Before departure

Vaccines
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid fever
- Yellow fever
- Cholera
- Maybe malaria prophylaxis. Refused in Sweden, have a travel medicine appointment in Portugal right before I leave

Medicines
- Paracetamol
- Ibuprofen
- Anti-histamine
- Rehydration mix
- Anti-diarrhea pills
- Anti-septic cream
- Melatonin
- Lidocain cream
- Laxatives

Documents and cards
- Passport
- Driving license
- International driving license (needed in Australia at least)
- ISIC card
- 2 debit cards
- 1 credit card
- Vaccination certificate
- VISA to India

Other
- Tickets
- Internet banking
- Antiseptic wet wipes
- Electronic thermometer
- Sunglasses
- Pen
- Permanent marker
- Pencil
- Flashlight

Books and Music

Books:
- Poesias, Heterónimos - Fernando Pessoa
- Estrela Errante - JMG Le Glésio
- Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
- Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer
- Sean & David's Long Drive - Sean Condon
- India travel guide from Lonely Planet
- Mumbai and Goa travel guide from Time Out
- Nepal travel guide from Lonely Planet (Tiago will bring it)
- Travel journal
- Notebook

Music:
- Adriana Calcanhotto - Cantada
- Amy Winehouse - Rehab
- Animal Collective - Feels
- Animal Collective - Straberry Jam
- Arcade Fire - Funeral
- Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
- Asha Ali - Asha Ali
- Babyshambles - Shotter's Nation
- Beck - Odelay
- Beirut - Lon Gisland
- Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
- Ben Harper - Greatest Hits
- Blasted Mechanism - Mix 00
- Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
- Blur - The best of
- Bob Sinclar - Western Dream
- Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
- Cake - Fashion Nugget
- Carla Bruni - Quelqu'un M'a Dit
- Carlos Paredes - Antologia - Uma Guitarra Com Gente Dentro
- Cat Power - Jukebox
- The Charlatans - Forever, the singles
- The Chemical Brothers - Surrender
- Clã - Cintura
- Clã - Lustro
- The Clash - The story of the Clash (vol 1)
- CSS - Cansei de ser sexy
- The Cure - Galore
- Damien Rice - O
- David Bowie - The Platinum Collection
- Death In Vegas - Scorpio Rising
- Depeche Mode - The Best of Depeche Mode
- dEUS - In a Bar, Under The Sea
- The Do - A Mouthful
- The Doors - The best of
- Dulce Pontes - Lágrimas
- Eddie Vedder - Into The Wild
- Editors - An End Has A Start
- Eels - Beautiful Freak
- Eels - Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
- Elliott Smith - Either/Or
- Emiliana Torrini - Fisherman's Friend
- Emiliana Torrini - Love In The Time Of Science
- Explosions In The Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
- Faithless - Forever Faithless: The Greatest Hits
- Feist - Let It die
- Feist - The Reminder
- Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
- Goldfrap - Felt Mountain
- Goldfrap - Seventh Tree
- Gomez - Bring It On
- Gomez - In Our Gun
- Gomez - Liquid Skin
- Hello Saferide - More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide
- Humanos - Humanos
- Interpol - Antics
- Interpol - Our Love To Admire
- Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
- Iron & Wine - The Shepard's Dog
- Jorge Palma - No Tempo Dos Assassinos
- Joy Division - Closer
- Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
- Kings Of Convenience - Quiet Is The New Loud
- Koop - Koop Island
- LCD Soundsystems - LCD Soundsystems
- LCD Soundsystems - Sounds Of Silver
- The Libertines - Time For Heroes: Best Of Libertines
- Madredeus - Os Dias Da Madredeus
- The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
- Mando Diao - Ode To Ochracy
- Manu Chao - Clandestino
- Massive Attack - Collected
- Mogwai - Come On Die Young
- Moloko - Things To Make and Do
- The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
- Muse - Black Holes & Revelations
- The National - Boxer
- New Order - Singles
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Abattoir Blues Tour
- Nirvana - From The Muddy Banks of The Wishkah
- Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
- Oh Laura - A Song In My Head, A Demon In My Bed
- Okkervil River - Black Cheap Boy
- Okkervil River - The Stage Names
- Pedro Abrunhosa - Momento
- Pedro Abrunhosa - Tempo
- Pedro Abrunhosa - Viagens
- Pixies - Best of The Pixies - Wave Of Mutilation
- Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts (Bonus CD)
- Portishead - Dummy
- Rádio Macau - O Elevador da Glória
- Radiohead - Amnesiac
- Radiohead - The Bends
- Radiohead - OK Computer
- Radiohead - Pablo Honey
- Rage Against The Machines - Rage Against The Machines
- Resistência - Ao vivo no armazem 22
- Sétima Legião - Mar D'Outubro
- Sétima Legião - A Um Deus Desconhecido
- Sigur Rós - Ágaetis Byrjun
- Sigur Rós - Meo Suo i eyrum vid spilum endalaust (2008)
- Sigur Rós - Takk...
- Sigur Rós - ()
- The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness
- The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
- Sol Seppy - The Bells of 1 2
- Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
- Suede - Coming Up
- Taken By Trees - Open Field
- The Teenagers - Reality Check
- U.N.P.O.C. - Fifth Column
- Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
- The White Stripes - Elephant
- Xutos & Pontapés - Vida Malvada
- Zero 7 - Simple Things

