Warburton.me

Pisa the action

// September 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Well… I’ve just got back from a week in Florence with work and managed to pop into Pisa on my way home. To be honest, I really wasn’t expecting much, but boy – Pisa really is a tourist trap! I didn’t have much time, so had to get a taxi from the train station to Piazza del Duomo which cost the best part of €10 each way! Then, you get there and are presented by a large church, a dome thingy and a tower that is ever so slightly off kilter.

Apart from that, the only things to see are a bunch of expensive tourist trap restaurants, a bunch of cheesy (overpriced) tourist trap stalls selling tourist trap crap and a bunch of tourists making stupid poses like the one above (featuring me!) where they appear to be holding up the evers slightly wonky tower!

I do appreciate good architecture, but I appreciate the natural world much more – I would rather visit a huge mountain than a man made attraction (except in the case of truly amazing feats like the Pyramids, Great wall etc). It really doesn’t say much for human kind when the most interesting thing in a town is a tower that doesn’t stand up straight!

Still – overall, had a great week in Italy, got lots of work done and ate some awesome food while having a nice change from the normal routine and a bit of a practice run for my big trip, which, incidentally is now only 1 week, 4 days and 21 hours away!

Fellow travellers – a call for help!

// September 21st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // by Andy

Hey all – well the time is nearly upon us to leave and we’re getting really excited now. I’ve been doing loads of research on the places to go and see and have loads of ideas, but I really want to know what your ‘must see’ attractions are in the places we’re heading to – we would really appreciate it if you could leave your recommendations for the following places in the comments for this post, thanks!

We’ll hopefully be visiting:

• China
• Thailand
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Fiji
• America (West Coast)

Any suggestions will be gratefully received, whether it’s a place you’ve been too, heard about from a friend or even read in a book, anything from the big classics, to tiny places down a back alley in a little village – anything will be appreciated! Thanks all!

Off to China Land…

// September 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // by Andy

Well… only 3 weeks, 2 days and a little bit to go until its time to head off into the sun and I’m starting to get mega excited!

Our Chinese visas arrived today, which is exciting. I can’t believe I’m finally getting to go to China – it’s a place I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid and I’ve loved the food and culture for as long as I remember – I really hope China lives up to my expectations!

We’ve still got loads to do before we leave, from booking accommodation for our first couple of nights in Beijing to sorting out our American visas online and making sure we have photocopied and digital online backups of all our essential travel docs.

On top of that, I have a work trip to Florence next week with a quick stop in Pisa, it’s almost like a last minute unofficial mini-trip to make me even more excited! I read recently about the House of Cheese (aka the Casa Del Formaggio) in Florence and I hope to get five minutes spare to pop in and sample their wares (for those who don’t know, I’m a total cheese freak – in every sense of the word!).

Got Cover?

// September 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Well… after weeks of searching and struggling, I’ve now finally made a decision on the insurance for travelling and we’ve gone with World Nomads.

Comparing insurance companies was a nightmare though as the only people who talk about their insurance experiences online are either those who have had a serious situation and needed emergency medivac or those who have been turned down after trying to claim something that wasn’t included on their policy meaning you only have people with really positive or really negative experiences.

I had a couple short listed but went with my gut in the end and picked the most ‘net savvy’ of the bunch. World Nomads let you organise everything online without making phone calls but have numbers available should you need them. They weren’t the cheapest out there, but I tend to go with slightly more expensive brands anyway, on the off chance that money really does equal quality. They seemed to cover everything that we needed and had the option to pay a little extra to add pricier items like my camera to the insurance (their included valuable insurance only covers up to a maximum of £250 for a single item).

Not sure how well they’ll actually perform, hopefully we won’t have to use them, but if we do, I’ll be sure to let you all know, no matter what the experience.

Tim Minchin Tickets!

// September 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Woohoo – have just booked tickets to go and see Tim Minchin Live in Melbourne, Australia on the 4th December 2009. I really wanted to catch his tour in the UK but it starts after we’ve left for our very own world tour. Luckily, by some bizarre twist of fate, our last couple of days in Australia perfectly coincide with his tour of Oz, so I just couldn’t resist booking tickets!

