KnifeMissile

Okay, so I've found myself with some free time so I'm planning on doing a world tour! There are many aspects to this tour but, mostly, it's a tour of very large and highly dense cities. I have a thing for intense urbanization and enjoy seeing how society deals with too many people living in the same place at the same time. The current itinerary is:

New York
Montreal
London
Hong Kong
Tokyo
Vancouver
Calgary

...and I need to fit Las Vegas in there, somehow.

My question is pretty general. Does anyone have any suggestions regarding my tour? Is there anything I should know when travelling?

My list is a little light between Europe and Asia so if there's some city in there that fits with my theme, please, do mention it!

Also, I'm sure there are many considerations I haven't thought through. For instance, I took it for granted that Tokyo (and any city) would have a 24/7 transit system but it turns out that the transit system does, indeed, close and rather early, too. Cabs are also ludicrously expensive in Japan. So much so that it's often cheaper to just rent a hotel room than take a taxi back home. Japanese internet cafes are filled with sleeping people who couldn't (or wouldnt') make it back to the subway in time. This is good to know or I could have ended up stranded in some remote part of town in the middle of the night.

I'm not sure how to plan for such a trip. There are those who think I should just visit the nearest travel agent and tell them what I want to do. I'm also told that there's a kind of "frequent flyer pass," that will allow you to spontaneously travel from airport to airport for a limited time. Has anyone heard of such a thing?

So, any comments or questions are welcome! I'm a little anxious about such an endevour but I love travelling and I will not likely get another chance to do this so it's kind of now or never!

Willravel

That's going to be pretty expensive. The last time I was in Hong Kong OR Tokyo, I spent more than I care to divulge. NY and London are also expensive, even if you stay at the cheapest hostels. You should contact people who are familiar with each city you'll be visitng or staying in, and get the skinny on the basics (food, lodge, transport), and also the sights.

I envy the crap out of you. Best of luck, and take a ton of pictures (for memories).

Carno

Bring a shit load of money.

I knew an Aussie who had bought an airline ticket that was good for six months and something like 12 flights around the world. All of the flights had to be in the same direction, ie east-west. That's the extent of my knowledge on the subject though.

spindles

Have you thought about adding something like Mumbai in India or Beijing in China? Definitely piles of people in both places.

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Cynthetiq

i'd suggest couchsurfing.com and start looking at people over there. you'll hopefully find either people's sofa's to crash or people at least willing to meet you for coffee, this implies you'll be able to get some local information from an active local.

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BadNick

If time and budget allowed, I'd consider adding a couple of the suggested cities above, plus something like Prague or Budapest in Europe, something in Africa maybe Nairobi, South America maybe Rio or San Paolo or Santiago or Lima.

maleficent

From new york - I'd hop on amtrak and head t philadephia and washington dc/baltimore - southwest flies out of baltimore and yoou could probably get a really cheap flight to vegas from there

or frm dc - stay on amtrak and head down to new orleans - passing thru most the southeast... then on to vegas

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AbigailAlfano

How about Rome? We went in 2005. If you want 'crowded' thats a good place! Invest in a book by Rick Steves. He has very good up to date information on Europe. (Even has names of innkeepers and prices of hotels and such). He comes out with a new book every year and has info for all budgets.
HAVE A GREAT TIME. What a wonderful opportunity for you!
Abigail

abaya

Are you loaded or something? No, I am seriously talking about over $10,000 on a trip like this. You should look at prices for "Around-the-World" tickets (what Carno was talking about) and go from there... a travel agent should be able to arrange that for you. Even with a hostel, figure on $100-$200 a day in urban areas... some of those hostels (esp. in NY, as far as I've seen) are damn expensive.

You'd do well to pick up a copy of "Europe on a Shoestring," "Asia on a Shoestring," etc. etc. by Lonely Planet, for each continent that you are traveling to. Without that, you are going to run out of money in the first city you go to, especially if it's Tokyo.

You want to observe crowded urban areas? Try Mexico City. Bangkok. Beirut. Lagos. Paris. Rio de Janeiro. Definitely Mumbai and Beijing.

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highthief

Me gonna ask ... Calgary?

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The_Jazz

If you're looking for densly packed Eurpopean and Asian cities how about St. Petersburg, Cairo (ok, it's African, but I'm calling it close enough to count), Istanbul (not Constaninople), Rome, Dehli, Bangkok or Singapore? Those are just the ones that occur to me off the top of my head.

I have very good friends that did the 'round the world tickets as sort of a pre-marriage honeymoon and loved it. You do have to keep going in the same direction on that airline, but there's nothing to say that you couldn't jump on Southwest in, say, Chicago, and jump down to Vegas for a few days. However, if it's densly packed that you're looking for, Vegas doesn't belong on that list. Once you're off The Strip, Vegas sprawls to a horrible extent.

Abaya made some great suggestions, although I'll disagree that Beijing is densly packed. When I was there in 2000, I remember thinking that it sprawled quite a bit, but that's just my opinion.

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Carno

Yeah, it will be at least $5-8000 for the plane tickets alone.

AbigailAlfano

I'm going to Bangkok at the end of February for about one week. Then, we're heading to Phuket for some R&R. I can't wait!
The weather here in Louisiana has been cold and wet and dreary. I can't wait for a sunny beach!
Abigail

KnifeMissile

I bought a laptop specifically for the trip (although, in retrospect, I should have gotten a smaller one) and I do all my banking online. So, if I run the limit of my Visa card, somehow, I should be able to pipe more money to it...

I'm a little afraid to go to Mumbai during the wet season but Beijing is an excellent idea! I think I'm adding it to the list...

Wow, this is another great idea! I'm not really interested in staying on someone's couch (especially a stranger) but I am interested in meeting new people who can help me explore the locale!

Okay, not all cities are part of the urbanization motif. Montreal is an important Canadian city that I have, somehow, never seen. My sister lives in Vancouver and will be gettng married soon. I actually plan on ending my trip there and spending almost a month living in her old apartment after attending her wedding. I'm stopping by Calgary for sentimental reasons. A lot of important things happened to me while I was living there. The only reason I'm going to Las Vegas is to see Penn & Teller's stage show. I probably won't even be there more than a day...


By the way, for all those who mentioned "one direction tickets," where does one get these? Where may I find information on these types of fares?
Thank you for all your comments...

Sharon

London is ridiculously expensive. This website will be very useful to you:

http://www.gumtree.com/

Carno

The only place that I know of to get around-the-world tickets is www.airtreks.com

Charlatan

While Beijing is interesting you might like Shanghai even better. If you want a real city experience you should also consider places like Jakarta, Rio, Sao Paulo and Mexico City.

Of course there is always Singapore but it's a little too much like Toronto. You might like Bangkok as well.

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highthief

I disagree. Was there last year and stayed, travelled, ate and saw the sites for reasonable prices. There are various passes you can use for some of these things, as a tourist, and if you eat at places like bakeries and fast food joints, it is not much more expensive than Toronto, as a point of reference.

It's when you decide to go see shows, have a nicer dinner, have an urge to stay in Knightsbridge or something, that it can get very expensive.

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Sharon

highthief - of course it can be done on a budget... but if you are doing your entire trip on a budget, it's still going to be a more than going budget anywhere else.

abaya

You bought a laptop so you could access banking online? Why, when there are internet cafes in just about every city of the world, of any size, and they are going to have a reliable, cheap connection far more often than you'll find in any random hostel? I have never actually seen wireless offered in a hostel, though most hostels do provide free internet access through their own computers.

No, seriously, maybe it's too late, but you really shouldn't be traveling through multiple developing countries (esp. crowded areas) with a $1000+ laptop on your back or in view of the public when you're on public transportation (e.g. trains). It's unnecessary, and it's just too much of a risk, if you ask me. Unless you have some business that you have an urgent need for conducting from the road...?

(Btw, shouldn't this also be in Tilted Traveling?)

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Sharon

abaya, I'm going to guess he also bought it for the purposes of documenting his trip, diary, storing photos, planning, etc. Agree completely on being careful bringing a brand new laptop computer around with you.

KnifeMissile

Well, I didn't want to trust leaving sensitive information on a public terminal. As always, the issue is a little more complicated than that. As Sharon has correctly pointed out, I do plan to dump my data (including photos) onto my laptop. It'll come in handy for passing time at the airport (if it had been smaller, it could have been used to pass time on the plane, too). Perhaps most importantly, it'll be my main computer when I stay in Vancouver for the month of my sister's wedding.

Well, I'm not so paranoid that I think people are going to mug me for my laptop. I also didn't plan on staying at hostels. I was thinking more like second or third rate hotels. I found what look like some decent ones in downtown London (about 6 km from Westminster Palace for about £60 a night, which is within my budget (The Paddington, for example). How much would a hostel be? Correct me if I'm wrong but don't hostels have communal bathrooms or something?

Well, I didn't even know this forum existed and the General forum gets more traffic. I want as many opinions as possible, right?

Sharon

£60 is about average for a hotel like you describe in the area you describe... that would be "expensive" to someone like me who moved recently because her monthly rent was on the wrong side of £400 a month, and typically stays in 10-to-a-room dorms when she backpacks.

