Sadistic Shellfish

I’d emerged from the Indian Ocean after an unforgettable encounter with the regions whale sharks. I filled the ute’s boot with wet towels and all manner of obscure looking camping equipment, and Reb (my affable girlfriend) hopped into the passenger seat. We were headed to the other side of the Exmouth Peninsula, to the renowned Cape Range National Park; a strip of managed campsite’s that lies alongside the exquisite Ningaloo Reef Marine Park. At the time of our visit a minefield of red bell jellyfish plagued the waters. We weren’t deterred, and we were soon rewarded by the reef’s brilliant blizzards of fish. Turquoise Bay was a daily treat, and although we visited a site called Oyster Stacks just once, we’ll never forget it.

To replicate our Oyster Stacks experience, slip on a set of fins and a flattering yellow snorkel set, and then sit down in a full bath of water. Slide yourself from one end to the other, until the motion of the water is enough to carry the entire weight of your body. Now, holler a friend and ask them to place a large slab of broken rock at the end of the bath. After five minutes of slamming into the rock you should be suitable numb with pain and start to see specks of blood erupting from your legs. After asking your friend to cover the bathroom floor in identical rock, roll out of the bath and waddle across the jagged floor on your knees. Roll onto your back, and weep. That was Oyster Stacks.

The Kindness of Coral Bay

In perfect contrast to this brutal experience, was Coral Bay. The name alone captures the pleasant nature of the town. A small strip of campsites and hotels is separated from a soft strip of beach by a quiet road. Word of mouth sent us a couple of klicks up the sandy beach where we drifted into the ocean without a hint of agony. A flick of the fins set us above the craggy coral beds, and we soon realised the true beauty of the experience. There was a strong current — in our favour. We merely had to hang in the water like stray mannequins, and allow the current to carry us over the sort of kaleidoscopic coral beds normally associated with National Geographic, or TV programmes about anemone. Shoals of fish flashed up my board shorts, lagoon rays went about their day and a couple of young black tip reef shark sent a wondrous fizz throughout my entire vascular system.

No Quibble with Quobba

A short drive south of Coral Bay was the Quobba Blowholes. Blowholes are natural holes in the rocky shoreline that funnel seawater up into a fountain, as the swell of the ocean forces them together. They’d become a stalwart event along the way, and although they appeared to be everywhere, they never lived up to much. Quobba’s were in full force on that day, and as the mist cleared we learned of a neighbourly campsite nearby.

The campsite turned out to be a Grey Nomads dream. I’m twenty-seven and I was the youngest on the campsite by around sixty-nine years (bar Reb). The rough little campsite was so sweet-by-nature that we camped for four nights in the nook of a homely sand dune. As was the norm, we cooked every night on a crooked campfire, and spent everyday wallowing in the shallow water and wondering what we could legally burn in the night fire. I wrote like a madman over those four days, scribbling nonsense while Reb explored the shoreline, returning with stories of strange men and curious fish.

A Small Quibble with Quobba

It was during one of the long nights at Quobba that I rustled up a spicy pumpkin gnocchi. I spent a good thirty minutes peeling and boiling, then grating and waiting. It was dark by the time I pronged the first piece with my fork. The smell was irresistible, and I drew in the aroma as I lifted the morsel to my watering mouth. I felt something hit the back of my head. Then another. Then my neck. My legs. My arms. My face.

I was being hailed by extra-weak bullets. By the time I’d switched the car headlights on, it was too late. I’d flung my dinner over the dune in a last-ditch attempt to rid my famished soul of the violating grey beetles. The headlights were dappled in them and our tent appeared to be moving. On closer inspection, it was an outer layer of beetles. Our car window was open, allowing the swarm to stream into every gap in the cab: The air vents; cassette deck; and cracks in the seat. There is nothing quite as demoralising on the road as losing a good dinner. As sure as we slept hungry, we awoke satisfied. Satisfied because we were living on one of the world’s greatest coastlines.

This week I’ve brought you an image from a roadside stop on that journey, of some rather large sand dunes. They were fantastic, and I spent a good hour clambering to the top and hurling myself off the ridge — much to the amusement of some local kids who sprang mysteriously out of the dunes like the bairns Enid Blyton. That’s me in the cloud of dust in the centre of the shot.

