I’m not going to go into my exact dates of when i’ll be flying, for safety reasons but i’ll write my destination plans! I’ll be flying up to Auckland to spend the night with my best-friend before I leave on my trip. She’s currently pregnant with her first child so by then i’d have had lots of cuddles with her new baby boy!! 
First stop is San Francisco – I’ll be staying there for about 5 days and i’m really hoping to go to Alcatraz while i’m there! And maybe even do a little bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge 🙂 
Next stop is Los Angeles 🙂 I’ve heard mixed reviews of this glamour town but I feel it’s a must see! I’m worried i’ll overspend here!
I’m then heading off for a Contiki Tour across the United States! If you’re un-sure what Contiki is – it’s a Travel Operated Coach Tour which operates in Europe, Egypt, Australia, New zealand, North & South America and Asia.
They do three types of tours –
-Camping Tours (which are the least expensive as you rough it a bit but are really popular with gap year students)
-Budget/concept tours (you stay in backpacker style accommodation or specialized contiki villages and get to meet lots of people, great if you’re going solo like me!)
–Superior Tours (most expensive of the tours but you stay in tourist hotels with nicer accommodation)
Thanks Wikipedia!
I’m doing a budget high-energy tour! So my days are spent discovering the sights and thrills of America and partying it up at night. The tour promises twin-share accommodation, breakfast each day plus some dinners at hotels and local restaurants, sight-seeing tours of the major cities and some included activities such as a limo ride down the Las Vegas strip.
As this is my own honest opinion blog, i’ll be writing an honest post about the whole experience when i’ve finished it!
I’ll be starting in Los Angeles and visiting Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and finishing up in New York 🙂 I’m very excited! As i’m going solo I hope to meet lots of other travellers in the same kind of boat as me. I have a tendency to get really run down when I party too much so I hope that doesn’t happen while i’m on the trip. (It has a bit of a reputation for being a party tour) Then I spend around a week in New York City at the end of my tour! 
I’m most excited to see New York. As far back as I can remember I’ve been dreaming of the day i’ll see NY. When I was little I was obsessed. (I probably watched too many TV shows that featured it haha) I still haven’t booked my accommodation for here so any recommendations for a solo traveller would be great 🙂 Then I’m off to London for a few days before I start another tour!
I’m going to be doing a Top Deck tour for a few weeks around Europe.
It’s very similar to a Contiki (With the ages being 18 to 30-somethings)
But from what I’ve read/heard, Contiki is very party orientated and quite rushed and Top Deck is more about the sights and they have better food apparently!
I’ll have to write another Blog at some point about Contiki vs. Topdeck because when you research online – there’s half the world saying “CONTIKI CONTIKI!!” And the other half is “NOOO Top Deck is the BEST!”
On the Top Deck I’ll be visiting Paris, Switzerland, Venice, Germany & Amsterdam 🙂 then I’m back in London for a few days before I head over to Croatia for a one week sailing trip!
It was very hard choosing whether to do the Greek Island or Croatia for a sailing trip. I’m really gutted I’m not doing the Greek Islands but I couldn’t do everything on my budget 😦
I had to keep reminding myself, ‘The Greek Island will still be there for another day…’
Plus I heard Croatia Sailing is very ‘In’ right now.
When I’m finished up in Croatia I’m off to Rome as It wasn’t included on my Top Deck tour and I really want to see Italy!
Then It’s off to Dubai for a few nights!
Since I’ll mostly be staying in Hostels & Backpackers, or be with other people on my tours – Dubai’s one of the places I’m slightly nervous about so I won’t be staying in a hostel over there. I’m trying to find some good accommodation that doesn’t cost the earth 😦 I’m really excited to go to The Mall Of Dubai though! I feel I’ll spend a good 2 days there.
I read alot of Flight Attendant Blogs about girls working over in Dubai for Emirates etc… and I get so envious of their lives that it makes me really want to be a flight attendant!
Then It’s on my way home with a stop off in Singapore on the way back. 🙂
Phew. That’s alot of travelling.
I have a long stop over in Australia on the way back home as well. It’s at an odd hour though so I won’t be able to leave the airport and go for a browse or anything. Not that I’d want to I don’t think! I’ll be absolutely knackered.
I can’t sleep on planes.
