As of October 18th, we have been traveling for 100 days, so we thought it would be good timing to summarise some of our experiences to date. We have seen some amazing places, met some great people and have learned a few things along the way. We hope you find the following assessment informative, if you are planning a similar adventure or you just want to hear about some of the challenges and highs and lows of such a venture.
We have stuck to our original plan, more or less, to travel to countries that are quite convenient to our home in Cyprus, so have been to Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, briefly in England and Hungary. Next, we plan to visit Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Estonia before returning to England in early December, where we will stay for most of the month including News Years Eve, but we have now booked a proper 'Christmas in the snow' break in Sweden for 3 days including Christmas Day. In January we will return to Cyprus for about 4 weeks, to re-group and change of clothing for Summer clothes, before setting off for Asia for a few months, more about that later.
During this first 100 days we have visited many interesting places and we have both formulated our personal favourites. There are many photos of these and other sites on our instagram and Youtube accounts. For me, my top 3 destinations have been: -
1. The extraordinary Meteora Rocks in Greece.
2. Santorini, an absolute gem of an island.
3= A close call between the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania and the beautiful city of Budapest, with all its fabulous architecture.
My wife, Viviana rates her experiences as: -
1. The city tour of Budapest, again for the amazing buildings along the River Danube.
2. Transfaragasan Roads, just a head spinning experience.
3. The initial impact of seeing the sights and views at Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria.
We have been lucky enough to spend some time with friends in most places, in Brasov with Ciprian, Gabriela, Andreea and Edy and in Plovdiv with Didi, Stefan and Filip, so we had the luxury of enjoying plenty of local knowledge (and hospitality) in Romania and Bulgaria with such great friends. In other places, we have met some old friends, mainly Vivi's in Romania and in Greece and met some fabulous new people in most places we have visited. Generally, we have been made to feel incredibly welcome wherever we have gone :)
When we set out on this adventure, we decided that we would not set an time limit or be too specific on our future planning and as time has passed the lack of too much advanced planning had proved good for us, so although we have a broad plan for the next 6 months, we typically book travel arrangements and accommodation just a week or two in advance allowing a good deal of flexibility. Our plan to book city centre modern apartments has worked very well and they have provided a good base for a our travels within a particular country. Part of the fun and games of staying at these places has been coming to terms with all the variations of services such as the quality and use of the washing machines, quality of showers and ovens etc (often in different languages) and for me more so, trying to get the TV streamer that we take around with us and all of the various cables, to try and ensure I can watch all Chelsea matches wherever we are, plus a few streamed films. By and large this has worked really well and generally WIFI has been very good, with the odd exception. Incidentally, we are carrying 8 charging leads around with us too - for numerous devices, powerbank, cameras etc - all crucial of course!!! We have also stayed at some hotels for short breaks to experience new areas away from our base, such as at - Sighisoara in Romania, (an ok place) Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria (awful place!) and in Oia, Santorini (fabulous).
We have also been keeping a record of our daily expenditure, which is proving to be a good country by country comparison. We accept that what we might call expensive or cheap is based on our home living costs in Cyprus, for others there will be a different base point. But by and large most countries (so far) have been similar to Cyprus with costs in Bulgaria (particularly eating out), quite a bit cheaper than elsewhere. Some pampering experiences, such as massages, were very cheap in Romania and Bulgaria, but not very good! Whilst, we paid more in Greece and Hungary but the treatments were far superior. Local wines have been quite cheap, but most day to day groceries have been very similar prices to those back home. I am sure this price comparison will be far more interesting as we travel further afield to other continents.
One of the more challenging aspects of our travels particularly as we move from hot sunny conditions to Autumn weather, is making sure we have the right balance of clothes for most situations and that if we purchase something new we are sufficiently disciplined to throw out something old, a more difficult process than we had envisaged but very important in trying to maintain sensible luggage / hand luggage weights, when there are the suitcase add ons for me of TV cables, cameras and lenses and for Vivi, make-up and other adornment accessories, to be fair she has been brilliant and has kept these down to a manageable level. It is quite amusing to us both (and cheaper) compared to a traditional holiday, that when traveling for an indefinite period, we no longer seek out even the simplest of souvenirs (even a fridge magnet) so as to not accumulate excess weight, so our experiences are very much focused in our memories and through social media activities such as Instagram, Website Blogs, Shutterstock Photos, Facebook and YouTube videos and we have now built quite a good following from people that are generally interested in our travel experience.
So, since early July, we have visited 5 countries and numerous towns and cities and by January will expect to have added 5 more. In February next year we embark on a our dream destination of Asia and the Far East, with plans to see many places in Japan, Vietnam and Thailand initially and, after that we will see! But our expectation is to be in this region for at least 3 months.
I hope you have enjoyed this brief journal and, if you are not already doing so, you can follow our travel videos, photos and blogs at: -
Thank you for reading