If you are travelling with a laptop, make backups of your data whenever you can. Send them to yourself on gmail, keep separate CD-R backups or something, so that if anything should happen to your laptop, you will at least have most of your data. An ex-housemate's friend once had his digital camera bag stolen at the airport just before he boarded the plane to come home, and lost the whole month's worth of digital photo data.

Charlatan

By the way, I think I forgot to point out that I am really jealous of this itinerary.

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abaya

Fair 'nuff man, I understand about the wedding thing and being bored... and about the photos. Though personally I would rather not risk losing all my once-in-a-lifetime photos in one mugging incident. If I were you, I'd buy a handful of 2 GB memory cards for your camera and carry those in various safe places, rather than storing them all on a laptop... but making back-ups is also a very good idea, if you can tuck them away somewhere on your person.

I don't mean to offend you, I'm just saying that in a third-world country, people won't "mug you for your laptop," they'll just plain mug you... for whatever you might have (especially if they saw you on the train, or in the hostel with it, and follow you into the station or get into your bag while you're in the communal shower). Yes, it does happen, I've seen it.

I guess I'm just trying to offer some advice from a lot of my own traveling experience in poor, crowded areas... I've been to quite a few of the places you want to go to, and I just don't think it's altogether wise to carry a laptop with you there.

Hostels in a group room (bunks) range from $20/person in cheap cities (Prague was the cheapest I saw in Europe), to over $60 in places like NYC. The prices are higher if you want a private room with a locked door. I have no idea about places like Japan. This is for semi-reputable hostels, not the dirt-cheap ones where they really will rob you blind the minute you turn your back. I'd say the average hostel cost is around $40 a night.

All that said, it's your trip, so have fun planning it and let us know how it shapes up.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Cynthetiq

Almost all carriers have around the world tickets... one just has to call to speak to a representative in order to get them...but the brokers generally have the discounted ones.

from BudgetTravelOnline:

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KnifeMissile

Luckily, I have a spare iPod (yet another "profitable quarter" gift from my company) that I can use as backup storage. I'll be sure to keep regular backups...

I assure you, I have taken no offense to anything that has been said in this thread, including your posts. If you think I'm likely to be mugged then I should very well be warned! I was really hoping that this would be a rare occurance, like being afraid my plane might go down.

That's exactly what this thread is about. Tell us about your travels... What happened to you? What should I look out for? I honestly didn't think that any of the places on "the list" had significantly worse crime rates than home (literally Waterloo but you can think of it as Toronto) and I wouldn't think twice about walking around with a laptop, not that I'd be adventuring with it on my back. Sadly, it's a little heavy for that. I was thinking I'd just drop it off my hotel room so it can serve as my base station or my "home away from home..."

Wow, those are some really cheap rates! It's also a scary idea... but it's cheap enough to think about...

Thanks. I'm not sure if I am going to have fun planning it, which is why I've considered hiring a travel agency. However, I am having fun talking about it on this forum!

I'll take all comments of jealousy as a compliment. Thank you...


The truth is, I'm kind of in a rut in my life right now and I'm hoping a trip like this will inspire me. I need to go to Vancouver, anyways, so why not take the scenic route there? Most of these are places I've always wanted to see and, as I've already mentioned, I'm in a unique position in my life to do this (it's hard to get this kind of time off) so all the planets seem to be aligned...

Charlatan

If you are going to be staying in backpacker places or hostels, don't bring the laptop. It won't be safe to leave behind. If you are staying in a half decent hotel you will likely be OK. Most hotels have in room safes. In fact, most hotels you can leave your stuff around your room and it is safe.

I say that as a business traveler rather than a budget traveler.

I wouldn't recommend walking around looking like a tourist and carrying expensive items or large amounts of cash. There are too many stories of muggings to risk it.

I like the idea of 2GB storage cards, iPods and cameras. All very portable. Also with regards to the banking thing, you can use your bank card just about anywhere, especially the airport, to withdraw money. It is a little more expensive (service fee of $5 to withdraw) but you get the money in the local currency.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

highthief

I understand what you're saying, but respoectfully disagree. If someone is planning on seeing the world London is really no more or less expensive, significantly, than Paris, Tokyo, or New York, and only marginally more expensive than Toronto or Rome.

Now London is obscenely expensive to live in, I grant you - a brief view of the estate agent's window in Kensington and my cousin's purchase of a small $500,000 flat well outside the city centre told me that!

I concur with those who say don't bring a laptop if you're staying in hostels - most of the time it would be OK, but there are a few dodgy characters staying in such places who won't think twice about taking such a valuable item. With telephone banking, reputable internet portals (as found in good hotels), bank machines, and so on, there is little to be concerned with. The use of compact devices (such as cameras) will suitably document the trip.

If you're staying in good hotels, no worries, I'd say, use their secure storage facilities, also for your passport and plane tickets.

Good luck, I envy you.

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