Going around the world in 1 year

UPDATE: plans have changed, I’m now traveling with no return date set!

In 2013 I plan to travel around the world for one year. The departure date is scheduled for the first week of January.

I have been planning this since the beginning of May but it was brewing in my head since I got back from the Maldives. I want to see and live as many things as possible in my life and now is the perfect time, having the finances and being single.

Still, it was a hard decision to make. Making so much changes to my lifestyle and leaving my comfortable life will not be easy! It was also a tough decision to leave my job at Allmyapps.

While the focus of the trip will obviously be to discover new countries, meet people and visit as much places as possible, I cannot leave behind my digital life. My laptop will travel with me and I plan to work on Dropdock and other personal projects along the way. I may also be available for freelancing.

A trip around the world is a lot of planning and it has been consuming all my evenings and weekends for the last month. I have read and watched countless forums, guide books, documentaries to decide what to do and where to go.

Of course I wanted to do much more than possible. At the end, one year is not that much! For example, until not long ago I had still planned to go to Kenya and Tanzania. Unfortunately, after re-evaluating my budget I had to scrap them. In a way it’s for the best because it allows me to allocate more time to other (cheaper) countries.

The current plan is to visit 18 countries. This may change as I continue to tweak my trip or along the way. I tried my best to travel at the best season in each country but obviously it’s not always possible.

Starting in India, I will go from Mumbai to Delhi via the South before leaving to Singapore. It will be the start of a nearly 3 months tour through Southeast Asia which will end in Vietnam where I will take the train to China. After almost 2 months of travel to reach Beijing I will fly to Tokyo for a short 2 weeks stay.

I will next fly to Australia for more than a month of travel. After 3 weeks in New Zealand it will be time to cross the Pacific, making a break in Hawaii.

The South American part of my trip will start in Lima before reaching Cuzco and then Bolivia. I will cross to Chile via Atacama down to Santiago. After an overland trip through Argentina I will reach Buenos Aires before going north up to Rio de Janeiro where I hope to celebrate New Year.

Checkout the Google Map of my trip

I should be back in France in the first few days of 2014. Probably extenuated after one year of hostels, nights in trains and walking but hopefully with lots of beautiful memories and new friends.

The trip is the main reason I have created a travel journal available at travelingcoder.com. It will be the place to all the posts I will hopefully write!

This is only the start of a pre-trip series of posts about planning my trip. I will talk more about budgeting and planning in the next couple of months.

Regions and duration of travel:

Full list of countries: