Planning a trip abroad

[swimmifish]

Hi! I'm going to be 24 next summer and after graduating from grad school, I'd really like to travel abroad. I graudate in May and my health insurance ends in August, so I've got 3 months to play. I don't even know how to begin planning a trip - I really want to travel to Australia, but would be fine with doing a trip to the UK. Any advice? My first instinct would be to find a planned trip, say, with my school, but I know that would be mad expensive. I don't want to go alone. Thanks!

[DC_Jessica]

I find the cheap-o way of traveling "alone" without traveling alone is to book your flight to whatever you can find that's cheapest, then book mini-tours once you get there. Odds are, your first day in, you'll find someone with a similar schedule to you who will sight-see a bit with you more...but if you don't, you've got the mini-tours.

I'm guessing you've already tried to find out if you have school friends in your position, but there's always Craig's List or trying to find a traveling meetup group in your city. I don't know if you run at all, but something that I've always considered is traveling abroad to various races, because there are ALWAYS runners from all over who do that, and of course if you're traveling to race, you'll want to sightsee with people you have things in common with (other runners!).

I travel "alone" because my friends spend money on clothes, time off on long weekends at the beach and are deathly afraid of the places that I'm so keen on traveling to. Buuuut...after your first "adventure" alone, the people you meet (it's always reciprocal) become your guide to your next destination. But this is coming from someone who is most definitely anti-tour (I think everybody's friendly, but sometimes I like being a crazy sight-seer, and sometimes I like getting a drink with a local or sitting near a monument and writing postcards or journals, but I don't know ahead of time what I want to do when...and I'm deathly afraid of accidentally booking a tour geared towards bridge clubs or families with small children or something and being stuck.)

That's too many opinions, I think, but the first one is something I genuinely feel might work for you. You don't have to wait until you get there to book the tours either. I used them to break up my time in Turkey just in case I didn't meet anyone to hang out with at the hostel, and it was a great change of pace (booked when I was still in Germany...).

Aaannndd...CONGRATULATIONS on your degree!

[expatben]

Congrats on the degree! I generally have these steps:

1) Plan where I want to go-in your case it seems Austrailia is it
2) Plan getting there-look at the dates you can use, how long you have vs how long you want and check out where in Aus you particularly want to be.
3)Look at cheap flights and hostles but be careful, make sure they are good hostles
4) having that you can now budget and plan your money. Be sure to add extra for food, traveling around the country and spending-be realistic on these.
If you find out you cannot afford it look at your options, maybe you could cut somethings out of your trip or something.

Thats my advice but I know there is better advice on theese boards so hang in there

[jaboba46]

look on the net for travel groups... they may be helpful. when i was in london i met a girl who had just got done seeing like 7 different places in the matter of 1 month with some group they camped out and stuff. she had nothing but good things to say about it because not only did she get to see different parts of the world but also got to meet people from around the world. i wish i could remember the name of that group she went with. sorry if thats not much help but it's something to look into if you don't want to go alone. but alone at times is the best.

i did alone in london and well you never are really alone there is always someone in the hostel looking for someone to join them. or you learn about different things to do from people in the hostel.

[beaco]

I just signed up to these boards. Do you know where you want to go in Aus. or what you want to do?

I live in melbourne, Australia and have travelled within australia a fair bit.

Some basics. Flying in australia has been historically expensive. However, some competition has allowed some cheaper flights. For internal flights look at webjet.com.au and flightcentre.com.au which search most airlines and give you the cheapest rate. I believe you could also but an 'australian airpass' with qantas/oneworld which would allow some internal flights.

Weather - For historical weather patterns look at www.bom.gov.au

Where to go:
If you like it warm then forget Melbourne in May. I suggest:

Queensland (southern queensland will be warm, northern should get hotter)
Surfers Paradise (beach, high rise buildings etc.)
Cairns (further north on the coast)
Maybe go up to townsville or magnetic island way up north

Winter in queensland is good cause there is no jelly fish and it's still warm.

Northern Territory (all of NT should be fairly hot)
Alice Springs
Uluru/Ayers Rock
Kings Canyon
Darwin
Lysterfield National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kings Canyon

WA (never been here)
Perth
Broome

That should keep you fairly busy for 3 months.