Tibet remains one of the most delightful periods of my travels. Its skies — without wanting to drench you in clichés — are mesmerising. By day, their enormity is unfathomable, and by night they take on an incredible depth. Stood high on the Tibetan plateau, you get a real sense of what it is to reach out and touch the sky.

This weeks LISTENup travelcast revisits the Nepali capital of Kathmandu. A city I visited two years ago, and where I penned the original entry of The Kites of Kathmandu.

In a continuance of the new audio feature I’m rolling out here at TrailofAnts.com, you’re invited to listen to my narration and fresh opinion on the colour and chaos I encountered during one of the great Hindu festivals, Dashain.

As always, your constructive appraisals are welcome either by the comment thread below, via the contact form on the site or by the email address mentioned in the dialogue.

Are you viewing this in a reader? Come on over to the site, it’s much more funcational over here.

In my latest audio enabled post, I take a look back at my journey from Russia, across the Trans-Siberian railway into Mongolia. If you’re viewing this through a RSS reader, there’s a chance it hasn’t shown up — I’m working on overcoming this gremlin, however in the meantime I invite you to visit the original post.

I’m completely new to the audio media, so all feedback is extremely welcome. I’m learning as I go, and a little constructive criticism would really aid me in honing this segment of the site into a crowd puller.

This weeks reading stems from my time on the Trans-Mongolian, you can view the original post here. The rest of the audio is completely ad lib. Is the tone right? Would you like to see it on iTunes? Too long, too short? Do you have suggestions for content?

Are you viewing this in a reader? Come on over to the site, it’s much more funcational over here.

The Ocean’s Roaming Gypsies

Thirteen years ago, I was stood on the deck of a boat in an Egyptian bay. I was fourteen years old, sopping wet from scuba diving and torn between the scourge of seasickness, and a seemingly endless feast spread upon a paper tablecloth. Then came a splash, followed by an endless split-second-silence. “Shark!” hollered one of the crew. Seconds later the surface of the Red Sea became stained with white froth. Everyone was gone.

Plumes of messy water sprayed into the air and the boat rocked more than I cared for. I turned around, expecting to see a crowd of cowering cowards. But there was no one. They’d all jumped ship. They’d gone after the shark. I was lonely, and — ironically — I felt ever so slightly scared. Snorkel! Mask! Fins! Geronimo! I thrashed my legs and joined the splash, and ten minutes later I staggered up the stern and penned in my dive logbook. “Saw a whale shark — awesome!”

Thirteen Years Later

This time round I knew exactly what was coming, not least because I was paying a wedge of Australia’s plastic dollars for the experience, on Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef.

Despite their popularity as a tourist puller, there’s very little known about the moping whale shark. We know they’re the biggest fish in the sea, but we don’t know how many there are. Researchers can only guess they live around 100 years, and it’s pretty obvious to anyone that they’re filter feeders (that’s to say, they eat tiny plankton and krill). This very fact is a key indicator of the health of our oceans. Feasting whale sharks mean the bottom of the food chain is populous.

What we do know is that scores of whale sharks are drowning, slowly and needlessly in aquariums around the world. Thousands of tiny fingerprints are smudging the algae-tinged glass tanks of the star attractions, and effectively signing the whale shark’s death sentences. You may consider this a cruel indicator, but it’s not a situation that needs disguising.

Why Are Whale Sharks At The Ningaloo Reef?

We also know that whale sharks are creatures of habit, which is why at the Ningaloo Reef you’ll only find adolescent males; in Taiwan you’ll find pregnant females; and in the Pacific Ocean off California, you’ll find elderly females. Although no western society permits the hunting of whale sharks, it still occurs in some areas of the world, most notably in South East Asia — and as Taiwan is the haunt of pregnant females, this is an ongoing worry for future populations.

I’d broken the budget and shelled out AUS$385 for the opportunity to snorkel with the whale sharks. Stood on the ship’s deck, I listened intently to Skipper Bill’s wise old tales of days-gone-by. There was a friendly atmosphere, rumours were bound of a hearty spread and — whale sharks or not — we were sailing through the pristine, clear blue Indian ocean under a hot summer sun. Circling above us was our secret weapon — a spotter plane. All we had to do was sit back, drink tea and make small talk until we heard the crackle from our eye in the sky.

