Welcome to WanderGaels

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to WanderGaels. This blog exists mainly to update you, our families and friends (and anyone else who doesn't so neatly fit into those categories), on myself and Aisling's goings-on as we make our way eastward around the globe via Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. As well as providing some (potentially snore-inducing) practical details of our little jaunt for any potential travellers, we'll also attempt to give you a taste of some of the places we'll be visiting by offering snippets of information about the local people, history, food, and all-round culture. We'll add a few choice photos to help us do this along the way.

For example, here's an obligatory jumping-in-the-air photo that has nothing to do with our travels (I can't promise it'll be the last):

At this stage, you might be wondering why we decided to undertake such a voyage. Or, alternatively (and probably more likely), you might not care. Either way, here's why:

Firstly, neither of us have ever been lucky enough (in the last 25 years at least) to have visited any of the places we are planning to travel to, and we really want to see some new places that we have never experienced and may not get the chance to go to again. It might seem like a given that it's a bit risky to up and leave home, work, and family but, fortunately, we don't have major immediate commitments or responsibilities keeping us in Ireland for the next few months so, as they say, now is the time.

Getting organised:

Once we had made the decision to embark on our wee escapade, the organisational fun began. We booked our trip through Trailfinders, and booked most of our flights on a OneWorld round-the-world ticket. This is a multi-airline ticket that allows travellers to fly (or cover over land) a limited number of miles in a limited number of countries. The over-land part covered by this ticket consists of the distance between arrival and departure flight destinations, and the in-the-air part is distance covered by flying (duh). Luckily enough, we managed to be able to book most of the flights we needed under this ticket, except for our internal Asia flights, which we booked (or will book) separately ourselves.

Once the main flights were booked, we needed to get visas for China and Australia before we departed. We applied for the Australia visa online, and it was generally straightforward, but getting the China visa required two trips to the Chinese visa office in Dublin; one for application and one for collection. The next things we needed to get were shots (no, not that type of shots), which we got for a varied assortment of pleasant maladies, such as hepatitis, yellow fever, typhoid, and tetanus. Once fully vaccinated, and with the required visas in hand, we proceeded to gather some 'necessary' supplies, such as mosquito nets, deet mosquito repellent, and mini locks for our bags (mainly to prevent unwanted items being covertly placed in our bags at airports without us knowing). After an admittedly  less-than-thorough peruse of some online backpacker forums for information, we acquired two 65-litre backpacks with a smaller 15-litre detachable bag on each one, filled them with all our bits and bobs, and we were on our merry little way...