paulr

Where did you go,what was it like,would you recommend it or was it a letdown.
Just interested to know.
(Obviously i'm not on about day trips.)

RESSE

iTrader: (1)

I went to Australia in 1997 (via Singapore) on my own and Oz was superb (stayed in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide).

Very very long journey but worth it

Richard

paulr

How long for?

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

I travelled around europe on my own, was gone for about 2 years, was in denmark the longest, fantastic country.

james

Danny B

I travelled Canada, West coast USA, Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong & India on my own between 93 - 95.
I was backpacking but met loads of other people on the way so it wasn't as if I was really alone. Scariest part was west coast USA believe it or not, everywhere else was fine in regards to personal safety.

Thoroughly enjoyed myself and would recommend everyone taking a year or two out when there young to get a degree in human nature..

sti-04!!

I have a friend doing it just now, spoke to her last week & she was in vietnam, we both were going to do it years ago but i bottled out of it, so she went about 8 weeks ago & will be gone for another 9 months at least

ozzy

Australia last year, Alaska this summer. Would recommend Alaska to anyone wanting to travel. I fancy seeing South America, NZ and Russia (or go back to Alaska) next year.

Travelling alone forces you to meet new people and it's very easy to do.

RESSE

iTrader: (1)

3 weeks - ended up having my 30th Birthday in Sydney.

Apparition

Makes switzerland seem a bit tame !
Yve

paulr

Why was that?

Danny B

I didn't feel safe walking around the streets of LA with a huge bloody backpack on which I felt was shouting out "I'm a backpacker, come and mug me". Got some funny looks as generally speaking American's don't do the backpacking thing outside of their own country.
There was also a distinct lack of youth hostels in that part of the country, had to make do with cheap motels.

sti-04!!

Any hookers ??

TopBanana

Everyone seems to go to Thailand and India - hippy meccas.

TopBanana

I don't think it's fair to call LA representative of the West Coast.

mark1234

Did it for a couple of months. Would do it again.. Can be fantastic - I'd certainly recommend doing it 'on the cheap' - not staying in hotels even if you can afford it. Hostels, dorm rooms and campsites mean you almost *have* to meet people. Keep the money for doing stuff. Stayed with friends in sydney, hostelled the west coast windsurfing, boat trips round whitsundays, campervan in NZ (now that was fun!)

Downsides: Most people travelling are either gapping/immediately out of university, or confirmed dropouts. Nothing wrong with either, but I'm a bit older, and was taking a career break to contemplate where to go in life.. Found that the lack of an 'intelligent' conversation was driving me mad, just at the time that I wanted to talk. In the end that was what brought me home. Two weeks later I wondered what the **** I'd been thinking

unclebuck

Great - I'm off to LA next week. Won't be backpacking in no cheap Motels though.

Backpacking is a huge global industry now. You can mainly thank the Australians for that.

Danny B

OK fair enough, how about Seattle, Salem and LA? out of the three LA was by far the worst for feeling safe.

Cool Chick

A friend of mine went travelling around Australia and New Zealand for 18 months. She finally came home last year and said it was the best thing she'd ever done!

Basically, she went out there with a few grand after saving up for about a year so she didnt have to work for about the first 9-10 months. After that she worked in order to carry on travelling around the whole of Australia and had the time of her life.

She would recommend it to absolutley everyone and to be honest, once I'd seen the photo's and heard the stories she had to tell it certainly opened my eyes! I hope to do it at some point or another, but I suppose if I do is another story all together!!

Nicci

I agree with you.

As a general tourist is fine.

The worst section as a backpacker is between LA and San Francisco (glad I experienced that near the end of my trip)
Seattle is good for backpackers though.

Luan Pra bang

done Thailand Indonesia Laos Malaysia Vietnam Cambodia etc

Great fun met loads of people some total muppets some I still talk to today. South east asia very easy to back pack and even better if you have the nuts to get off the backpacker trail in countries like vietnam and see some things tourists don't ever see.

Traveling on your own is the best way to learn to judge people and learn to trust your instincts. I would reccomend it to anyone and now my whole life plan is about earning enough cash to travel indefinately.

Brendan Hughes

Cycled round France and Germany for 3 weeks alone when I was 15.

Bought one-way ticket to Russia in 1993, with a 1mth language course booked in St Petersburg and then an internship in an office in Moscow. Came back 4 mths later when my money ran out.

Sent to Belgium with 6 days' notice, stayed for 2 years. Got a job in Mongolia for a year. From Mongolia, went round Hong Kong for 4 days, saw EVERYTHING. Now I'm here.

Travelling's great.

BMWhere?

I Spent 5 weeks travelling New Zealand on my own in 2003!

...well, mostly on my own! My brother got married over there, so my entire family were there too for around the same period, but I purposely travelled the opposite direction and we just met in the middle for the wedding.

I also met quite a few people there in various hostels and ended up travelling with them for a few days when it suited!

Flights were a bit boring on my own, but the planes (Quantas) were quite new and had entertainment systems on each seat, so managed to waste a few hours playing tetris!

Flew via Singapore but didn't bother with a stop-over as I didn't wan't to loose any the time and have too lots of jet-lag. I did spend a couple of days in Sydney though as I really wanted to go there! Singapore airport's pretty good though, I had a 4 hour wait on the way back and spent the time in the airport swimming pool

New Zealand itself... well, all I can say is AMAZING! Well worth the trip! I travelled from South to North which is the opposite of most tourists and meant I avoided all the masses when using public transport and less slow drivers to overtake when in hire cars (which are really cheap too!).

Managed to time my trip to fit in with Rally NZ too and with hospitality from OMV team just to top it off - Fantastic rally to go and see

Travelling alone was really good too. Its good not having to make compromises for other people! You go and see exactly what you want and when you want to and at your own pace! When travelling with other people in the past, you always end up with differences of opinion and you find that they dont want to see the things you want to and try and rush you and vice-versa!

As I mentioned earlier, I also met quite a few people at hostels, so there was always people willing to go out in the evening and I often found people going in the same direction and wanting to do the same thing for a few days. Its also amazing how often you keep bumping into the same people.

It was also my birthday while I was over there and managed to have a fantastic party with a load of people I never met before and it turned out to be one of the best birthdays I've ever had!

In summary, I would definately recommend travelling alone and visiting New Zealand!

Hope thats some help for you!

paulr

That all sounds good,mixing it with work..............

Brendan Hughes

It's OK. The work aspects aren't comparable with backpacking - you have a company to sort out all the admin problems for you, you see less as you need to sit in the same office five days a week, and probably you don't mix with "the real populace" very much - but way, way better than staying in the UK for life and growing up with the island "all furriners are weird" mentality.

I'm tired of reading on here "if they don't like it, they can **** off back to where they came from" when perhaps most Brits who move abroad also refuse to integrate. Just because people do something differently, it doesn't mean that they are wrong.

Dracoro

I hitched around france/portugal and spain. The interailed just about the rest of western europe except scandinavia. Been to the US coupla times + Canada, New Zealand and Israel.

If you're looking to travel/do something different and you're young then I'd recommend a Kibbutz in Israel. Had the time of my life there 11 years ago.

BMWhere?

Couldn't agree more! I've met many Brits over here in Germany that have been here for years, can't speak a word of German and are only friends with other Brits yet are so highly oppinionated about immigrants in the UK!