| Original Itinerary (Changed a lot)
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The Original Plan (Changed a lot). I'm starting off with ~1 week in England, and then it's off to Tanzania. I'll probably head straight to the Serengeti for a safari. I'll then head over the Zanzibar for a week or so of beach buming! Then I'll take a train down to the Gombe, Jane Goodall's Chimp preserve. Then I'll head south to Malawi, where I'll learn to SCUBA dive and experience the "Warm Heart" of Africa. Then it's over the Victoria Falls in Zambia for bungee, white water and some good clean fun. Then it's down to South Africa. I'm landing in J'bourg and will take a bus along the coast all the way to Cape Town. Then I'm flying back to J'bourg and onto Hong Kong. After a couple of nights seeing the sights of Hong Kong, I'm off to Delhi. Depending on the political situation in Nepal I'll either go up there to trek the great Himilayas or spend more time in India. After a month or two I'll head back to Thailand to see what I missed last time I was there! I'm then heading overland through Cambodia and up through Vietnam, making a short trip into Laos. From there I'll make my way through mainland China all the way to Beijing (to meet my folks!). I'll probably spend a great deal of time in southern China. Then I'm flying from Beijing down to Melbourne via Hong Kong and Sydney. In Oz I'll basically head up the eastern coast all the way up to Cairns spending lots of time beach bumming, scuba diving and whatever else! Then it's over to Darwin and down to Uluru. From there I'm going to New Zealand for lots of hiking, adventure stuff and whatever else! I'll land in Queenstown and head up to Auckland. My final continent is South America, where I'll head up to Peru, to see Inca ruins and whatever else! Then it's up to Ecuador and into the Amazon. Next I'm going down to Bolivia and onto to Venezuala for my last hurrah! From there I'll just cross the Atlantic twice to get back home! |
| Why I love to travel. Walking through the streets of Bangkok on our last night in Thailand I came to appreciate something that I had always known in the back of my mind. We walked past street merchants selling roated duck heads, dried whole pigs, dried squid, fried insects of every kind. We were constantly harassed by people selling everything from taxi rides to their bodies. These sights, sounds and smells cannot be learned from any textbook, nor can they be appreciated by anyone who has not seen them firsthand. I have always known I've lived a privileged life by growing up in one of the richest parts of the richest country on Earth, but I've never seen with my own eyes how the rest of the world lives. I've traveled extensively all over the United States and Western Europe. Those were great experiences that I'll never forget, but that sort of travel does not compare to traveling around developing nations.
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Taking time off! People often ask me what I'm going to do about my PhD. You see I'm currently in graduate school at the University of Virginia in the United States, I've just finished up my coursework and I am about to begin working on my thesis experiment. I've always been a bit of a nerd when it comes to school work. Throughout college and even into graduate school I worked my ass off because I loved learning and taking classes. I still do love Physics very much, but sitting around doing computer simulations all day leaves one to yearn for more out of life. I'm 25 years old, single, physically healthy and I'm at a point in my work where taking a year off won't hurt me too much. So I figure why not! If I come back and I am behind who cares? This might be the only chance I have to do something like this and there's nothing that going to hold me back! It's time for me to start living! |
| What to Bring? Well since I haven't started yet you might want to take my advice with a grain of salt! I'm starting out as light as I can while still making sure that I have everything I can't get easily in other countries. Here's my packing list:
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How to fly around the world! Planning a trip like this is an experience in itself! First of all you've gotta have some idea about where you wanna go. For instance I knew that I wanted to hit each continent spening from 2-4 months on each one. After that the airline ticket I got did most of the planning for me! I choose a One World ticket through the British Airways alliance of airlines. It's a pretty good deal. For ~$3200 USD I got 19 seperate flights to get around the world. That includes a flight to get between each continent and up to 4 flights within each continent. You pay based on the number of continents you go to, unlike most tickets like this that make you pay per mile. A mileage based ticket wouldn't have worked well for me since I need to do lots of backtracking to get to the airline hubs. The ticket is also nice since I can change the dates for free or change my destinations for $75. One interesting thing I found out through my research was that it's about $1400 cheaper to buy such a ticket in the UK, as compared to the US. So I just bought a round trip ticket to London and "started" from there! |
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Politics!
