For Day 8 of the 2015 Indie Travel Manifesto we are asked to create plan our own RTW trip. Now we all know i travel slow, but I’ve never done an actual RTW journey. However, working for BootsnAll lets me plan all sorts of trips. Let me explain:
I haven’t done a RTW trip. I went to the Balkans once for 5 weeks, but had a return ticket to and from Zagreb, Croatia. In 2011 I bought a one-way ticket to South America and stayed for 10 months – but that’s still not a true RTW trip (and I only stepped foot in 4 different countries that whole time).
So as you can see, I’m a slow traveler.
I’m also not really the type of person to plan out a full RTW trip. The thought of saying “I’m going to this brand new country I’ve never seen before, then I know in X number of weeks I’m going to be done and want to go to this next country I’ve never been before for this specific period of time” kind of horrifies me. I know it’s usually cheaper to book all your flights at once, upfront, but if I haven’t been there, how do I know how long I want to stay or not?
But working for BootsnAll has it’s perks. We sell RTW tickets using Indie – and because one of the ways I promote Indie is by creating RTW trips with it and then sharing them, I get to constantly play with where I’d go on my perfect RTW trip. Yup, most of the trips I make are trips I’d actually like to do.
But many of the promo trips I create move way faster than I personally like to. I prefer living somewhere for a while than doing the ‘week in each city’ travel. So today I created my own 6 month Indie RTW Trip based on the way I like to travel (which means really slow, and home-basing myself for a month or 2 at a time).
So what does my 6 month trip include?
- Flying into Paris and winging western Europe. I’d like to visit Basque country, Andorra, Lichtenstein, Germany, and Austria. I’d probably skip Italy because to me, that would have to be it’s own 1-2 month trip.
- Then I’d move onto Croatia and the Balkans. I absolutely love Croatia. The whole area is gorgeous and full of history and culture. It would be nice to visit Albania and Macedonia this time too, but I’d move to Split, Croatia in a second, so we’ll see if I’d end up leaving in a month.
- Next is Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. This area is becoming my new obsession, so I need a couple months exploring here. It’s also has a rich and tumultuous history and culture, along with amazing landscapes, and I’ve heard some really good food!
- After that off to Yemen, but not for very long. I want to visit Socotra island, because it is like nothing else in the world, but from what I’ve read Yemen and Socotra are not cheap, so this may have to be a quick stop.
- I’ve always dreamed of seeing the Indian Ocean, so for my last stop –
Let’s go to Madagascar!
Also because Madagascar seems like one of those places that is perfect for backpacking and slow, budget travel, but somehow still isn’t on many people’s radar (it’s not the cheapest to get to). I’d stay here at least a month, possibly even taking a hiatus from work for a month to do it. I keep imagining all the animal photography I could do here.
Realistically I would take a few or more months traveling overland down eastern Africa to get to Madagascar, but I was getting close to my 6-month limit, so for the sake of I really wanted to mention Madagascar, I flew there on my map.
If I were to continue this dream RTW trip it would include places like Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, and overlanding all of Indonesia into East Timor.
Of course in my dream, I have unlimited money.
About Dani Blanchette