Shark! Shark! Shark!

“Shark!”. Fins on. Spit in the snorkel, breath through the mask and Geronimo! I relayed the briefing in my head: No closer than three metres to its head, no closer than four metres to its tail. Don’t touch. Don’t flap. Don’t wee yourself next to someone else. Then everything went blank. When my focus came back I was blinking bubbles, my mask was crooked and my snorkel was full of water. In an uncharacteristic burst, a portly Frenchwoman had kicked me in the face with her fins. I could just make out a pod of bobbing foreign buttocks. To really render the anticlimax, a red bell jellyfish came along and slashed me across the collarbone, infusing me with a strip of neat pain that would last the entire day.

The call-to-snorkel came a further four more throughout the afternoon, and each time the experience became more emotive. Gliding beside these animals was an unbelievable pleasure. They looked like giant speckled sock puppets, trailed by dozens of fishtailed fans. A stripy grey pilot fish lazed around in front of his nose, cruising on the crest of the great pressure wave created by the shark. Steel grey suckerfish clamped themselves onto the upper deck and krill obliged the giants by swimming straight into its chasmic gape. At between 4.5 and 5.5 metres these young males were a slither or their distant elders, who can reach a massive twelve metres in length.

Come mid-afternoon the crew and passengers were plump with shark tales and prawn salad. Hyperbole was spread on crackers and disbelief was stirred through tea. While the portly French woman tried to outstrip the metaphors of a marvellously grizzly Singaporean man, a vast pod of spinner dolphins started popping from the bright blue ocean. Everywhere we looked, dolphins of every size were whizzing through the sun and spray. The pair of critics lay down their tongues, for Neptune’s little fireworks had said it all – as that’s exactly how we felt.

I ♥ England

Perhaps I’m looking at it through rose-tinted glasses. Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder. But two years since I scarpered from the land of high tea and mushy peas, I’m looking back with fondness.

I was recently baited by the Guardian newspaper to consider my homeland, and suggest three things I do to enjoy England, which ties in neatly with their patriotic feature entitled, well, what else; ‘Enjoy England’.

If you’re not from England, the forthcoming trio can be construed as useful markers on the land I call home. Furthermore, the ‘Enjoy England’ feature as a whole is guaranteed to combine some of the very best of our bold little island.

Three Cheers For England

Ye Olde English Pub

You can’t have failed to hear about the demise of this revered institution. The English pub — not to be confused with its British brothers — is unrivalled throughout the world.

They’re a simple gathering place, encircled by moss-smeared picnic tables, and crumbling car parks. Upon entering, you’ll need to make eye contact with at least four strangers (preferably old and fearsome) and perform a bold strut to the bar. Once there, lay your forearms squarely in a pool of stale beer, and ask some bosoms to fetch you a pint (never, ever, ever order a half pint) of anything that ends in ale.

If you’re new to the pub, don’t hang around at the bar. You haven’t earned your stripes yet. Retreat to a safe haven and sup quietly until instructed otherwise. Undoubtedly the best time to be in any English pub is during a sports event. Emotions are loose, and everyone is so bladdered they’ll barely notice you’re not from the village.

Football

Fifteen years ago my under-thirteen manager flapped his arms on the sidelines. He looked like a semaphore that had been hit by a tornado. Misinterpreting the signal to push wide, I ran the width of the pitch to politely ask what he wanted. I never played again.

Eleven years later I met football legend Ron Atkinson at a gala dinner. “F**king hell” he bellowed in familiar tones, “who let Ole Gunnar Solskjær in?” For the uneducated, Solskjær played for Man United and earned the nickname ‘Baby-faced Assassin’ on account of his boyish looks. The whole room erupted in laughter. Six months later I left the country.

Although you can occasionally secure tickets for the classic Premiership games, there’s little need to jump the gun. Not only will you find more passionate fans in the lower leagues, but the atmosphere will be much more electric. The silent plagues of corporate spongers will be absent and you’ll be giving more support to the game, which is much more commendable.

