Voyage Of The Odd Essay » Planning

My Thailand Buget – A Typical Day’s Spending While Travelling

Paul Freeman — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:26:25 +0000

It will be fairly obvious from my various updates that I am doing a lot of partying while I’m out here backpacking around Thailand and there is always interest as one traveller to another what budgets people are trying to stick to successful or not.

So here’s a typical days spending for me, taken from the 20th January 2009, while I was staying in Bangkok

300 Baht for Accommodation, a secure and clean hostel in central Bangkok which includes tea and toast for breakfast.
9 Baht for a small half litre bottle of water.
20 Baht for a 330ml bottle of Green Tea with Lemon.
6 Baht for some cheap instant noodles.
109 Baht for over baked rice with pork and olive and a pineapple iced smoothie in a Japanese style chain restaurant.
96 Baht for a four pack of Leo beer from Seven-Eleven.
20 Baht for the Sky Train to the Underground Interchange.
27 Baht for the Underground to the Railway Station.
10 Baht for a short Tuk Tuk ride to Sky Train stop.
20 Baht for the Sky Train Home

Total for the day: 617 Thai Baht which at today’s exchange rates is around £12.50.

I also paid an additional 611 for my train ticket to Chiang Mai, but since it’s over night it means on the day of travel I don’t have to pay for a room, which keeps the travel costs down, and I normally wouldn’t have quiet so much to drink, but it was the inauguration of President Barack Obama that night and so I stayed up later then I had otherwise planned. Of course, “I wouldn’t normally, but…” happens fairly frequently when travelling! There was also a one off fee of 100 Thai Baht for my wi-fi internet connection, which I can keep using if I stay here again.

When I did my inital budget I was looking at the same amount of stering getting me about 750 Thai Baht, which would have been a much more comfortable budget, but such is life and the upshot of the failing pound basically means that I can realistically stay out travelling for five months, rather then six.

So there you have it, life out here really is cheap! With a little bit of creativity such as getting instant noodles for cheap-cheap, hanging out and having a couple of beers with banter can work easily into even a small budget.

Plan B(tm) – Alternative Routes Into Thailand

Paul Freeman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:29:11 +0000

The protests in Thailand don’t seem to be showing much sign of running out of energy, so at this point unless there is an end to blockade at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport by tomorrow evening I’m going to start putting an alternative travel route into action.

My plan is head into South East Asia via Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, hopefully without any additional cost (Qatar Airways have been very helpful so far, so I’m optimistic) spend a few days there, and then fly north on a regional flight to Phuket with Air Asia – A budget airline who’s flights don’t appear on flight search engines like Kayak, so check their website directly for route options.

So I’m continuing to look at this as an opportunity, rather then a set back, though it is making it a little harder to get my head around travelling, I was on a very gun-ho just grab my bag and go momentum for the last couple of weeks since I moved out of my house, and finished work last Friday, but now I’ve had a little more time to organize the final details of my packing and better sort out the couple of boxes I’m storing at my parent’s house that rush has been lost.

2 Months To Go

Paul Freeman — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:16:37 +0000

Time is ticking away far quicker then I’d really given thought to, and today marks the point where I have just 2 months left in the UK before I start my trip around South East Asia arriving in Bangkok on the 1st of December.

I’ve done the final juggling of money to get my finances in order and know where I’m at with my initial budget; Which hasn’t gone quiet as well as I’d hoped and my rather optomistic plans of carrying on to India, or even back home in May and then a brief Eurotrip before back out to India June/July are now very much in peril and more dependent on getting some money while I’m on the road.

But that’s okay, that is still a long way in the future and the whole reason for getting a one way ticket out to South East Asia in the first place was so I could make up plans as I go along, and so while yesterday I was feeling a little glum as I mulled over my plans, I’m now back on track and focused on the matter in hand. Thailand and beyond is going to be Awesome, and the tighter budget will keep my eye on the ball as far as developing my websites and writing that I plan on leveraging to bring in some extra pennies while on the move around the globe.

The next big milestone will be handing in my notice, which will have to wait until my boss is actually in the office, so either Friday, or Monday. It’ll actually be a shame to call it a day on my current project, but we’ve got to the end of the current phase of development, and the website has hit 1.8 Million page views in September, and we are projecting 2.5 Million for October. Nice figures to have on my CV should I go looking for another development job after traveling, and I don’t feel like I’m leaving anything unfinished.

Where I’m Up To.

