Further thoughts

It's been a few days and I'm in my last week of work...

So, I've extended my travel plans for my introductory 3 months to the following

• France
• Spain
• Portugal
• Germany
• Belgium
• and maybe Amsterdam

I've decided this looks like a much better idea, 3 countries in 3 months is far too few - I can also stretch my budget a little more. 

More thoughts have been given to Australia aswell.

After I've spent most of my funds and can just about afford a plane ticket I'll head down under and get my hands dirty doing some fruitpicking. I've read that often you can get worker's accommodation near the fruit fields at a reduced rate and it's also a good way of meeting other travellers. I will have to look into other easy little jobs, just in case being knelt down all day in blistering heat starts to get to me.

I will then use the money I've saved to get a plane to Singapore, Cambodia and Vietnam - could take months though!

On another note I would like to recommend some music for anyone who does jogging or cycling and is looking for some music with a bit of a pulse.

To quote Wikipedia:

"It is part of a series of mixes intended to assist joggers on their workout routines known as Original Run. The album is a nearly 45 minute continuous mix of ten tracks, some new, some remixes"

It's a good album with training or just on it's own, a favourite of mine is the Doors' Roadhouse Blues remix. Enjoy.

Amazon link

First trip

 

Hello again

I thought I'd write throw a few thoughts down as it's a pretty dull Sunday and I've not done much today anyway.

For my plans I have wanted to keep things fairly flexible, because I never know who I will bump into along the way and I want to generally play things by ear. I'm also a bit of a last-minuter when it comes to organising myself, so this approach suits me down to the ground. 

I have been giving a lot of thought to where I might start my trip and I'd more or less settled on a 3 month 'breaking in' trip. For this I've been thinking of starting off in quite 'easy' countries such as France and Spain, where it would be easy to adjust. I've also liked the idea of going to Portugal, as it does look beautiful from the pictures I've seen. (See Porto at the top of this post) 

Now I'm thinking 3 months may be a bit of a long time for just 3 countries, and my money wouldn't last as long as if I spread out a bit more. I've also taken onboard a point of my friend's. He said that it would make more sense to try and go to the more challenging countries while I'm young, as it would be more difficult later on when I have more commitments. I'm not intending on getting on a plane to Afghanistan anytime soon, but I'd definitely like to go to places like Turkey and India to name but a couple.

So now I'm plotting a vague itinerary as follows:

• get a Eurostar ticket from Sheffield directly (2 changes) to Paris and spend, at most, 2 or 3 nights there and maybe a week or two in total in France (looking at my book it's approx. 4hours from Paris to Bordeaux)
• head to Spain and travel more or less to Porto (need to find out more about where to go in Spain!) and then down to Lisbon. 
• from Lisbon head via Seville to Malaga to see some of Andalucia 
• visit the Alhambra
• up to Barcelona

Obviously I need to do quite a bit more planning (such as where to go in Portugal!) but this is just the very basic route I want to start out on.

Tadaa

Hello Hello Hello

Well - having put off starting this blog for a while now, I've finally decided to make the effort...

I'm 23, born in England and lived in Sheffield all my life.

I started this blog with the notion of documenting my upcoming trip across Europe and beyond. My plan is to add photos and the odd rambling thoughts when I find myself sat in an Internet cafe.

I will be setting off on my own in early April and maybe meeting a couple of friends along the way.

I've not done any kind of journalism or diary for years so this will take a bit of getting used to, but I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end. 

Here's a random story that made me laugh http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7889890.stm?lss

Anyway, that'll do for a first post. More to come..