The Beach

It’s a mystery to me why English beaches aren’t more applauded outside of our small isle. While we don’t always have the weather to laze around and pick bikinis out of our polite little buttocks, we do cherish a good beach.

My favourite beach in all the land is Old Hunstanton beach. Many a time I’ve camped under beach huts with a crate of lager, a camp–fire and a bunch of sozzled friends. It was also the stage for my power–kiting phase, which saw me hoisted through the air on the end of an oversized kite before being dragged face–down across wet — and surprisingly solid — sand. It was also here that I watched my friend, Nathan snap his leg in two before being airlifted away (see photo).

The access road to Old Hunstanton beach also homes another fine English institution; the English café, where you can grab a real English breakfast, and drink proper English tea from mugs made in China.

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Should you find yourself in England this year, be sure to mop it up. Sit in a bus stop and bemoan the weather; pick up a pie and huddle up in a bandstand; or flick off your flip-flops and enjoy the fun of the fête. Or if you’re lucky enough to call England home — what would your ‘three cheers’ be?

I didn’t know much about Asia before I scribbled over her ancient lanes. I thought it was a factory to stock my English necessities. Indeed, my local fish and chip shop, newsagent, petrol station, pizza shop and Chinese takeaway were all owned and operated by cheery Asians.

It’s only now, as I’m sat in as-safe-as-safe-can-be New Zealand, that it’s sunk in. I’ve left a trail of destruction in Asia. I tell myself every day it wasn’t me, but there’s a residual inkling; that it was.

I believe in the butterfly effect — that a butterfly can fart in Blackpool and lift the skirt of a Cornish virgin. So could it actually be possible, that I inadvertently contributed to some of the most iconic headlines of the past two years?

Perhaps the day I fell asleep in Moscow’s Gorky Park, I missed the chance to quell the August 2008 invasion of Georgia? I’ll never know, I’d quickly fallen asleep on a round-city recce because Moscow had swiftly bored me. However it’s not just the invasion of gritty Georgia that has me looking over my shoulder.

In July 2007 I arrived in Mongolia. The Mongols were in full on party mode; it was the annual Nadaam Festival and everywhere I looked small horses jerked fancy young jockeys around the beaten green Gobi. Gers sprang up; a hundred pickpockets tried their luck; I was cruelly threatened in a local nightclub; and I heard of one backpacker being kidnapped, and another who was raped.

Though shocking, none of this deterred me — I was in Mongolia. I was living a dream I’d dreamt for years. A year later — July 2008 — and Ulaanbaator became the stage to escalating violence as protestors rallied against suspected election fraud, and a year later a flood temporarily swallowed the capital. This was amazing; not least because Mongolia is one of the emptiest expanses of land I’ve ever seen. The devil had hit the bull’s-eye.

China’s also suffered. I spent three fascinating months there in late 2007 and ever since it’s been hailing horror. First of all, hundreds of thousands of my beloved Chinamen were affected by the worst snowstorms in decades. Then the warm up to the forthcoming Olympics became the catalyst to a massive anti-China uprising, resulting in my cherished Tibetan skies being splattered with the worst violence in Lhasa for twenty years. As if China hadn’t taken enough of a pounding in my absence, the Sichuan earthquake then culled tens of thousands and not to be outdone, the north-eastern Xinjiang region imploded in another round of ethnic violence. I won’t even mention their milk.

Brimming with innocence, I entered the Kingdom of Nepal. Word had already reached me of the Maoists — a terrorist group — demanding money off stoic foreign hikers in the mystical foothills of the Himalayas. Undeterred, I dodged my way around Kathmandu, spluttered down the river, clambered through bushes looking for tigers and rhino and snuck in and out of Buddha’s old place.

Other than a few spontaneous (yet peaceful) protests, I was confident things were running smoothly. Then I left — and a trio of bombs rippled the terai. Before I knew it the headlines told me the terrorists were in government and soon after they levered the monarchy permanently off their thrown. What had I done? The Kingdom had fallen.

India was never short of controversy during the four months I spent there — that’s one of the reasons I love it so. But nothing of the scale that happened after I left. First off, forty-nine people were slain by a series of bombs in Ahmedabad, and a few months later the sickening news came through that Mumbai had suffered a similar fate, with four times as many losing their lives to hereditary violence.