I am often highly critical of my government's actions, especially when it comes to foreign affairs. I feel this way because I don't beleive that most American leaders have seen the world as I intend to do. It is only through this sort of travel that we can gain an appreciation of the world and it's people. If more Americans traveled and gained this sort of insite maybe our actions would show more sensitivity towards the people that our actions affect.
Jon Mellor Jonathan Mellor Jonathan Edward Mellor rtw around the world backpacking independent travel travelogue |
My Life in Uganda!
My Last Email
Hi everyone, Well it's been over three weeks now since I finished up my big trip, and I just wanted to share with all of you a little 'bit about what it all means to me. I think it goes without saying that this was by far the best year of my life. I've never before met so many different kinds of people, had so many interesting conversations, seen such beautiful sights, sounds and yes smells. I've never learned more and I've never been so intellectually challenged. My mind has never thought harder about the really tough problems of this world, and I've never been more humbled about how hard those problems really are.
It was the toughest year of my life too, being in so many different cultures and experiencing so many different customs. Yet I've never felt more alive in every way. Meeting so many people from so many different backgrounds gives you a sense of who you want to become and whom you admire. You can pick and choose amongst all the different religions, customs, and personalities to transform yourself and your beliefs into someone you never knew existed. I've never matured more as a person or had a better sense of the person I wish to become. Nothing shocks me anymore, and the little things don't bug me as much. I've become used to being in uncomfortable places and in difficult circumstances, so much so that being in comfortable surroundings makes me restless. I am, in retrospect, really happy that I had to do it alone. By doing it alone you become, by necessity, completely self-reliant. To me, this trip is by far my greatest accomplishment and is my proudest achievement.
When I'm traveling everyday is amazing. In fact I feel totally and completely content each and every day, I'm just so thankful to be wherever I happen to be that day. I urge each and every one of you to try, at least once in your life, to travel as I have by yourself and off the beaten track. I promise you won't regret it! It will be by far the best education you'll ever get.
I learned so much about the world around us, and my own place in it. I learned about the culture, history, society, food, religion etc. in each place I visited not from reading books but from talking to people and always trying to live, eat and do as the locals do. I now have a much better idea about what it means to be an American/Westerner in this world.
Just about everyone I see asks me how it feels to be back home again. Well I've thought a lot about it, and the best way I can describe it is using a cheesy movie example. You know in the Lord of the Rings when Frodo gets back to the Shire after his long journey. He's sitting there in the pub with all of his friends sipping a beer just like old times, but something is different, it just doesn't seem right to him. That's kinda how I feel, I'm back in once sense, but in the end I'll never really come home again. This trip has changed my life in ways I never realized it would. So in a sense, my adventure is far from over, in fact it has only just begun.
Needless to say, the second I graduate I'll be off again on my next big adventure...
cheers! Jon
NEW!
For all of you who've been wondering what my daily life was like, here it is! It's a very rough draft and I'm only up to New Zealand, but it's already over 150 pages. Have a look and tell me what you think.
My Letter's Home
My story
It all started last May when my brother and I decided that we'd seen enough of Europe and decided instead to head off to Asia. We decided on Thailand since it seemed to be a place that was certainly much different from anything we'd ever experienced, yet was safe and easy to travel through.
Long story short, we had a blast! We spend 2 weeks there and managed to see much of the country. Throughout our trip we met loads of adventuresome travelers, but we soon noticed something. We didn't meet anybody else who was only there for 2 weeks! Most were long term travelers who were spending anywhere from a month to a year, traveling around Thailand and beyond. We even met some who were going for a whole year! (thanks Phil and Niamh!)
That's when I got to thinking! I'm currently working on a PhD in Physics and the University of Virginia, and I've just finished my classes and am starting my research so I'm at a pretty good break point. I had some money in the bank too! Why not, I said!
So I spent the past 6 months planning. I never knew it'd be so much work planning this sort of trip! There are just so many things to think about, immunizations, visas, plane tickets... Fortunately I've got a lot of free time!
I'll be writing updates to this webpage as I go. Please send me an email I'd love to hear from anyone who's been to any of the places I'm going! Or who wants to know how to plan a RTW trip! So please email me!