Paul Freeman — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:21:02 +0000

It’s less then three months now before I finally set off on my travels, and life for me is currently insanely busy as I constantly keep trying to take advantage of each and every oportunity for fun that comes up. Hence I haven’t had much time to sit down and do updates about my trip to Sweden, Amsterdam or pretty much anything else. (In short: Sweden was Awesome, Amsterdam was crazy, my planned trip to Finland is off the list due to cost, but other then that life is Ace)

The biggest change of late is my overall plan of Travel, it turns out that on July 22nd 2009 the longest total eclipse of the sun take place, which will be visible from Northen India. It seems insane to travel to India just before this, and then leave so now I’m all but commited to doing 3 months in India, comming home at the start of August. This pushes my plan up to a whole nine months of travel. For some reason, this seems a lot more daunting then six months did, in part because India is still a mystery to me, I have very little knowledge of the country other then a list of two places I want to visit, one in the north, one in the south, and a rough plan of getting the train from north to South, and back again which – for reasons I can’t place – seems to be the thing to do.

Several people have made comments about the fact they don’t expect me to come back at the end of the nine months, and to be honest I might not, I’ve got a few web projects that if successful will keep me on the road that bit longer, and recent conversations have turned up some interesting possibilities, and of course WWOOFing is an option I’m keeping in mind. My overall aim is to craft out a lifestyle that will let me keep travelling and visit friends and family back home in the UK. The latter been the more tricky part, Europe as a whole is expensive, and far away from the places I want to travel around, so the biggest cost is always going to be getting home, and then back out again to travel some where interesting. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it however.

In the background everything is ticking towards my launch pretty well, I have spreadsheets set up for juggling visa dates to make sure I’m actually in the right country for certain events, and my master packing list is polishing up nicely. With my birthday coming up I’m hoping to pick up a last few items, and I’ve decided to go with bigger of my choice of backpacks because it has more pockets and organisational options. More on my packing plans later thought.

More posts as time allows, but regular posting won’t start until 1st of December when I’ll have all the time in the world.

Summer In Full Swing

Paul Freeman — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:13:13 +0000

Midsummer has been and gone, and it’s Glastonbury weekend and even though I won’t be there this year – mostly due to other Festival commitments, but in part due to Jay-Z headlining – I will be sitting at home watching it on the TV with friends, having some pear cider, cooking falafels for everyone, and of course wearing out Glastonbury Hats. Maybe I’ll go crazy and crack a couple of glow sticks!

While I’m still waiting for my festival season, I have booked my ticket to Thailand in December and will be leaving one way on November the 30th with Qatar Airways, to arrive in Bangkok on the 1st of December, so if anyone is in that neck of the woods and fancies a Singha on Khaosan Road let me know. It’s a day earlier then I planned, but means I don’t have a 8 hour stop over in Doha, so worth it.

Further to my travel plans I have decided to sell my Canon DSLR, since I’m focusing on writing a lot more these days, I figure the £400 or so I can get for the camera are much more useful then the camera would be. It’s a shame, but when I got the DSLR the plan was to learn to drive, and travel around locally to take shots, maybe getting a bicycle as well, but that’s all out the window now and I could last a month on that money.

Site Updates! Travel Updates! 200 Days To Go!

Paul Freeman — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:59:29 +0000

First off, I’ve updated the blog a bit which means I can do a lot more with it, and changes on my other sites shouldn’t break things so easily. This may or may not cause duplicates to appear in the RSS feed, but if it does it’ll be the last time such madness happens.

With that out of the way, my travel plans for Summer and beyond are starting to really take form now as tickets are now purchased, as part of updating the blog I updated the count down to my new planed exit date of the 1st of December, to find that leaves me exactly 200 days before I fly off to Thailand and start on my adventure around South East Asia.

Travel Diary To Date:

July: Latitude Festival in Suffolk, England – Tickets Purchased.

August: Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden – Tickets Purchased – With a side trip to Stockholm to catch up with a friend, including a trip to Garlic and Shots which I am promised is amazing.

August: Amsterdam – For a friends Stag Do, flights now booked.

December: Thailand! Starting in Bangkok on the 1st and working though the country to arrive at Lonely Beach on Koh Chang in time to spend Christmas there. While it’s a bit early to make detailed plans, I wouldn’t be surprised if Treehouse is where I end up having Christmas dinner.

Since there are people flying out to Thailand specifically to spend a couple of weeks over Christmas then it puts been on Koh Chang firmly on the schedule so we can all meet up, but beyond that everything is going to be pretty much on a whim. Though I am researching what festivals and events are happening around South East Asia for the whole period of time I am out there and will aim to make it to as many unique events as possible.

Filling The Gaps:

June is looking pretty empty currently, as is September so I’m searching for something to fill them up with and will hopefully get some time at a friends caravan, which will be a great way to chill out as a group of friends. October is going to be a local affair with my Birthday, my friend’s Wedding, and Warrington’s version of Oktoberfest which is an annual event everyone who’s anyone goes to in these parts. November is up in the air, depending on when my Sister is studying abroad in Finland, if she’s there I’ll be visiting, if she is going early 2009 I’ll catch her just after getting home from Thailand.

