The route: West then South

Where to first? Sat in our favourite pub, with pints of Proper Job, and lines of surf rolling into the beach behind us; we gazed at a world map on the iPad. And that was how we started planning our adventure!

Ju and I both had ideas of places we wanted to take in, with Hawaii, NZ and South East Asia topping both our lists, but we were yet to figure out how to join the dots. People have also asked about the route so here it is, our current route – subject to change due to finding awesome places we want to stay in longer, spontaneous detours én route and the money lasting:

Reykjavik, Iceland – our first destination and only a short stop of four nights to get us started. Snorkelling in glacial waters between tectonic plates and exploring the geothermal national parks which include natural geysers

Toronto, Canada – another short stop after a hop across the Atlantic. Exploring the city, visiting Niagara falls and hopefully catching an ice hockey game

Vancouver, Canada – spending two nights in the city before collecting a camper van to explore British Columbia for a month. Cruising the coast, heading up to Whistler in the mountains and spending time on Vancouver Island. Hiking the national parks, using our new binoculars to spot wildlife (hopefully seeing bears – at a distance). We also plan to head to Tofino, Canada’s national surfing destination. Finishing off with two more nights in Vancouver during the Canada day celebrations

Honolulu, Hawaii – after Canada we head to Hawaii and plan to hop across the main four islands (Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Big island) checking out some of the most famous surf breaks in the world, although possibly only spectating some of the bigger waves. Hawaii also offers the opportunity to tick off Ju’s ‘big four’ of; turtles, volcanoes, surfing and a lush tropical environment.

Cancûn, Mexico – after a short layover in Vegas we fly into the east coast of Mexico, our first taste of the Caribbean coast, but also a good place to fly over to Cuba. We’re also hoping to do an intense Spanish course as “dos cervazas por favor”only gets you so far. We can’t wait to experience the local culture and specifically sampling authentic Mexican street food. Mark started writing a food blog a while ago, but has long since neglected it, so plans to resurrect this to document food we experience along the way. In case you’re interested the blog is: https://dontcookthespoon.wordpress.com

After Mexico the plan is to work our way down through Central and South America, travelling overland where possible. This will be one of the longest legs of the trip and hopefully will include time volunteering with wildlife conservation and people. We’ll likely also spend a lot of the time hugging the coast as we want to surf a lot, plus diving and kayaking.

Making our way to Chile, where we’ll fly to New Zealand. The aim then is to do Oz then head into Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand and Nepal. There has even been a suggestion that we could get the trans-Siberian railway between Beijing and Moscow as an alternative to flying directly home… if by then we have any money left!