Hello one and all and welcome to our travel blog.
Currently, we are both slogging away with our final year at University - Laura is doing a Psychology BSc and I'm doing a LL.B law degree - both of us are at Derby University.
However, once we have finished our degree, we are spending the whole summer travelling, over central/eastern Europe to Singapore. The catch is that once we start, we have to stay on land. No planes. This is also, however, where the fun lies.
The trip is currently being organised and is just over 13 weeks away. This blog intends to update and inform on the planning, execution and responses from us on such a massive trip. So far we have booked a sizable chunk, around 1 month. We still have a long way to go in that respect. So far countries to be definitely visited are Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Russia has been reserved and it's subject to visa's (obviously!)
Laura and I have been together for three and a half years and have so far seen a fair bit of the world together. We have also been well travelled individually.
With my family and friends I have seen much of the world already in my 21 and a bit years on the planet. I've seen France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, Greece, Spain and Portugal - that's just in Europe. I would one day like to see some parts of western Europe yet to be visited - mainly Ireland and Switzerland - but I have plenty of time to see them on small breaks. I won't get another lengthy period of time off after this.
Outside of Europe, I'm slightly less well travelled but nonetheless, I've seen more than most people my age I would imagine. I've seen the state of Florida in the USA (I would like to visit more states, but I'm after the culture shock this time round), the Turks and Caicos Islands (my dad worked there and I visited once), Nepal and India (I lived in Nepal when I was very young - went to India once from there) and have also been to Japan for the 2002 world cup. I consider myself to be very lucky.
Together, we have visited Germany and the Netherlands (2007) as well as Tenerife with friends as an end of A-Level holiday (2007). We have also been to Italy, Slovenia and Austria as part of a mini-trip involving a match during the 2008 European football championships and later visited Rome that same year.
However, we've both seen Western Europe quite a lot, and wanted a culture change. Hopefully, this will be a big enough shock! We have decided to start in Prague, Czech Republic because it is a beautiful city that can been seen in a few days and is not a massive, instant change. Laura has yet to see it and when I went over there in 2008 with my Dad I came back boasting about how good it was. We are ending in Singapore - funnily enough, Laura's been there and I haven't, partly because her Aunt lives out there!
I will post more on the trip as it unfolds, and hopefully you will hear from Laura soon too!
I also have a personal blog at http://tom-coe.blogspot.com for those interested.
Regards,
Tom