Me + Flying nowadays isn’t the best thing for my nerves. And can you believe I want to be a flight attendant!
I think with all this stuff happening to planes lately it’s just put me on edge so the slightest bit of turbulence on a flight, my eyes are open and I’m alert.
I’m going to book in with a Hypnotherapist before I go so hopefully that will help 🙂
I hope you’ve enjoyed my itinerary!
As I’ve only just started up my blog, feel free to follow me!!! And ‘like’ any of my posts so I know at least someone’s reading them but my friends 🙂
x
ThePassportPrincess 
Have you started your trip yet? Can’t wait to read about your stories!
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Not yet! Still a few months to go 🙂 at least I have longer to save money
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What an itinerary! What you’re setting out to do is beyond-words cool. I hear what you’re saying about planes. I’m all about trains and ships for now. I have never heard of these Contiki/Top Deck things in my life so that’ll be interesting to read about.
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Wow, I’m SERIOUSLY jealous of that itinerary. Can’t wait to see how you get on! If I could give you any advice, it would be to upgrade straight away from .wordpress.com to com though. With so much countries covered, this blog has the potential to do really well if you keep updating it. a .com will help with that. It only coast about 20 dollars to do. 🙂
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I thought about that when I signed up but I wasn’t sure if my writing skills were up to scratch enough for people to want to read! 🙂
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It’s the only regret I have. If people start linking to your site, then later you change the domain, you will lose the value of all those links. DO IT…seriously! 🙂
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Hej Janet, maybe you can help me with this then. I have also been considering to upgrade away from .wordpress.com. However I am in doubt between doing that directly via wordpress.com, which is easy and won’t require any additional IT-skills, or to buy a domains somewhere else and download .wordpress.org software, which is better according to many people. What would you recommend?
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I’m in the same boat as you. I’m always thinking to upgrade to a .co.nz but I’m not sure if it’ll be worth it… and I’ve seen it’s cheaper to buy a domain but looks a bit more confusing.
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It depends. If you already have LOTS of posts which you want to keep, I recommend a wordpress transfer. You have to pay about 100 euro which pays for a WordPress ‘happiness engineer’ to transfer everything for you and make sure nothing goes wrong.
If you want to start new, then you might as well just buy a domain name elsewhere (cheaper, too) and download wordpress.org. This is very easy to do.
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So if I decided to make a .com would my previous blog posts transfer over?
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Yup, you can pick any domain name you like and transfer your whole site over to .org. It will actually look THE EXACT SAME. Then once transfer is done you can change the theme, add loads of cool plugins etc.
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Okay, so… I’m getting a little bit confused here now…
If I buy my domain directly via wordpress it costs about 100 euro to transfer my posts?
But buying my domain somewhere else also requires me to start all over again?
Aagh, someone should write a blog post about this haha! Additional question, because I have been looking at buying a domain somewhere else and you can buy just the domain or some online space with it. The latter seems necessary if you want to upload blog posts right? But the “space” seems rather expensive. How much space would you need?
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No, your domain name is just the url. Like…. http://www.hello.com. You can buy that from wordpress or bluehost or godaddy or anywhere. Doesn’t really matter.
What costs 100 euro is for wordpress engineers to transfer your entire website from wordpress to your new hosting company (I recommend Bluehost). WordPress,org is then free to use, and very similar to functions of wordpress.com.
If you choose to do everything yourself, without the help of a very talented developer friend or engineer, you can potentially lose ALL the posts you have ever written.
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I think she’s meaning if you buy your domain somewhere else you’d have to transfer your posts. Whereas if you just do it through WordPress then it automatically does it for you and you don’t have to pay anything.
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That was indeed what I meant Sarah.
Sorry to be having this discussion on your blog btw, but at least it helps you too!
And actually, I just took the step. I bought a domain and transferred my content by myself, it’s really easy, not need to have an expert do that! If you decide to do the same I’d be happy to help.
http://www.ambitiouswanderer.com/
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Nice!
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How do you finance your travels?!?
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Currently I work full time, (however I don’t get paid super well)
I live at home (paying no rent) I don’t own a car and instead borrow my parents car and I use public transport to get to and from work. It’s hard! Everyone goes out on the weekends and eats out for lunch where I stay home and eat home made food at work.
I’m lucky in a sense that I’ve always been quite good with my savings but after this trip I’ll have none 😦
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