Tim Minchin is one of my favourite comedians, and I’m really chuffed that we’re going to get to go and see him perform in his home country. It’ll be interesting to see if he makes any ‘pom’ jokes that he may have left out of the UK tour

Yay!

Veni vidi visa!

// September 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Well… just a shade over a month to go until we hit the air and go and find out what the rest of the world is all about (in fact, I’m actually quite lucky because I get to head out to Florence for a week on business in the middle of September!). Before that however, I have to get the Chinese Visas sorted out, otherwise we’re going straight to Thailand and I miss my crazy trip up Mt Huashan (something I’m very excited about and have been waiting years for)!

The Chinese visa forms are very confusing as they contain both English and Chinese script and all sorts of crazy questions like, what is your occupation, with a choice including ‘business man’, ‘government agent’, ‘teacher’, ‘cleric’ or ‘other’. I had to go with ‘other’ as I wouldn’t describe myself as a business man – I don’t DO business as such, but I do work for a business. I have a feeling, ‘business man’ is what they count as anyone that works in an office, but I had no quick way of finding out, so I just put ‘other’ along with my actual business title. We’re using Oriental Travel for our Chinese Visas – they’re a bit pricier than doing it direct, but I don’t have the time or holiday allocation left to head over to Birmingham and spend a day queuing at the Chinese Embassy!

In other news, we now have every major item of our furniture and what not in storage. All we have left is to park our car up at my mums house and put a few last odds and sods in a box, sort out what clothes we’re taking traveling and then we’re all done! We may need to make one final run to the storage unit the day before we leave, but we don’t actually have enough property left to make more than one trip!

Now we’re in ‘the zone’ as it were, I’m hoping to make a few more posts on here with the progress of our traveling preparations. I’ve even put an ‘away’ message on my main personal blog so I can devote more time to this site. If I can just convince Steph to do the same we might start making some progress!

2 Months,1 Day, 10 Hours, 56 Minutes

// August 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

That’s how long we have left until we leave! I absolutely can’t wait!

For anyone that’s interested, here’s the actual itinerary for our trip:

3rd October – Fly out from London
4th October – 12th October – China
13th October – 2nd November – Thailand
3rd November – 6th December – Australia
7th December – 27th December – New Zealand
28th December – 3rd January – Fiji
4th January – 17th January – America
18th January – Fly back to London

Tickets Booked

// July 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Well, the tickets are now booked and the dates are locked in – we leave on October 3rd 2009! The itinerary currently looks like this:

October 3rd – Fly to Beijing, China (2 weeks), Overland to Hong Kong, Fly to Bangkok, Thailand (2 weeks). Fly to Canines, Australia (four weeks) overland to Melbourne and fly to Christchurch, New Zealand. In Christchurch we’ll be picking up a camper van while we tour the country finishing up in Auckland. We then fly out to Fiji for a week before flying to Los Angeles USA for our final couple of weeks (for which we hope to travel out to see San Francisco and Vegas, depending on our budget!). We fly home at some point in the middle of January.

If that was a bit too wordy for you, here’s a picture – click to enlarge

I’ll try and update the blog with exact dates as soon as I can get my hands on the paper itinerary. We’ve booked our tickets through STA Travel in Birmingham – the guys there are really helpful and couldn’t have made things any easier.

Now we just have to wait it all out!

Countdown

// July 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Being the geek I am, I couldn’t resist putting a real time countdown clock live somewhere so I can watch the seconds tick away until I’m off on my travels. Check it out here:

http://www.warburton.me/countdown/

Getting there…

// April 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // by Andy

Things are going well with our travel plans – we’re now debt free and ready to start saving for our travel funds. We’ve also bought a bunch of gear for our travels including our backpacks, sleeping bags (just in case), mini micro-fibre towels, money belts and a Shewee for Steph (I just know she won’t want to sit down on some of those nasty foreign loos!).

We’ve also bought me a great pair of hiking boots ready for the trip, trying to wear them in by going for a long walk every day for as long as the weather is nice.

If all goes to plan, we aim to leave end of September(ish). It feels so far away at the moment, but I know it’s going to be worth the wait!