If all of this wasn’t bad enough, the next country I forayed into was Sri Lanka. I’m almost thankful that when I first stepped foot on the Venerable Island, it was already in the throes of civil war. It meant I couldn’t be the catalyst. The Sinhalese government pulled out of a six-year peace deal the week I arrived. I stayed for two months, fearlessly venturing to the war-torn east coast before looping around and back to India. Then the government accelerated its stance, fuelling the climax to a bloody feud. Maybe my many inquisitive questions were misplaced?

The next country I dared to step foot in, was tiny Singapore. Rumours were strife that a woman in her twenties was brutally cursed for crossing the road without being escorted by a little green man. And then, if that wasn’t shocking enough, I was told off for taking too long to order noodles. I’ve got my eye on Singapore, if only to see if anything interesting ever happens.

From Singa’ to the Indonesian archipelago. A two-month jolly around Sumatra, Java and bountiful Bali proved to be one of the most exhilarating periods of my life. I left full of admiration for a country of simple brilliance. Four months later the government executed the infamous Bali Bombers, which seemingly acted as little deterrent — eight months later, central Jakarta reverberated to the blasts of two of its iconic hotels.

A year in Australia ensued, for the most part I was safe in the haven of Melbourne sipping stubbies and perusing antipodean quirks. Then one Saturday I dropped Reb and her dad at Avalon airport, and the radio began to crackle through the news that became known as Black Saturday; bushfires left 173 dead and levelled lives in the worst natural disaster in Australia’s history.

All of the above lays in my wake. Battered and torn, broken and bruised. Lives inextricably twisted, love curtailed, and communities eternally altered.

Perhaps it’s true, that you only really know a country and its people once you’ve been there — once you’ve spent time laughing with its children. But perhaps it’s also true, that you only get to know a place, once you’ve left?

Towards one end of this mile-long strip, crumbled a derelict pig farm where dowts of wild cats taunted the innocent ghosts of forgotten swine. Its window were mostly smashed and gangs of tardy pear trees gathered suspiciously in the looming shadows of astute old chestnuts.

Huddled at the other end — beyond the Giant’s Knuckle and the estate of feral cats — were a pair of silent two-storey houses. One was my home, Elland House; pebble-dashed and painted pale yellow. Slightly offset across the road was its opposite; a red-brick shell of sufferance. I spent countless hours sneaking around that rufous house, clambering awkwardly through its eerie belly. Both houses overlooked flat, stubbly crop fields which swayed or swooned in the appropriate season; while forever in the distance, appearing to be zipped to the horizon, were a string of neighbours’ house’s.

I was ten years old, half way between my arrival on Glinton Road, and the day I left it behind.

During the long nights I would stand and stare at a fizzling of brave stars. As many children still believe, these were the souls of the dead; my five grandparents and a young boy all looked out for me on those quiet, wintry nights.

My chosen transport was a bright yellow and electric blue mountain bike. Given any opportunity I would load it up with rods and reels and swerve my way to a nearby river, quickly tangling myself in fishing line while cursing those slippery fish.

This was my Kingdom; the English hamlet of Milking Nook, in the secretive features of the Fens. Over the following years the pig farm became the stage for my first chokes on B&H; the red-brick house was restored by a spoilsport and Princess Diana regretfully completed the Plough.

By the time I reached eighteen, the tilting grey driveway of Elland House became a graveyard to my get-rich-quick schemes. A bottle green mini, a Renault 5, two Ford Fiestas, a Seat Ibiza and a couple of young Peugeot’s became carriers for grander plans. Meanwhile, behind the cherry red doors of our double garage stood a lifeless fruit machine, two scooters, and a stash of Zippo lighters.

My modest bedroom was littered annually with entry forms to my Fantasy Football competition; and towers of photography magazines huddled in wardrobes above dog-eared pornos. During my first month working at a magazine publisher, I cleared out hundreds of their unwanted back issues, straight into my bedroom. Inadvertently, I’d emulated my mother’s famous ways — and I consistently failed to make a penny.

A year before I left England, my parents sold Elland House. My three siblings and I had already fled the family home, and my parents headed off travelling. I was torn with mixed emotions.

