Deciding To Travel

Deciding to take a six month trip around the world is kind of a crazy endeavor, I am well aware. For my boyfriend Rob and I, the idea started out very simply, we wanted to take an extended trip somewhere, Asia had been next on my list of places I had wanted to travel, so we started talking about Thailand. We had grand ideas of being digital nomads on a tropical beach somewhere, sounds nice right?

Before our Asia trip really started to take shape my parents started to plan a vacation to Ireland, they invited my brother and I, and our respective partners. It’s hard to say no to a family vacation in Ireland, so we had to figure out how to work that into our Asia trip, since those places aren’t exactly close together. It was around this time that I realized I was going to have to quit my job because I wouldn’t have enough vacation time for both trips, and the idea of going around the world began to take shape.

After a lot of research and planning (read about our planning process here) we set dates, booked flights, and reserved places to stay for our journey across Europe for the summer, putting us in Thailand at the end of July.

Where We Are Going

New Jersey, USA // June 3-6

• Hang out with friends

New York, USA // June 6-10

• See friends
• Rob’s meetup group event

Boston, USA // June 10-12

• Touristy things like the Freedom Trail
• Catch up on any last minute things before we leave the country

Dublin/Rathdrum, Ireland // June 13-18

• Meet up with my family
• Walking tour

Galway, Ireland // June 18-21

• Hang out
• Explore Galway

Donegal County, Ireland // June 21-24

• Bike tour

Dublin, Ireland // June 24-27

• Touristy things like Guinness and Jameson, castles, museums

London, England // June 27-July 1

• Touristy things like Big Ben, and Buckingham Palace
• See friends

Lausanne/Montreux, Switzerland // July 1-3

• The Montreux Jazz Festival!

Zermatt/Matterhorn, Switzerland // July 3

• The Matterhorn

Cinque Terre, Italy // July 4-6

• Hike from village to village

Bolzano, Italy // July 6-9

• Hiking and bike rides in the mountains

Venice, Italy // July 9-13

• Cruise around the canals
• The International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale
• Day trip to Verona

Athens, Greece // July 13-14

• Touristy things like the Acropolis

Milos, Greece // July 14-17

• Hang out at the beach
• Eat delicious food

Santorini, Greece // July 17-19

• Blue and white buildings on the cliff side

Athens, Greece // July 19-20

• Chill out or sight seeing

Istanbul, Turkey // July 20-24

• The markets
• The Blue Mosque
• Dinner at Mikla, one of the world’s top 100 restaurants!

Dubai, United Arab Emirates // July 25-27

• Hang out at the beach
• Sand boarding? Ride a camel?

Bangkok, Thailand // July 27-August 10

• Chill out
• Eat lots of street food
• Temples
• Figure out where we want to go next

You can check out a fancy color coded map here

Southeast Asia

Once we get to Thailand we have an apartment in Bangkok for two weeks to sort of rest up, catch up on work, and recuperate from the last 2 months of being in constant motion. As for what happens after that, we don’t have too much of a plan. Right now our idea is to travel around Thailand a bit – Chiang Mai, Phuket, Koh Tao, Koh Lanta – and see what we like, then rent an apartment to use as a home base. From there we’ll be able to take little trips to explore around Southeast Asia, some places we are thinking are, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. We are totally open to suggestions too if you’ve been some place awesome in SE Asia, please let us know in the comments!

We will be ending our trip in Japan in December, we booked our flight back to the states from Tokyo, so the plan is to be able to spend some time there, in Tokyo, Kyoto, and even try out snowboarding in the mountains there!