Travel Tuesday - The Big Trip, Part VIII - Wanderlust Travel Consultants

After nearly 2 months of travel, The Big Trip is now complete (sigh).

We are arriving home today after a 4-day stopover in Honolulu to visit our nephew Scott who is getting his Masters degree at the University of Hawaii. It was lovely to be greeted by a familiar face at the airport and have a tour guide who we didn’t have to tip 🙂

So, what’s it like to travel internationally for 2 months? It’s fantastic, exciting, and tiring at the same time. We visited 5 countries: Australia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the US (Hawaii) and stayed in 18 different hotels. We traveled via multiple forms of transportation including 21 planes,12 boats, 4 bikes, 3 motorbikes, and 1 hot air balloon.

In case you’re ever considering a big trip, here are some tips that served us well:
Throw fashion out the window. Pack lightly, take only clothes that are designed to dry quickly, do hand wash when needed, and add laundry into your travel budget.

Ziploc bags are a great cheap packing device to keep organized and save space.

You can only read so many books in your downtime. Netflix rocks! Download, download, download.
Pick your apps wisely. “Maps.me” was a lifesaver. It provides detailed maps of even the most remote areas that are searchable even when offline. More importantly, it displays your exact location and the direction you’re facing using GPS at all times.

Opt for electronic versions of travel guides vs traditional paper versions. It’s a little trickier to navigate the e-versions, but the amount of weight saved and the convenience of having it on a phone was worth it.
Travel fatigue will set in at some point (ours was around the 5 week mark). Build in some down time (beach resorts are perfect for this).