where I booked the one hostel and the round trip flight from London a few days before, nor is it like my longer stints through Southeast Asia or South America, where I had nothing but a one-way ticket and an open mind. With a limited amount of time and with a fairly limited amount of money, I need to plan this. I need to plan this now.
So how am I doing it? How should you plan a trip that does, in fact, need to be planned?
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When my mum and I first arrived in Belize, we drove along a bumpy road for about an hour before reaching the river; once there, we caught a boat that took us deep into the jungle, near the Lamanai ruins. Somewhere along that first road our driver stopped and picked us cashew apples, or cashew fruit, which I had never seen or tried or even heard of. I guess I never stopped to think where cashews come from; I certainly didn’t imagine they grew this way, one to a fruit.
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Without looking for it, we found blue everywhere in Cartagena – in the walls, the skies, the seas, in the beaded necklaces and the words of poets. But far from melancholy, it was electric. It was, like everything else in Colombia, full of passion, full of vigour and joy.
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It’s the most popular question I receive in emails: “How can I save money to travel?”
I have written about this before, but I thought that I would combine tips for saving, how much you’ll really need, and how exactly I managed to afford my own travels. Please keep in mind that every person is different; these are just my own thoughts and opinions on the matter. I hope that you will find these tips useful not only for long-term, round-the-world travel, but for shorter trips as well.
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I don’t have any photos of poppies. But today, for those we’ve lost, for those we remember, here are some flowers from around the world.