We leave in 16 days and we finally got around to planning last night. We’ve been busy. Christmas, living in a remote village with few modern conveniences and the ski season has eaten up our time.
That and, well, my blogging gene has been dormant lately. But lets get 2016 off to a good start.
Happy New Year to you and let’s talk travel in 2016 !
We hope you have big plans too.
I thought I’d share our trip planning process to show you what goes into getting a family of 4 on the road for 3 months, it’s pretty easy.
Mid January and Asia in mind we headed to Skyscanner to discover where and when would be cheapest.
If you need some help with using Sky Scanner to find incredible bargains, click through, I’ve written it all up for you.
We entered our preferred airport, Cluj Napoca as the departure point and typed “everywhere” as the destination. For the date, we selected the whole month of January and checked “one way”. We looked at February too, but January came up trumps. It worked out best to get to a big air traffic hub, it often does, so we found a bargain flight to Dubai on 16th of Jan and booked it. We were about 3 months before departure and that is usually the best time.
Our flight was just under £50 each. The same flight was selling for £300 in the same month. It really pays to look at a day to day comparison site.
Once your departure flight is booked and paid for, it’s done, you’re going, no turning back now.
This trip is all about Nepal. For us that was non-negotiable, everything has to work around that.
Think about which places you absolutely HAVE to see, then structure your plans to accommodate them. Don’t skip places because they’re inconvenient or a bit expensive, you’ll kick yourself forever if you don’t go.
Weather conditions mostly don’t matter, but just do a few quick searches. Arriving in India on the day the monsoon breaks isn’t a great idea and going to Chiang Mai when air-pollution is at its peak isn’t ideal either, but mostly, meh.
You could just go. One way ticket in your hand, and make it up as you go along.
We left Australia in 2013 with just a one way ticket to Malaysia it worked out fine.
The downside of unstructured travel is spending more travel time online planning your next move and less time enjoying your destination. The plus side is, total freedom and an ability to take bargains as they crop up.
We wanted to get as much booked beforehand as possible this time, to be off the computers.
We have never had any problems with not having an onward ticket before departure. If we were to run into difficulties, we’d buy a refundable ticket on the spot and cancel it later. Check regulations, for some countries onward tickets are not even required, despite what the check-in official may think.
We thought about travelling to Oman from Dubai. We looked at accommodation prices on Agoda, checked that buses ran, costed out car hire and researched places of interest. But in the end we decided not to go. Why? Because the visas were expensive and getting there by bus, then hiring a car was a load of hassle. We decided that Oman will happen next time, we’ll fly into Muscat instead of Dubai just to make it simpler.
Then we considered which order to put Nepal, Sri Lanka and India in.
This mostly came down to cost and convenience of flights.
We would normally overland between India and Nepal, but we’ve been warned against taking those border crossings due to current troubles. Also, the Indian e visa on arrival isn’t issued unless you arrive via specific airports. So we had to fly.
This is what I did last night with notepad and laptop.
I went back to Skyscanner, typed in UAE, Sri Lanka and Kathmandu, destination “everywhere” and looked at our options.
Flights from UAE to Nepal and Sri Lanka were both excellent prices, as was India, but we had to start either at the bottom or the top.
We preferred to start in Sri Lanka, to leave Nepal until it warmed up, so we penciled that in.
Next, how to get to Nepal? We could fly to India and then fly on to Kathmandu, or we could fly from Columbo to Kathmandu via The Gulf, for about the same price. This flight was 10 hours, with a stop in the Middle East, but, it was a good quality airline, with screens and food rather than budget flights. Hmmmm…not sure.
Visas, everybody loves to hate them.
1 month visas, for all 4 of us, came in at $240 for India, $70 for Sri Lanka (kids are free), $120 Nepal.
That $240 annoyed me. Last year we spent around $500 on Indian visas. India is my favourite country and the new e visa on arrival is a great step forward, but this time, we decided no.
