my trip round the world!
In and around World
Hello!! Welcome to my travel journal! After over a year's worth of saving and planning I set off for my round the world trip in October 2006 and travelled for six months to the US, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong arriving back in the UK in April 2007. I hope you enjoy reading about my travels!!
Suzanne O'Neill
Route taken and entries by Real Traveler Suz_1204
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1
Final preparations & packing! Week before my trip!
After lots of saving, planning & organsing it's very nearly time for me to start my trip! Starting to get excited but part of me do... Continue reading »
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2
Washington DC
After a very easy flight I arrived in my first destination-Washington DC! I was lucky as my sister Sam was coming out for the first week of the tri... Continue reading »
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3
New York City
Got the train from Washington to New York which only took about 3 and half hours, it was a very easy journey and train was practically empty! Had a... Continue reading »
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4
Los Angeles (well Hollywood anyway!)
I had heard some less than favourable comments about LA so didn't expect a great deal from Los Angeles and so had only planned to spend a couple of... Continue reading »
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5
San Diego & Tijuana
Met up with the Contiki tour at hotel in Anaheim where stayed the night and at 7.30 in the morning we were off on the first part of the trip! It wa... Continue reading »
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6
Arizona: On route to the Grand Canyon.....
Had long drive on the coach from San Diego up to Phoenix although thankfully the time went quicker than i expected! We stopped at a few places on r... Continue reading »
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7
The Grand Canyon
We arrived at the Grand Canyon in the early evening so our first view of the Canyon was as the sun was setting so that was pretty amazing! Took so... Continue reading »
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8
Las Vegas
It was quite a contrast arriving to the craziness of Vegas after coming from the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon! Weatherwise the... Continue reading »
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9
Yosemite National Park & Bass Lake
Had to leave Vegas very early, as was a long drive to the place we would be staying for the next 2 nights which was called Bass Lake and would be s... Continue reading »
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10
San Francisco
Leaving Bass Lake (in a bit of a sorry state, i must add) spent most of the morning in the coach driving up to San Francisco where we arr... Continue reading »
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11
Auckland (& Snells Beach)
After a 13 hour flight from LAX I arrived at Auckland airport at about 6 in the morning to an absolutely enormous queue at immigration which took a... Continue reading »
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12
Bay of Islands & Cape Reinga
I have actually gone slightly out of chronological sequence here as I actually started my trip up to Paihia from Snells Beach (where Mike &... Continue reading »
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13
Whitianga
After my trip up to the Bay of Islands decided to book rest of trip in New Zealand with Kiwi Experience so now had pass that would take me all th... Continue reading » -
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Rotorua
Had to be up at early as coach was leaving at 7.15 for Rotorua. Made a stop at place called Karangahake scenic reserve and did cool walk there at G... Continue reading »
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15
Waitomo
Waitomo itself is a very small place and people visit for one reason, to see the caves & resident glow worms! As it was such a small place, not... Continue reading »
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16
Taupo (& skydiving!)
Leaving Waitomo and the caves behind the coach continued on to Taupo. We went for nice walk around Huka falls and on coming into Taupo we stopped a... Continue reading »
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17
River Valley and Wellington
Absolutely poured with rain on drive from Taupo so we weren't able to to do any walking in the Tongariro National Park as we had planned but just s... Continue reading »
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18
Nelson
Had to be up and ready early in order to get early ferry from Wellington to Picton, was lucky that very nearly overslept but thankfully girls in... Continue reading » -
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Westport & Lake Mahinapua
The drive from Nelson to Westport was bit disappointing as was torrential rain so saw very little of the Nelson Lakes area but had to stop instead... Continue reading »
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20
Franz Josef
There was heavy rain once again so had a pretty uninteresting drive down to Franz Josef as didn't do many walks or anything as the weather was... Continue reading »
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21
Wanaka
Leaving a rainy Franz Josef, we started our drive down to Wanaka. First we made a brief stop at Fox but couldn't see much due to the weather so end... Continue reading »
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22
Queenstown
The drive from Wanaka didn't take very long and for once that was a bit of a shame as there were really pretty views, still it was nice to arrive s... Continue reading »
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23
Kaikoura
Had a long drive up from Queenstown to Christchurch where i spent the evening before going up to Kaikoura the following day. It was only a short dr... Continue reading »
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24
Christchurch
I didn't have a huge amount of time in Christchurch but as its quite a compact city I think it was enough and was able to see most of the main thin... Continue reading »
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25
Sydney
Managed to navigate my way from Sydney Airport to my hostel easily enough. I was staying right near the Central Station so was just a matter of get... Continue reading »
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26
Adelaide
After a very short and easy flight from Sydney I arrived in Adelaide in the late afternoon and after finding the local bus that went to the city ce... Continue reading »
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27
Kangaroo Island
One of the highlights of my trip to the Adelaide area was going on trip to Kangaroo Island for couple of days. It was a really fun t... Continue reading »
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28
Grampians NP & The Great Ocean Road
In order to get myself from Adelaide to Melbourne, I booked myself a three day trip with Groovy Grape, which covered the Great Ocean Road and Gramp... Continue reading »
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29
Melbourne: Christmas & Ashes
I spent the week over Christmas staying in St Kilda, which is the beach suburb of Melbourne. Melbourne was absolutely rammed full of English people... Continue reading »
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30
Sydney: Take 2!
