Fang, I have experienced travel in many countries, mostly by rail. I can post some tips and advice that I have garnered on my journeys. I have not been to the Middle East or much of South America or Australia but if you are thinking of traveling in Europe, Russia or Kazakstan I may be of some help.
My husband and I did this a few years ago. Our experience was very positive. We live in California and began the journey in January. My husband is retired from the Coast Guard so we can fly space available on military planes. We hopped a flight from Sacramento to Hawaii, then on to Guam and Australia. We spent 3 weeks there traveling up to Cairnes. From there we bought an Air Asia pass and decided on the spur of the moment to go first to Bangkok. We used the 3 other passes to go to Bali, Singapore (Malaysia) and Vietnam. The way we did this was use local travel agencies to book onward trips, tours etc. At the time, the internet was not that user friendly, so today we would use a Netbook and gather information along the way. We decided on Bangkok due to the increased availability of cheap onward flights to anywhere. We ended our time in Asia by flying to Egypt to meet up with our 2 adult children, where we spent a memorable week visiting sights there. Again we used a local travel agency for a tour. We then flew to Germany to hop a military flight back to the USA. That leg of the year was 3 1/2 months. We "rested" at our condo, planned another trip and took off again 3 more times within that year. If I were to do it again, I would plan a little differently, like perhaps renting homes in other countries rather than coming home, which is easy to do via the internet. You may want to consider home exchange sites to cut costs. Then you could do day trips or longer near your homebase. Enjoy. Take some down time, seperate day tours from each other, relax. No rush. That was what we liked the best, which took some getting used to.
posted by krisdq
over 2 years ago
krisdq- you travel in an adventurous way, hopping on and off at different places with restful places in between. I'd like to take another trip to Europe with a rail pass soon. Things are so much more expensive with the Euro. I may have to wait until next year even though I had planned to go in Sept or Oct this year. I watched Rudy's travel show this week. He has really gone to a lot of fun places. I also watch the travel shows of Rick Steves, Samantha Brown, Burt Wolf and Joseph Rosendo.