I would never again climb the nobbled trunk of our warm-hearted walnut tree. Nor would I lark around in hailstorms pretending I was a pirate of the seven seas. I would never be slammed to the floor in a judo battle with my younger sister, in front of an audience of teenage friends. I would never brave the cold of the outside pool to slay our nonchalant — slightly deflated — killer whale. I would never again curse my parents for making me live in a hamlet, miles from my nearest friend. Nor would I fill its driveway with rusty dreams.

Instead, I would take the gift of freedom and sell it to the world. In exchange I would tangle myself in cultures, and charge around far spookier houses. I would clamber up hills to view a hundred tiny hamlets and I would always wonder if the stray cats I see, are chasing pigs between the shadows of the underworld.

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This post was inspired by the empowering words of David Steindl-Rast, a 20th-century philosopher-monk cited by Andrea Schulte-Peevers in Lonely Planet’s fabulous photography book, One People;

Home is where we start from, but home is also where we are bound for, the place we always seek.

The way I arrived at the solution, was to invent and utilise the Birds and the Bees; birds being the flights, and bees being the beer, Big Macs and beds. The bees are a simple representative of the countries overall costs.

I’m assuming you won’t munch your way through a Big Mac or drink a beer every day, but the cost of these are relative to the cost of typical things you’ll buy throughout your day; a newspaper and a can of coke, or a brunch of spicy street food and a bus ticket.

Background Research

To give a fair representation of costs, I’ve researched the same itinerary for a Londoner, New Yorker and Sydneysider. All three will leave their city on February 1st 2010, and they’ll all travel clockwise around the world.

At the appropriate point along their journey, they’ll spend 3 months in and around Bangkok, 1 month in the region of their counterparts’ cities and a month each in L.A. – therefore half of their journey will be in the Western world, and half in the budget haven, Asia.

However, the main split will not be our traveller’s nationalities, but the type of traveller they are. So I’ve broken it down into these three categories:

The important thing to remember, is that no part of this study can be exact but it’s as close to the bone as I can get it. There are endless variants; special deals on flights, insurance, scoring free accommodation, falling sick, travelling overland. I’ve also omitted the widely varying price of vaccinations (mostly free in the UK), and the cost of basic kit (some people already have this). All of these will affect the final cost, so this study should simply be an idea of the typical cost of backpacking.

How Much Does a Round the World Ticket Cost?

All three of our travellers will need a series of flights. To obtain the average cost of a six month Round the World (RTW) ticket — that touches down in London, Bangkok, Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and return home — I went to STA Travel and two of the main alliances; OneWorld and Star Alliance.

The New Yorker grabbed himself a round fare of £1986, the Londoner £1906 and the Sydneysider £2031. For the purposes of fair competition, all were done under the guise of a 27 year old traveller — and surprisingly, STA Travel failed to secure any one of the three.

Is it Better to Buy Single Flights?

As a seasoned traveller, my opinion has always been that it’s cheaper to book single tickets, even if you do them all before you leave. For this study I spent a few hours at Momondo, Expedia and Sky Scanner punching in the various itineraries. This proved me right.

The New Yorker would pay £1459 (a saving of £527 on the RTW), the Londoner £1477 (saving £429) and the Sydneysider £1495 (saving £536).

How much is Travel Insurance?

I also ensured they’re all insured. I chose two of the most popular backpacker insurance companies, with the guideline that the insurance company should be able to cover all three of the backpackers. STA Travel and World Nomads both fulfilled this, though their main competitors appeared to be local to each country.

It’s also important to know, that even though I offer the World Nomads promotional code, TRLANT that scores you 6% discount, I did not apply this to these three theoretical travellers.

Unsurprisingly, World Nomads secured all three potential customers on price; New Yorker (£157), Londoner (£191) and Sydneysider (£220).

Alarmingly, if all three had taken their policies out with STA; the Sydneysider would have paid almost three times (£658) the cost for the New Yorker (£237) or Londoner (£223).

How Much Should I Allow For a Daily Travel Budget?

This is where it gets tricky, the typical daily spend is based on the aforementioned Three Bee’s; beer, Big Macs and beds. They’d all be spending c.90 days in Bangkok, plus 30 days in Sydney, L.A., New York and London (excluding their home city’s).

