Our departure day is looming, and after weeks of umm-ing and ah-ing we have booked a hotel for the first night in Dubai. When people have spoken about Dubai to me, it's always been portrayed as a place of luxury and exclusivity, somewhere I'd never really desired to go (mainly because I've been a student for almost all of my adult life). However, our round-the-world flight plan involves a stop over in Dubai, so we thought it was worth staying for a few days.
So far we've booked: a hotel for 1 night, couchsurfing for the rest of the time (4 nights) with a host we met through the site and a trip up the Burj Khalifa to watch the sunset. Our host advised us that there are plenty of 2-4-1 vouchers available for food, drink and entertainment throughout the city. He has some spare ones we can use, but they can be purchased before arrival too. This is going to save us so much money!
Thursday 24 October 2013
Monday 21 October 2013
Just over a week...
This sounds really lazy but, I woke up today at 1:30pm, to the melodic sound of rain on the window. Yes, it's been raining all night and all morning here in Dunfermline (and probably also in Liverpool). This is not unusual for Scotland (or England) in October, or at any other time of year. Not being employed really messes with my one's body clock: you stay awake to all hours and get up when most normal people are having their lunch. However, It's a nice luxury for the time being.
I've spent a lot of the day contacting people on Couchsurfing about a new trip, and keeping in contact with our first host in Dubai. This is certainly going to be a first time experience for both of us, thank god we have each other as back up. I have to admit the idea is a little scary, because it's unknown to me and my family remind me that I need to "be careful", but I know so many people who have successfully couchsurfed across different continents and they've recommended it...plus it saves a lot of money too.
We have been looking at tours and travel around Australia today. We've really left things quite last minute when it comes to researching what we are going to do. Allan is a lot more thorough than I am, and likes to know the when-what-where-and-hows of pretty much everything, and it's competitors. Whereas I would probably just turn up and hope for the best. One thing we have realised though, sometimes shopping around just wastes time and you may save negligible amounts that could be swallowed up elsewhere.
So far we've looked at the following:
Most of the coast Sydney to Cairns
Great Southern Rail - Alice Springs to Adelaide
Relocation camper vans - to drive from Adelaide to Sydney (but really cheap and a fuel allowance too...this came highly recommended by past travellers)
Theres a bunch of different companies that do the relocation service, and the one we've been looking at today is Apollo. It's a great idea if you want to save some money when you're in Australia, you just take a camper van to a place where it should be, so you're kind of doing them a favour too. The Ghan railway journey from Alice Springs (lowest fare) is about £138 each for a day/night train, taking 24 hours. Sounds crazy, but it's meant to be one of the best rail journeys in the world.
Getting excited!
I've spent a lot of the day contacting people on Couchsurfing about a new trip, and keeping in contact with our first host in Dubai. This is certainly going to be a first time experience for both of us, thank god we have each other as back up. I have to admit the idea is a little scary, because it's unknown to me and my family remind me that I need to "be careful", but I know so many people who have successfully couchsurfed across different continents and they've recommended it...plus it saves a lot of money too.
We have been looking at tours and travel around Australia today. We've really left things quite last minute when it comes to researching what we are going to do. Allan is a lot more thorough than I am, and likes to know the when-what-where-and-hows of pretty much everything, and it's competitors. Whereas I would probably just turn up and hope for the best. One thing we have realised though, sometimes shopping around just wastes time and you may save negligible amounts that could be swallowed up elsewhere.
So far we've looked at the following:
Most of the coast Sydney to Cairns
Great Southern Rail - Alice Springs to Adelaide
Relocation camper vans - to drive from Adelaide to Sydney (but really cheap and a fuel allowance too...this came highly recommended by past travellers)
Theres a bunch of different companies that do the relocation service, and the one we've been looking at today is Apollo. It's a great idea if you want to save some money when you're in Australia, you just take a camper van to a place where it should be, so you're kind of doing them a favour too. The Ghan railway journey from Alice Springs (lowest fare) is about £138 each for a day/night train, taking 24 hours. Sounds crazy, but it's meant to be one of the best rail journeys in the world.
Getting excited!
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