India will be another trip, probably a 3 month trip. Scratch India, take the luxury 10 hour flight.
If you weren’t us, you probably should have looked at visas months ago. A very few countries can take weeks or months to approve and issue, we knew none of the countries we planned on visiting would give us any trouble.
So we now know for sure that it’s Dubai, Sri Lanka (1 month), Nepal (1 month).
We’ll be flying back via the Middle East, most likely Dubai, but maybe somewhere else, we haven’t got that far yet, Oman could still happen. Again, it will be down to what Skyscanner tells us.
The March departure from Nepal is much cheaper than February, something to do with the climbing season,so that works out well too.
We always use Agoda and we (almost) always book somewhere for our first night or two.
Why Agoda? Because we collect their points and redeem them against future hotel stays and because their customer service is excellent. With Agoda we can enter our exact requirements, 2 adults, 2 kids, 1 room and their ages. The ages are important because you will find kids stay free deals for all ages up to about 12. Another reason to travel before they are 12!
We want freedom to travel around both Sri Lanka and Nepal in our own time, so we don’t pre-book much at all.
Usually we just turn up in a town and go knocking on doors, don’t be afraid to do that.
We’ve looked at prices, we know that both countries are extremely affordable.
We’ve booked our entire stay in Dubai, Dubai is expensive. We’ve allowed 1 day for all the things we want to see and do there.
We like to have a bit of a family discussion, see what everyone wants, we can work with that.
You don’t need to plan too much, just go with the flow.
We’ll read a Lonely Planet if we have one, we find it’s THE best way to get an idea of what’s available in each country and learn about the history, culture and food. We’ll maybe look at travel blogs of blogging friends we trust. We’ll use public transport or taxis, whatever works out best and cheapest. We’ll have some idea of where we want to go, but we’ll have no fixed itinerary.
Packing for a longer trip is really not much different to packing for a week.
These days we just throw whatever clothes we have into a bag along with a few essential travel items ( click through to see that post). Because we travel a lot we buy clothes that are multipurpose. Our bags will be full of jeans and long sleeved tops, they work anywhere, any climate.
Clothes are available wherever you travel, packing is no big deal.
We do not travel carry-on only.
Checking a bag is really no trouble, neither is waiting for it at the other end. A few minutes. You can save money on budget airlines by not taking a big bag, but I’d rather have everything I need with me.
We have things like sunblock, insect repellent, nail scissors, penknives and shampoo here, so I’m going to take them rather than have to scratch around and waste money on buying new at the other end. That’s our choice, you do what feels right for you.
For a 3 month trip I’m not packing school books, colouring pens, Lego, toys, all the usual stuff that we used to carry. That’s the beauty of having a home base now. We won’t worry about “school” at all while we’re away.
We do take quite a few medicines because kids always get sick when the shops are shut.
We made this pin for you to bookmark to Pinterest
Do you have at least 6 months left on all passports?
Do you have travel insurance?
Did you check if you need visas in advance?
Do you have any essential vaccinations? ( most come under the heading of “Non-Essential”, for us)
Do you have malaria prophylaxis? ( we usually don’t)
Did you tell you bank you’re travelling and tell them which countries. You don’t want your money supply to be cut off.
Do you have spare bank cards in case of disasters?
Do you have a house or pet sitter organised?
Do you have a scan or photocopy of all essential documents? Email them to yourself.
Do you have a few passport photos?
Do you have everything necessary to get your kids into some of the tougher-to-enter countries, particularly if only one parent is travelling?
Have you checked baggage allowances for the airlines you’re using?
That’s about all I can think of for planning a big trip.
You don’t need to worry about buying currency in advance, you don’t have to have everything planned, you don’t need traveller’s cheques, you don’t need clothes or gear for every eventuality.
Just pack your bag and go.
We’re off in 16 days. Not our biggest trip ever, but an exciting one, we’re itching to get back to Kathmandu.
Are you planning anything for 2016?
Tell us about it!