To research this crucial fragment, I spent forty days and forty nights on HostelWorld.com researching the typical cost of a dorm room in each of the cities for the Thrifty and Casual traveller. Then I dug a little deeper to secure the average price of a single room in a hostel for our Flash traveller.

So we know how many Big Mac’s, how many beers, what style of bed and for how long each of our intrepid nomads are going to be in each city. Their nationality only changes things slightly — for instance, none of the three will pay the rates of their home city.

For example, a Thrifty Londoner would need approx 30 dorm room nights in Sydney, LA, NYC and 90 dorm room nights in Bangkok. Plus for every night he’ll need one Big Mac and one beer. This would cost a total of £2964 for the whole trip, which equates to £16.47 per day.

What Should I Budget for Travelling?

I realise that travel isn’t merely about survival. There’s a need to integrate with a region; the temptation to splurge shouldn’t be thwarted. So, here are some typical things to do in each of the five cities, along with the typical cost to do it. You’ll see that I’ve only chosen one high-priced activity — more on that later.

In London they’ll spin round the London Eye (£17.50); in Bangkok they’ll see the Grand Palace (£5.40); in Sydney they’ll give in, and climb the Harbour Bridge (£132); in L.A. they’ll visit Universal Studios Hollywood (£42); and in New York, they’ll scurry up the Empire State Building (£12.26).

I’m making an educated guess here; over the course of six months the Thrifty traveller is going to do the equivalent of climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge and everything else just twice. This doesn’t mean they’ll actually climb the bridge twice, merely that they’ll swallow the equivalent cost, twice. He might climb the bridge, and do a skydive or swim with whale sharks and take a helicopter flight in Manhattan.

So over six months, the Thrifty traveller will spend £418 on treats, which equates to an extra £2.32 per day. The Casual traveller will do this twice as often as the Thrifty and the Flash at least three times as much. So we arrive at £4.65 a day for Casual, while our Flash traveller racks up an extra £6.97 per day.

How Much do Travel Visas Cost?

Let’s not forget visas. This one’s quite simple for our group of travellers. Only Australia will charge the New Yorker (£10) to enter, while Thailand will charge them all (£18) for a 30-day visa. The cost of exiting and re-entering Thailand (because you can’t usually stay for 90 days) should be considered to be covered by the bees.

So, How Much Does it Cost to Travel?

You will have noticed the alphabetic reference on the sections. If you take A (RTW ticket) or B (PAYG tickets); then add the relevant Thrifty, Casual and Flash equations of C,D, E and F you arrive at the following answer to the question of ‘how much does it cost to go backpacking?’ Remember however, that this should be viewed as an educated guess;

Conclusion of ‘How Much Does it Cost to Travel?’

In conclusion to the above, I’m going to share some interesting points to emerge from my research.

Despite the fact that all three nationalities were departing on the same date — initially to different places — there was a difference of just £36 between the least and most expensive collection of PAYG flight tickets.

With regards to travel insurance, there is clearly a difference in approach to each nationality. Look at both national and international insurance companies. If you do decide to go with World Nomads, then you’re welcome to use the promotional code TRLANT to score a 6% discount.

The cost of a round the world ticket varies wildly, if you believe they’re worth the extra outlay it is definitely worth shopping around and bartering. The dates you fly affect the final price, and in my experience it isn’t an easy process, despite the agents providing various groovy tools.

As most readers will know I’ve been on the road for over two years, so this isn’t just armchair opinion. I collated all my costs after one year on the road in Asia in the post ‘One plus Two=Free‘, and the conclusion then was that it cost £16.60 per day. If I adapt this recent study by using purely the Bangkok rates, I come to a guesstimate of £17.53 per day so that’s within 6% and in my opinion, goes a long way to finally answering the question of “how much does it cost to travel?”.

And how much does it cost to wash your knickers in Nepal? Now you know how much it is to get there, why don’t you go and find out for yourself?

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I’d like to thank the following websites for being so simply brilliant: for the price of beer and Big Macs; PintPrice.com and TheEconomist.com; for hostel beds HostelWorld.com; for fuss-free visa info ProjectVisa.com; for the PAYG flights Momondo.com, Expedia.com and SkyScanner.com; for the RTW tickets OneWorld, Star Alliance and STA Travel; and finally, for travel insurance World Nomads and STA Travel.