I arrived back in Sydney a couple days before New Year and had 2 weeks in the city second time around. The New Year fireworks didn't dissapoin... Continue reading »
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31
Barrington & Surf Camp
Finally started my East Coast travels on the 10th January, as much as Sydney was a fun city it was nice to be on the move again as 2 weeks was the... Continue reading »
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32
Byron Bay
We finally arrived at Byron Bay but several hours late due to a bit of a disastrous journey from Surf Camp. There was a bit of a problem with the t... Continue reading »
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33
Brisbane
Pretty easy drive up from Byron to Brisbane, only had a couple of stops first to drop off/pick up passengers in Surfers Paradise and second to go Z... Continue reading »
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34
Noosa
Left Brisbane early in the morning and had short-ish drive up the Sunshine Coast to Noosa, we stipped along the way for a walk up to a good view po... Continue reading »
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35
Fraser Island
Left Noosa and got back on the bus to Hervey Bay. Along the way we stopped for a few hours at Rainbow Beach where we were shown... Continue reading »
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36
Kroombit
Arrived back from Fraser pretty shattered and just had the evening back at Hervey bay to get everything washed and all before heading off to Kroombit... Continue reading » -
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Airlie & The Whitsundays
After the long drive from Kroombit we arrived into Airlie Beach in early evening and after a brief tour of the town in the bus we were droppped off... Continue reading »
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38
Magnetic Island & Townsville
When the roads out of Airlie finally cleared I decided to get the bus up to Townsville and then get the ferry across to Magnetic Island to spend a... Continue reading »
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39
Cairns and Port Douglas
After the bad weather delay I ended up booking myself a flight for the relatively short journey from Townsville to Cairns to make sure ar... Continue reading »
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40
Alice Springs and Ayers Rock
Even though getting to the Red Centre isn't cheap am really glad we included it in our trip as I really felt was getting to see... Continue reading »
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41
Full circle: Back to Melbourne and Sydney
Ayers Rock was the last new place for me to visit on my Australia trip and the last couple of weeks saw me re-visiting old territory, starting with... Continue reading »
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42
A final week in North Queensland...
The final week of my 3 month Australia trip was going to be spent revisiting some of North Queensland. I decided to spend it up there as my previou... Continue reading »
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43
Singapore
Although I was still feeling pretty unwell when I arrived in Singapore I was still eager to see as much of the city as I could in the few days I ha... Continue reading »
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44
Melaka
After a reasonably early start and hearty hotel breakfast I met up with the others from my new tour group and we got a couple of taxis to take us t... Continue reading »
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45
Kuala Lumpur
From Melaka we took another coach to Kuala Lumpur, which was another fairly easy journey and it didnt take too long for us to walk f... Continue reading »
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46
Suka Suka Island Retreat
We set off from Kuala Lumpur to continue our trip northward bound and courtesy of a bus, minivan and a small boat we arrived on... Continue reading »
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47
Penang
After sadly leaving the idyllic island behind we headed off on on journey towards Penang. First off we had to go back into Kuala Kangsar again by b... Continue reading »
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48
Nakhon Si Thammarat
Nakhon Si Thammarat is one of the biggest cities in Southern Thailand but for us it was pretty much somewhere just to break up the journey on our way... Continue reading » -
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Ko Samui
Continuing our journey up through Thailand we finally arrived in Ko Samui after another pretty long travel day! We stayed on Ko Sa... Continue reading » -
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Bangkok
After having something to eat in Surat Thani we boarded the overnight train for Bangkok. We left at about 17.30 and got in just after 5 the next morni... Continue reading » -
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