Round-the-world in numbers: the story so far

Most of the counting we have been doing on this trip has been related to money - how much is this hostel room?  What is the exchange rate? Lee you've already spent this much on beer already, Courtney if we forgo using moisturizer we'll save this much money, etc, etc.

After just 2 days in New Zealand we realized that we were going to have a tough time keeping track of our daily expenditures, and therefore our budget, so we invested in a cheap calculator to help.  With the assistance of that same trusty little number crunching device, we decided to look at some other numbers related to this trip and the result is the following summary.  Our trip by the numbers...

5 number of continents visited
11 number of countries explored
144 number of days traveled
43 total number of places that we've stayed in
2 number of motorbikes rented

before the "incident"

50 percentage of rented motorbikes that were crashed
20 number of books read
18 number of flights taken
4 number of different cameras used (so far)
2,195 number of photos taken
10 different modes of transport used

One of the higher quality buses we rode on

35,317 number of miles traveled
24,901 distance in miles around the world at the equator
1 bag of insects eaten

Yum

15,000 height in feet from which we jumped out of a plane
15 number of beaches laid on
3 number of public rallies/riots/protests we have witnessed (civil unrest seems to be a theme on this trip)
9 number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites visited

Sydney Opera House - UNESCO World Heritage Site

190 cost in US dollars of one speeding ticket in Australia
26 number of bus journeys taken
23 percentage of bus journeys where we feared for our lives

This was a contender for worst bus trip

65 percentage of bus drivers in New Zealand named "Peter"
10 number of capital cities visited
8,500 approximate weight in pounds of the elephant we rode in northern Thailand

53 current age of former England captain and all-round footballing legend Bryan Robson, who we saw hanging out near our hotel in Bangkok
171* number of canadians met while traveling (*estimate.  actual number unknown but it felt like at least that many
27 number of new facebook friends
8 average cost in US dollars of a beer in Australia
0.45 average cost in US dollars of beer in Vietnam
15 number of dorm rooms stayed in
36 percentage of dorms that had smelly and/or noisy roomies
7.5 size of the flip flops Lee inherited after his were stolen from outside an internet cafe in Laos (they are a bit snug)

With only 3 days to go until the start of the World Cup, we'll likely have plenty more statistics to think about over the next 4 weeks.

Athens on a Shoestring

After 2 amazing months in Southeast Asia we were headed for Europe, first stop Greece.  We really wanted to hit one of the Greek Islands for some more fun in the sun but, still reeling from our Australian spendfest, we decided not to splurge on the extra travel costs and instead hang out in Athens.  We had a week in Greece and two main goals: (1) spend as little money as possible, (2) see and do as much as we could.  Now, these two goals may seem at odds with one another but through some effort and a little bit of luck we did pretty well.  And so, we bring you our guide to Athens on a Shoestring:

Ride the Metro (or the bus, tram, or trolley).  The Athens Metro is pretty snazzy, no doubt due to the piles of money that was used to upgrade it for the 2000 Olympics.  We purchased 7-day travel passes for only 10 euros each that allowed to travel anywhere in Athens on the Metro or on any bus, tram or trolley.  It even got us out of town to the beaches along the southern coast.  Compare that to London where you’ll pay 4 pounds to go one stop!

Stay at Hotel Neos Olympos.  We found this place after reading some favourable reviews on TripAdvisor.  It’s located pretty close to the Larissa Train Station so getting to and from the major attractions in Athens is really easy.  We decided to get a private room but with a shared bathroom which saved us about 5 euros a night.  The room was nice and comfortable, if a little basic.  Also, as we were staying for 6 nights we were able to negotiate a 10 percent discount on the room.  Where this place really paid off for us budget travellers though was the free breakfast.  Each morning we filled up on cereal, boiled eggs, crusty bread, ham, cheese, and tea and coffee.  They also had these huge oranges which was great as we ended up sneaking a few extra oranges into our bag each day so that we didn’t have to spend money on lunch! Oh, and they had free internet.  Check ‘em out:  http://www.hotelneosolympos.com/

Visit the Acropolis on the first Sunday of the month.  We found out through TripAdvisor (again) that the Acropolis is free on the first Sunday of every month (that might not be accurate so if you’re going check beforehand.  It was definitely free on the first Sunday in May though).  The normal price of admission is around 12 euros so it was a huge savings.  Of course, as it was free the place was completely crawling with tourists but then the Acropolis is generally quite busy.  If you really want to beat the crowds the best time to go is probably early morning.  We just went at midday as we’re too lazy to get up that early.  If you’re not lucky enough to be in Athens on the first Sunday of the month and don’t want to pay to see the big ruins you could always just hike up Filopappos Hill.  It’s free, there’s a nice view of the Acropolis, and you can even have some fun with cameras as evidenced by this piece of photographic wizardry.

View the Temple of Olympian Zeus from afar.  These ruins are pretty cool and definitely worth seeing but do they really look that different whether you’re looking at them from 5 feet or 500 feet?  We decided to enjoy the Temple from outside the fence and save ourselves 2 euros a pop.

 Looks just as old from here

Walk around the famous Plaka.  That’s right, walk.  Don’t buy anything, that’ll cost money.  Just walk.  It’s quite a nice area and you might find yourself enjoying watching other people spending their own cash while yours stays safely tucked away in your pocket.

Watching these guys do their thing (whatever that is) was free too

Eat gyros.  They’re traditional, delicious, cheap, and fat free (well, maybe not the last one).  Throw in a Greek Salad to share and you’ve got a tasty meal that won’t break the bank.  This was our dinner every night, we couldn’t afford anything else.  Stupid Euro.

The Itinerary

Where are we going?

Planning a round-the-world trip is HARD.  We’ve been planning this thing for months and here we are less than 2 weeks before we leave and we still haven’t figured out all the details!  It turns out the world is quite big and you can’t possibly see it all in 8 months.  So, we tried to create a bit of a plan that will allow us to visit quite a few countries but also left it fairly open-ended so we can linger in places we like a little longer and duck out of places we’re not keen on earlier.  The only thing that is set in stone is the flight to South Africa.  We’re heading down there for the FIFA World Cup, which starts in early June and ends a month later.  Did we mention Lee likes football?

Here’s our itinerary as it stands today (Jan 5, 2010):

Los Angeles      01/17 – 01/19                       

New Zealand     01/21 – 02/10                       

Australia            02/10 – 02/23

SE Asia             02/24 – 04/08                       

Europe               04/08 – 06/01           

South Africa      06/02 – 07/19           

England             07/20 - ??