Miscellaneous:
- High Fidelity Soundtrack
- Trainspotting Soundtrack
- Dig For Fire - A tribute to Pixies

Planning

Well, the first step in such a trip is of course to make a draft of a route.

My first draft included Tibet, New Guinea, East Timor and the Pacific Islands, in addition to the destinations mentioned in the itinerary. Reasons for having skipped those destinations were: the difficulty in getting the visa to Tibet, when traveling there from Nepal; with the route we planed it was hard to get to the other destinations. Of course time was also one of the reasons to skip some of these destinations.

I also read a little bit while preparing and planning the trip. The book by the Portuguese "professional" traveler Gonçalo Cadilhe (Planisfério Pessoal) was a big inspiration. Other books I used to prepare the trip:
- The Rough Guide To First-Time Around the World, from Rough Guides - I really enjoyed the book. It has a lot of nice comments and suggestions for both the rich and the budget travellers.
- Vagabonding by Rolf Pott, another "professional" traveler, was also a good source.
- Different guides about India and Nepal that I rented at the Public Library in Stockholm
- The internet, specially Wikitravel, travel-nation, lonely planet, blog Tempo de Viajar, among others.

But the best source of information was meeting friends that had been in the places I am going to visit. I have met friends who spoke about their experiences in India, Nepal, Thailand and New Zealand.

Budget:

We both have a similar budget. 10000 EUR.
We bought our Oneworld ticket from TravelNation . We paid around 3000 EUR (2305 british pounds) for the ticket and around 250 EUR(186 british pounds) for the insurance. The visa to India cost around 50 EUR (500 Swedish Crowns). The vaccines cost overall 150 euros (1500 SEK). Other basic things, including, clothes, books, travel guides, backpack, among other small things, were whether bought or offered by friends (thanks guys :)). Overall value is around 300 EUR.

My budget after all the expenses is around 40 EUR/day.

Luggage:
- 40l Backpack
- 20l bag
- Sleeping bag
- 4 T-shirts
- 2 Sweat-shirts
- 5 Socks and underwear
- Ski layers (they are light, warm and don't take much space)
- 1 polar coat
- 2 pairs of jeans
- 2 shirts
- 1 rain coat
- 1 pair of swimming shorts
- 1 pair of shorts
- 1 pair of trekking snickers
- 1 pair of sandals
- 1 pair of light shoes
- 1 bandana
- 1 towel
- 1 fast drying small towel
- First aid kit
- Toiletry
- Water purification drops
- Compact camera
- 16 Gb USB drive
- Ipod
- Books
- Travel guides
- Ear plugs