Travel Plans 2008

Paul Freeman — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:05:21 +0000

Looking ahead to the rest of the year (I’ll finish my Thailand updates later in the week) I have a pretty healthy set of destinations in the line up for the rest of 2008 and beyond:

July: Suffolk, England – For Latitude Festival
August: Amsterdam, Holland – For A Friend’s Stag Do
October/November: Helsinki, Finland – To Visit My Sister While She’s Studying There
December onwards: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam etc. – Traveling South East Asia for Six Months

I’d really like to go to a music festival in Europe too, so there are too options on the cards currently:

July: Open’er Festial in Poland. (Friends are going)
August: Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. (Sigur Rós are playing)

Given that Sigur Rós are my all time favorite group it’s likely to come out on top, they are playing at Latitude as well, but I’d leap at the chance to see them twice.

Have Passport, Will Travel

Paul Freeman — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:55:41 +0000

I haven’t really had much new to write on this recently, while travel has never been far from my thoughts in some ways, I’ve also been trying not to think to much about it while I was trying (With difficulty) to get my passport application sorted out. However, yesterday when I got home it was finally sitting on the floor waiting for me when I stepped in the door.

So now I’m looking forward to my first ever step out of Great Britain, all the way around the world to Thailand in just 12 days time. I can not describe how stressful the days until my passport actually arrived were. – Yes, I know booking flights to Thailand without a passport is not even remotely sensible, but it’s all resolved now and I don’t need to repeat such stupid paths.

It’s all a bit unreal at the moment, there is a group of us flying out to Thailand (Via Doha in Qatar), to meet a trio of friends who have been there for over two months, so we have very little in the way of planning, other then to meet up with them and follow their lead. All the while constantly hearing from them how amazing it is out there.

Given I normally plan everything with exacting detail, this is a very new way of traveling for me regardless of the additional distances, so I’m very much pushing my comfort zone.

With having friends out there already packing isn’t really a concern though, we have been given a whole lot of advice on what to bring, and what to leave behind, this weekend’s big job is to do a bit of shopping for essentials.

I have been pondering clothing, but I think I’ve settled mostly on the idea of buying stuff when I’m out there so I have some interesting things to wear when back home during the summer.

Music Festival Destinations Added To Map

Paul Freeman — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:19:35 +0000

Over the course of the last week, three different people have mentioned music festivals around Europe they’ve been too, all of which make for great ideas to add to my list of must see destinations. After all, I love music festivals and spend my summers at various festivals in the UK either with a group of friends, or on occasion on my own just mixing with the crowd.

The idea of getting out to various festivals abroad is something I’ve been playing with for a while, so it fits neatly in with my long term travel plans. So my map has been updated to reflect the new destinations.
I have a handful of music festivals already in mind for my trip, and while I doubt I could do them all, due to the cost and the time it would take to drive between them all (Which I’m sure could be done, but I’d rather move at a more leisurely pace) at this stage of planning it’s all out getting as many options as I can down on paper so I can pick them out when I start looking seriously at a plot able route around the world.

The list of Music Festivals I’m looking at currently includes:

Sziget in Budapest, Hungary.
Fuji Rock Festival in Japan
Burning Man in the US (Not strictly a music festival, but deserves a place in this list)
Glastonbury in the UK
Iceland Airwaves in Reykjavík, Iceland
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in the UK

There are a couple more that I’ve missed off the list since I don’t have the details available yet, but will add them in the near future, along with any new suggestions people make.

Fuji and Iceland will be tricky since I can’t drive there, so they will most likely form parts of other trips to those regions via plane, Iceland in particular I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time now so it’s a shame that it can’t be reached by land.

Glastonbury is already on my current festival circuit, along with a number of smaller festivals in the UK, but is added for completeness of the list. Huddersfield as well is perhaps an unusual choice but the events I’ve seen as part of HCMF I’ve seen for the last couple of years have been amazing and unique gigs.

All the rest have real potential to form part of my route at some point and will probable one of the leading factors taken into consideration when plotting destinations.

Early Thoughts On Travel Companions

Paul Freeman — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:06:07 +0000

Lots of people make comments along the lines of “I’ll come with you!” when you talk about world trips, with varying degrees of sincerity of course, but either way there isn’t anything stopping people hooking up with me for parts of the journey. I’m not planning on having a full time travel partner since I want to be free to randomly go where ever I want without compromising.

On the other hand, the more people come out to join me for shorter periods of time – say a couple of weeks to a month – the better. It’s easy enough to plan to be at a particular airport to pick them up, and drop them back either there, or another location down the road.

For that to work, I need to have some sort of rough route worked out, so that people can make plans based on that, and of course if people have plans of their own, I can in the same way adjust my plans so we cross paths.

Given the number of people I know seriously planning world travel right now, it’s not that unlikely that I’ll be able to find some travel companions for several months without much effort, and it’ll be interesting to see how many people actually follow through, so while I assume that most people won’t actually come out and meet up with me, at the same time I genuinely mean it when I say that they should.