Ten days is nowhere near long enough to see what the Philippines has to offer. I have to start this post with that disclaimer and to admit that after just a few days we were wishing we’d decided to stay and explore for at least a month!
We decided that we had time to spend a day in Manila, as we wanted to see at least some of the capital, and two islands. Initially we’d considered just one island but agreed in the end that we wanted to try and experience a few different places.
We approached our trip to Manila with a degree of trepidation, knowing that it can be a city that poses some challenges for visiting tourists. Many travellers either skip over the city all together by flying to Cebu or Kalibo, or choose to head straight from the airport onto another flight to the islands and beaches. We decided though that it would be a shame not to spend at least one day in Manila seeing what the city had to offer.
Brunei was never one of those countries that popped up on our ‘must see’ list. In fact, before we reached South East Asia I have to be honest and say I don’t think I’d ever even heard of it. When we decided to go to Borneo island, we realised it was just a 20 minute flight from where we were staying in Kota Kinabalu and well, it would have been rude not to visit really.
Arriving in the small city of Sandakan early evening we grabbed a taxi to our hostel and got checked in, ready to plan the next couple of days. We stayed at the Sandakan Sea View Backpacker Hostel and while there are a few hostels on this road I’d wholeheartedly recommend this one.
Money and time… wouldn’t we all love it if we had more of both. Sadly though, after ten months travelling we have only a few weeks until we need to think about heading home and our bank account has definitely seen better days. We’re not letting this hold us back too much though and our recent Borneo itinerary been a massive highlight of our trip.
This is based on our itinerary for Japan, but with some improvements and bits that we missed due to bad weather / jetlag etc. This two week Japan itinerary gives plenty of time to see the highlights in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima as well as some extra day trips to see even more of what Japan has to offer. Ideally you’ll be able to spend much longer than this, but this is a great two week outline to help you plan your trip.
We only had 24 hours in San Pedro De Atacama, as the tiny desert town was just a short stop off on our way from Salta, Argentina to the Bolivian salt flats. Turns out that it was one of the busiest – and best – days of our trip and that San Pedro is absolutely packed with amazing things to do. We’ve been meaning to write about it for ages but have only just got round to it, so here goes!
I have to be honest, Newcastle wasn’t one of the original stops we had in mind for our 1 month journey of Australia’s east coast. We met some awesome girls from Newcastle when we were in South America and they invited us to come and see them when we reached Australia, promising to give us a tour of the area. Turns out there’s loads to do in Newcastle, it’s a beautiful little spot in New South Wales that’s a perfect base for exploring the local region and we had an awesome time there.
Kyoto is the best place to visit if you’re looking for a little slice of Japanese history, away from the skyscrapers and craziness of Tokyo and Osaka. I’d say you need at least 4 days in Kyoto to see the highlights. Our trip was seriously busy but we managed to cram in loads – from temples and tea ceremonies to beautiful gardens and some great restaurants. Prepare yourself now, this post is a long one, you might want to get a cup of tea and get comfy – luckily I’ve included about a million pictures so if you like you can just look at those to get you through to the end 🙂
I wasn’t going to write this post as so many bloggers have written amazing things about travelling on this side of the world. As it stands though, our 10 week South America Itinerary and our 1 Month Australia Itinerary are some of our most popular posts. It’s also an opportunity to look back on our adventures as I can hardly believe that a whole 6 months has passed since we arrived to start our 10 weeks in Australia and New Zealand, with a bonus stop off in Fiji. Time flies when you’re having fun!
So many people who visit Taiwan never make it out of Taipei, which I think is a huge mistake when there are so many other awesome cities to see! Despite a somewhat dodgy start, we found loads of awesome things to do in Taichung, and it turned out to be our favourite city in Taiwan. Deciding to save money by walking the 30 minutes from the station to our hostel we found ourselves walking through some pretty sketchy looking areas. Tower blocks, concrete high rises and busy roads made the whole place feel pretty bleak and soulless and we thought we may have made a bit of an error. We figured that we only had a one day in Taichung anyway so perhaps it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we had to stay in our apartment and get some work done.
Arriving in Taipei was an instant culture shock of the best kind and we loved every minute of our time in this amazing city. It’s one of the few places where my overly high expectations didn’t leave me disappointed and actually as we’ve continued our journey round Taiwan we’ve fallen more and more for the country. It’s a little crazy, very busy and intense at times but the people are so friendly and there’s so much to do that you can’t really help but love it. Do make sure that if you visit Taiwan you leave time to spend at least 3 days in Taipei exploring all the city has to offer.