Toiletry
- Toothbrush
- Toothpaste
- Dental floss
- Perfume sample
- Lip cream
- Razor
- Razor cream
- Sunscrean
- Mosquito repellent
- Mirror
- Shampoo/Shower gel (2 in 1)
- Deodorant

Itinerary

At first I was planning to travel on my own. My friend Tiago, who I met when I moved to Sweden, finished his PhD at about the same time as me, and also felt that it was time to stop and think before moving on. We met, discussed the places we would like to visit and in the end decided to travel together. This is the final plan we came up with.



Step 0: on the 14th I'll take a Ryanair flight from OPorto to London. I paid 30 EUR for it. This kind of the pre-trip. Since we bought the ticket from travel-nation, which is based in the UK, we had to start the trip from an English airport.

First flight: 17th of January, London-Mumbai (via Helsinki)
Second flight: 17th of February (waiting list for the 25th), Kathmandu-Hong-Kong
Third flight: 1st of March, Hong-Kong-Bangkok
Fourth flight: 20th of March, Bangkok-Sydney
Fifth flight: 15th of April, Sydney-Auckland
Sixth flight: 01st of May, Auckland-Papeete
Seventh flight: 04th of May, Papeete-Easter Island
Eighth flight: 7th of May, Easter Island-Santiago
Ninth flight: 15th of July, Mexico city-London


Countries we plan to visit:
- India
- Nepal
- Hong-Kong*
- Macao*
- Thailand
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Tahiti**
- Chile
- Argentina
- Uruguai
- Peru
- Colombia
- Mexico
* Autonomous Chinese Regions
** Part of the French Polynesia

Our plan is to travel 6 months, around 2 months in each continent: Asia, Oceania and South and Central America. Plane will be used in the longest distances, but we also plan to use bus transportation (mostly in South and Central America and in Southeastern Asia), train (India), renting minivans (Australia and New Zealand), renting scooters or small motor cycles whenever we feel that we can drive them safely and we want to hike in some of the places we will visit. Boat is also under consideration for some parts of the trip: South to Central America, the Pacific crossing and Hong-Kong to Macao. We bought a round the world ticket from OneWorld. This allows us to take 15 flights and travel 34000 miles. All the flights that we know we will take were booked in November. We can add new flights during our trip, change timetables. All the other tickets to buses, trains etc will be bought when we need them.

The begining

Traveling has long been one of the things in life that pleases me the most. My oldest memory of a trip was a summer vacation to the Algarve. This was back in the days when there were hardly any highways in the country, the cars were slow and the whole family was packed in the same vehicle. A journey that took me 4.30 hours just a few days ago, took at least 10h back then.

After that I was lucky to having the chance to travel all over Europe. Two interrails, road trips, visits to friends living in different parts of Europe and living in The Netherlands and in Sweden allowed me not only to know places but to interact with different people and cultures, which is one of the things that pleases me the most when I'm traveling.

But in the last years work didn't allow many adventures. Instead, a plan for a long trip around the world began to take shape. The first time I met someone who had done a round the world trip was in The Netherlands. I became friends with a guy from work who had traveled for a year around the world. After that I've met many people who had done long and "crazy" trips, and so I began to plan my own trip.

And now that the PhD is over, it's the right time to take some time off. And this will be the place where I'll leave some of my experiences for those who are curious about it. I hope this blog will inspire others to travel. Enjoy and come on traveling with me ;)
RC

About Me

Name: Ricardo Carvalho

Born in: 1981

Academic: Degree in Biochemistry
PhD in Medical Sciences

Nationality: Portuguese

Current address: Stockholm, Sweden

Previous addresses: Figueira da Foz, Coimbra and Braga in Portugal, and Utrecht in the Netherlands

Hobbies: Sports (football, tennis, squash, badminton, jogging), Reading, Music, Hanging Out With Friends, Traveling, Photography