Scotland! Skye.

The Quirang.
(Photo by Luis Ascenso.  Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

If you had asked me, before I began planning this trip, to name an island in Scotland, Skye would have been the first word out of my mouth. I would then hesitate for a few seconds and then utter, "Shetland?" not relaxing that it was not just one island but a cluster. "Orkney?" would have followed in a similar vein. I don't think I was unusual in that I knew of Skye as being a Scottish isle but couldn't identify any of the others without prompting.

Scotland! Outer Hebrides.

That structure, perched on the hillside is Aird Druim an Tolla, the home of Alasdair Leonard and his trusty four legged companion, Ross in Finsbay, Harris, Outer Hebrides.  Alasdair rents out a twin room and for one night, Pat and I will be sleeping there.

After just a few short days roaming through the Scottish Islands, our roadtrip will continue, via ferry, to the Outer Hebrides. Our arrival point will be the town of Stornoway, the capital city of the Isle of Lewis and Harris, the northern most island in the cluster of islands that make up the Outer Hebrides.

From Perth to Ullapool Via Grantown-on-Spey.

Pitlochry
(Screen capture from YouTube Video by SeeScotland)

Tvillage of Ullapool, located along the coast of the northwest highlands is where we need to be to catch the ferry to the Outer Hebrides.  It's about a four hour drive to go to Ullapool from Glasgow, via Inverness, but we're going to be taking a two day journey starting in the city of Perth.   Our drive pretty much takes us along a section of the A9 roadway until we reach Inverness and there we head west on the A835 to Ullapool.  There are not a lot of main roadways in the relatively small country of Scotland!

Faroe Islands & Scotland! On The Road.

Photo from Unicar, the agency we rented our car from for our week in the Faroe Islands.

I 've been driving for almost 40 years and have done my fair share of driving overseas - most recently in Russia.  So I am very comfortable with having to adjust my driving style to match whatever the road or traffic conditions or driving laws are in the country that I am going to be doing a self drive road trip in.  If you really want to get a good sense of what driving in is like in any country, just search for driving videos on YouTube.  I think pretty much every traveler has posted up a video of themselves driving on a trip.  Nothing beats watching a video to get a good sense of road and traffic conditions!

Traipsing Through the Trossachs.

The A82 passing through Glencoe.
(Photo by Stuart MacInnes. Licensed under CC BY 2.0) 

We will be picking up our rental car at the airport and Glasgow and for the next 2.5 weeks will be driving around Scotland, including a route that will take us to the highlands and via a loop through the Outer and Inner Hebrides will bring us back to the highlands and then Glasgow.

Scotland's City of Art and Architecture. Glasgow.

Shadow Hand Puppets, Cowcaddens Underpass. Street Mural by Rogue One (aka Bobby McNamara) in collaboration with Art Pistol.
(Photo from the City Centre Mural Trail website.)

We will arrive into Glasgow by train from Aberdeen after spending a week in Shetland and Orkney.  I started researching Glasgow by looking for Airbnb apartments for us to stay in and noticed that there weren't all that many tourist sites to see that were not either castles or palaces or gardens.  Not that I don't like castles, palaces or gardens but Scotland is so full of these that coming to Glasgow to just see more did not thrill me one bit. 

Scotland! The Shetland and Orkney Islands.

St. Ninian's Isle and the tombolo connecting it to the mainland, Shetland Islands
(Photo by ThomWi. Licensed under Public Domain)

When I first started giving thought to the itinerary for this trip, I turned to the country's official tourism website for ideas.  By the way, that website is so informative that that is pretty much the primary website I used to plan this trip.  Another very useful website is Historic Environment Scotland which provides a lot of information on historic sites (there are lots!) throughout Scotland.

Faroe Islands!

Lake Sørvágsvatn, Faroe Islands.  (Photo posted on reddit by u/Sakemeister)

Our grand odyssey through the Faroe Islands and Scotland begins in the Faroe Islands which is a North Atlantic archipelago located 320 kilometers (200 miles) north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway between Norway and Iceland. Between 1035 and 1814, the Faroes were part of the Hereditary Kingdom of Norway. In 1814, the Treaty of Kiel granted Denmark control over the islands, along with two other Norwegian island possessions: Greenland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands have been a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark since 1948.

Faroe Islands & Scotland! Overview.

Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye, Inner Hebrides, Scotland
(Photo by Drianmcdonald. Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

I have a BIG trip coming up and I am so excited!  I started planning this trip more than two years ago.  It originated with a desire to attend the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, another of my life long dreams.  As so often happens, going to Scotland for the Tattoo was just the tip of the iceberg.  Before long, a short visit to Scotland turned into a five week long odyssey covering the islands and highlands that the country is so famous for.   Not to mention, a side trip to the Faroe Islands which are technically a part of Denmark.  Accompanying me on this trip is my ever intrepid travel partner, Pat, whom I have not traveled with since we explored Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia back in 2015.  She's getting up in the years (85 years young this year) and I don't know how many more trips she can do so I want this one to be a special one for both of us so I've taken more time than usual planning it!

Lebanon!

Lebanon is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus is west across the Mediterranean Sea.  Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland facilitated its rich history and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity.

Trans Siberian Railway Journey. Updated Itinerary.

