We are Annemarie and Andrew; a History Teacher and an I.T Consultant.
Andrew
Annemarie
We are taking a year’s sabbatical. Follow us as we delve into the rich and diverse history and culture of Asia.
We are backpacking our way around Asia and we have a rough plan in mind. We’re from the UK and are heading down under to see if life is better/worse/different/same to the UK. Rather than go straight there we are going to take the scenic route and travel across Asia and because we like a touch of flair to what we do the trip will take us about a year to accomplish.
We have a few simple rules:
- Fly as little as possible
- See as many interesting places as possible
- Follow the weather.
The reasons for these rules are simple. If you fly you don’t get to see the country you are travelling through, so why bother travelling? We will only use flights to make large hops where ground transport is impracticable due to time or to cross water. The second rule is that we shouldn’t skip seeing something without a good reason; we can earn more money and possibly come back in the future but that is unlikely, the chance to experience these places probably only comes once. The third rule is to save us carrying clothes for every climate and to ensure we avoid the extremes of any climate. North China in winter is cold and around the tropics in summer is probably unbearably hot. Not to mention monsoons, which blow across Asia for many months of the year; and coming from a country where complaining about the rain is almost a national pastime it’s probably not a good idea.
Our route is dictated by the weather. We set off in November, the start of winter in the northern hemisphere, so we will travel south quickly and spend winter basking in the warmth of southern lands. Once it starts to warm up again we will probably fly north and work our way south again following a different route to see as much as possible. We are British so the weather will rarely be as we want it, but this way means no need to pack winter clothing.
The term used for our type of travel is flashpacking. That means we won’t be staying in dorms but hotels and probably involves spending more money on food. It’s supposed to mean an affluent backpacker. I’m not sure we are that, we don’t plan to work during this trip and we probably spend more on accommodation than most but we cut out other spending to enable this (very little alcohol is one example).
Along the way we hope to experience many wonderful things and see some awe inspiring places that we can share with you. Enjoy!
Links
This blog shows only a small portion of our online presence. We take hundreds of photos per week, which if we put them all on this blog would cost a fortune to host. We take many videos of interesting places and sights. We also review almost every hotel we stay at and most restaurants we eat at. The ubiquitousness and popularity of many social media platforms allows a greater audience to benefit from our experiences.
- On this blog we only add a small number of photos, the rest are uploaded to Flickr. You can view our Flickr photos here.
- We also upload videos onto YouTube. They can be watched here.
- We review A LOT of hotels, restaurants and attractions on Trip Advisor. Our reviews can be read here.