Reb and I reached a mutual agreement to leave, without the need for fall away words. We’d replaced a blown-out tyre, filled the food box, scrubbed and vacuumed the ute, filled the tank, and then just sat there. Stuck in treacle, watching skinny bums and rippled torsos while infant waves lolloped on the shore.

A Day in Broome

We were sprawled on Cable Beach in Australia’s northwest tourist mecca, Broome. Though coveted by many, to me it was one of those places that simply failed to infuse me with any reason to stick around.

I was happy enough to have struck the gold of coast again, we’d been stuck inside Australia’s outback for the past two months, and bar a quick snack of horizon in northerly Darwin we were parched from endless days of desert.

Broome is fringed by the loveable Indian Ocean, meaning daydreams drift away to Indonesia, SE Asia and beyond to the electric cultures I ache for daily.

We clambered back into our polished ute and chased the setting sun down the coast for two hundred clicks, before pulling into one of the country’s faceless roadside rest areas to pitch our tent on rough, unforgiving concrete. We built a flash of fire from twigs and continued the theme of silent reflection; while a dinner of pasta and budget sauce continued our theme of enforced poverty.

The Whimsical West of Australia

The following morning we arrived in Cape Keraudren, a jutting coastline of soft white sand and friendly water.

This naturally attracts the great Australian blight — caravanner’s. As happened plenty on this road trip, we were the youngest by far — I was twenty-six to Reb’s twenty-nine.

We lived up to our youthful disposition, earning scowls and hollers for kicking up a cloud of dust when driving around looking for a heavenly cliff top camp spot. We also scored an old-fashioned ticking off from the ranger, Lance because in my haste to douse myself in natural beauty, I overtook a 4×4 going 20kmh. This would apparently cause me to spin off the road and kill half of the local population, while maiming my girlfriend.

I feared Ranger Lance might sentence me to wear shorts as short and tight as his own, but he settled for a further fifteen minutes of his superior tirade instead. If these events weren’t enough to brand me a genuine hoodlum, half an hour later I got the ute stuck in the sand, right beside a classic know-it-all; late fifties, fading cap, firm pot belly and deeply tanned legs.

We were saved by a helpful young Swedish couple who yanked us out with their Vitara. There was a mist of silent smirks while Mr Know-it-all stood on the sidelines drilling me about how foolish I was, and how foreign tourists shouldn’t be given free rein to be allowed to drive where he is.

Talking About Your Generation

It has to be said, that generation of ageing Australian baby boomers can be the most irritating, obtuse and snobby bunch of people you’ll ever meet. In a whole year in Australia, I can count on a wombats paw the amount of amiable characters I met on the road. I hasten to add, this opinion doesn’t include those working in the tourist industry, or vital roadhouses, just those — usually retired — travellers.

To reiterate, I will never, ever, ever… evereverever own a caravan. I admit I once owned a riverboat, which was arguably a caravan on water; but that was cool, he was called Norm and for one glorious year I was a barefooted sailor upon England’s serene River Nene.

I took friends fishing, and the first thing onboard was almost always alcoholic. Caravans are the complete opposite of this. They’re the epitome of misguided Western indulgence, and I hate them because they’re fundamentally crap.

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Australia’s Cape Keraudren

We eventually shook off the neigh-sayers and pitched the tent, ensuring we left the outer skin off so we could absorb the predicatbly fizzy night sky. The Cape Keraudren region is one of sheer wild beauty. A chain of a hundred hairy caterpillars weaved its way across my path and over the hill virile kangaroos squatted lazily beside plump hobos. To be sat amongst this landscape was to be immersed in the finest pencil drawing. Neat slashes of grass and strokes of cloud gave life to rough roads and smudges of bright, flaccid waves. It was a scene of boyish charm, and softly coloured adventure.

As evening fell, I poured a third glass of red wine and watched the sun set over a distant VW camper. I tipped my head to the Southern Cross and chinked a glass with Reb, “it can’t get any better than this babe”. The beauty is — over a few days of clambering over jagged rocks, and catching arrows of grievance— it truly did.