It's been several months since I started planning this trip and since then I've learned a lot about the Trans Siberian Railway and several of the towns and cities that it passes through. As a result, what I thought would be our final itinerary back in February turned out to be the second of many iterations.  Planning this train ride has proven to be much more challenging than I had expected but I think it will be worth all the time and effort that went into putting the overall trip together.

The Land of the Tsars Via the Trans Siberian Railway.

Shamans Rock, Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal
(Photo by amanderson2.  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

This year I finally get to fulfill one of my long time travel dreams - to go across Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway!  I am so excited that every time I think about this truly epic adventure, I literally burst with anticipation of the moment that I board the train.

The Blossoms Tour. China 2018

Someone took this photo of place known as Apricot Valley.  If you know the name of the photographer, please click on the Send feedback button and let me know their name so I can give them proper credit for capturing this incredible view!

I've been home, from my summer trip to India and Nepal for a little over four months now and I have been sorely delinquent in doing any blogging about that trip. Hopefully, with winter just around the corner, I will find myself cooped up indoors and will productively spend the time in front of the computer recalling that most amazing trip.

India and Nepal. A Happy Return.

Hemis Festival.
(Photo by rajkumar1220. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license).

My first trip to India and Nepal was back in 2007.  I had signed up for a 10 day overland tour of Tibet.  The starting point was Kathmandu, Nepal.  In researching flight options to Kathmandu, I came across flights leaving from Delhi.  That got me thinking that I could tack on a few days at the front end of my trip to visit Delhi and of course, Agra.  I also added a couple of days to Kathmandu so I could explore the city both ahead and after the tour.

Chile, Argentina and Uruguay! Itinerary, Planning Resources & Trip Costs.

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina
(Photo by Luca Galuzzi.  Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.)

We're going to South America!  I don't think we had even left Thailand yet when Bro and I talked about where we would go to next.  That was this past February.  Of course, South America came up.  I've only been to one country - Peru.  Bro's never been.  It's a big continent and we bounced around ideas of where we would like to travel to.  We finally settled on Chile and Argentina.

The China Silk Road. Itinerary.

Maijishan Grotto, Tianshui.  (Photo by Shizhao.  Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.)

I  kicked off this year with plans to travel to Korea with my friend George. He was only able to take a short time off of work to go with me.  But there was no way I was going to fly all the way to Korea for less than 2 weeks.  My travel mantra is that for every hour I fly, I have to stay at least a day.   That would mean a minimum of 16 days in Korea and George was not able to do that.  So, I needed to find some other place to go to to make up the time.  Originally, I had thought of going to Hong Kong.  Our trip would coincide with the Annual Mid Autumn aka Moon Festival and there would be no better place to celebrate that than in China.  Hong Kong was a close destination.

The Caucasus. Itinerary and Cost Comparison.

Azerbaijan Landscape.  Photo by Matthew Hadley. Licensed under CC BY 1.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

It's hard to believe that at the same time that I am planning a trip to Myanmar and Thailand, I'm also planning a trip to the Caucusus! 

It's been crazy juggling the load of keeping destinations, travel dates, local guides, and flights all in order but I've gotten good at it having done it for so many other trips now.  Last year, I was handling Turkey and Greece and the five Central Asia countries all at the same time and before we even left for Central Asia, I already had Madagascar in the works!   Hi, my name is Julee and I am a travel addict :-)

Myanmar. Itinerary.

Kalaw, Myanmar.  (Photo from travelmediate)

It has been a couple of months since I reached out to several of my travel partners to see if any of them would be interested in doing a trip to Myanmar. I was lucky that two responded - Bro and my friend, Ayşe.  The three of us traveled through Mexico in 2011 and we had so much fun that I've been looking for a follow up trip ever since.  This will be that trip!  I'm very excited.

Madagascar. Itinerary.

I'm retired so I have all the time in the world to travel so long as I have the financial means. Poor George though. He's still a worker bee and while he does get vacation time, he understandably wants to be able to spend it with his longtime partner as well. So, I am grateful to Joe for allowing me to borrow George for a few days.  This will be by far the shortest duration trip that I've been given the cost and expense but hey, you gotta live when you have the chance!  Besides, it's worth it just so I get to harrass travel with George for a few days.

When we finally agreed to go on this trip, we split up the planning responsibilities.  George would look for the flights - not easy given the constraints that I put on him.  I would handle the itinerary which I think is the more difficult of the two tasks but given that I have the time plus if I might say so myself, I am a whiz at planning trips, it made sense for me to handle this task.

I started by searching on the web for ideas for a 7 day trip to Madagascar.  Most trips I came across were for 10 days or more but rare as they were, I did find itineraries for a week long trip.  It also just so happened that I received the 2015 National Geographic Adventures catalog in the mail.   Look what's on the cover.  It's a trip to Madagascar. The Nat Geo trip is a much longer in duration but I figured that the places were going to would be the highlights so I focused on putting those on our itinerary. Using the ideas I found for the 7 day trips plus ideas from the Nat Geo trip, I put came up with a list of the places that I though we could cover in 6-7 days.   As you can expect, I had to cull out a few places here and there as we just don't have the time.  Maybe one day, we'll go back and see what we didn't get to cover on this trip.

Central Asia. Itinerary.

Our itinerary is fixed by the tour that we're taking. We started with the basic tour offered by Advantour and then added one day to Tashkent and one to Almaty.

Here's how our Central Asian adventure will unfold over 26 days.