Hi.
I ordered my tickets a month ago and need some tips & tricks. I'll be travelling on a budget.. 8500$ on a 5 month travel (tickets excluded). I've been working for a half a year to do this, and am really looking forward to it. I'm leaving in January (Farewell cold cold winter!). I'm travelling totaly on my own, and could need some tips on what to take in mind when doing something like that. My spoken languages is norwegian (d'uh), english (very good, spoken at least
), german (good) and a tiny bit of spanish. Do I need a course in spanish? So .. what do I need to see and what do I need to do? I'd like to avoid the tourist-traps.
First I'll be headed for Amsterdam. I'll stay there at a friends house and her husband, so I don't think I'll need much advise here
Stay: 5 days.
Then I'm heading for Mexico City. Leaving the city pretty early, as I don't have much of an interest of big cities. My plan is to travel down the west coast and into Guatemala. Stay: 1-1.5 months.
Los Angeles is my next destination. This is where I think you guys really can help me, seeing that a lot of you are americans. I'll only stay in the US for 5 days, but I wanna see the typical America when I'm there. I don't give a crap about Universal Studios or Holywood Boulevard, so I'd like some good alternative. I was thinking of taking a bus out to the sub-urbs or some village outside L.A. See if I can get contact with the locals
I'm playing with the thought of contacting a high school and see if I could be "pupil" for a day or so, to really get a view of how USA is. Do you think they would let me? Or would they think I was a lunatic?
How is the alcohol laws in California? I've heard that you have to be 21(!!) to legally drink beer! That would be a real let down, as I am 20 until april.
From LA I'll be heading to Tonga. Now we're talking relaxing on the beach, coconuts and longdrinks
. I'll stay here for 2 weeks .. I'll pretty much do things as they come to me here.
Then I'm going to Auckland, New Zealand. What I wanna do in New Zealand is some extreme sports. Parashooting, bungee jumping and stuff like that... Staying for 2 weeks.
Next up is Australia.. I'll be seing Sydney for a few days and then I'll be heading up to Newcastle where my sister lives. I'll be staying with here for a while of course. Then I'll be travelling along the coast up to darwin. Stay: one or two months. I do not have a plane ticket to travel out of the country, I've heard that that might be a problem for me. You .au people, what do you know about this?
Where I'm going next is still open, but I'm thinking of travelling trough Indonesia and up to Thailand. Any better suggestions? Bangkok is my final destination, already bought the ticket. Do not have any tickets from Australia...
I'll gladly expect any info about the destinations above mentioned. All will be recieved with thanks!
As you can see I'm leaving a lot of decisions to be taken at the location, but all pre-knowledge will help