Website info

Here are the details of how this website is put together. Besides buying the domain name julianwood.com everything else is free!

The website is hosted by www.blogger.com which makes it easy to post the info from everywhere. There are actually 6 different blogs which contain the posts for each of the menu items on the right including the maps. You can put HTML inside the posts to link to pictures etc. Have a look at the Blogger help for info on how to do anything.

Our domain name www.julianwood.com redirects to the main TravelBlog.

The calendar is done through calendar.yahoo.com
You need a yahoo ID but it seemed the neatest calendar around. Only problem is the option to default to Month view doesn't seem to work so users get shown a week view which is too small in my opinion.

Photos are hosted through MSN Groups as I already had an existing Hotmail account and the navigation seemed quite good.

The photos that are within the posts are hosted on www.flickr.com as you can directly link to the pictures which you can't with MSN or Yahoo, you have to bring up a whole page.

The Maps are done through www.travelpod.com. This is actually another blogging service aimed specifically at travellers but we're only using the maps. I've created dummy posts which are only used to place pins on a map which show our progress. These maps can be linked to as pictures so by just updating the travelpod posts, the maps become dynamic on the website.

The links within the emails showing the destinations are from www.multimap.com. You can create maps with the title of the destination quite easily.
Seach on Multimap for your destination and when it appears, look at the Map Information box at the bottom. This gives the URL for your map. The scale value can be changed to correspond to a multimap scale and you can add the following at the end of the URL to display the place name "&place=Kathmandu,". You often don't have to put the country name as Multimap does it for you so just play around until you get the one you like.

The email that is sent out is managed through Yahoo Groups
People can either subscribe from a web form which is on the website or you can send invitations to people to join.
Post emails are sent by setting up the Yahoo group email address within the Blog settings. You then publish the post from Blogger which puts it on the website and an email is automatically sent to the Yahoo Group address which then mails it out to everyone who has subscribed. You need to setup email addresses within the group that have permission to send posts otherwise anyone could send these mails if they knew the address. There's lots of info in the help on yahoo groups and blogger to do all of this. Only mails are sent out for posts on the Travel Blog.

Here are all our Round the World Flights

We now have our Round the World Ticket bought! Woohoo!
Have a look at the previous post about the One World Global Explorer Ticket.
This has now finalised our plans really although we can make date changes to our ticket.

QF002 THU 10 FEB LONDON (HEATHROW) to BANGKOK 2145 1550 Arrives 1 day later.

We will then take our own flights to Vietnam and Back

BA009 SAT 26 MAR BANGKOK to SYDNEY 1805 0610 Arrives 1 day later.

QF119 SUN 27 MAR SYDNEY to AUCKLAND 0920 1415

OWN ARRANGEMENTS - Overland to Christchurch

QF036 MON 18 APR CHRISTCHURCH to MELBOURNE 0625 0810

QF769 FRI 22 APR MELBOURNE to PERTH 1150 1355

QF1922 MON 25 APR PERTH to AYERS ROCK 1025 1430

QF727 WED 27 APR AYERS ROCK to SYDNEY 1325 1655

We will then go overland up the East Coast of Australia, across to Indonesia and through Singapore to Malaysia and up to Southern Thailand. We will then purchase our own flight from either Bangkok, Kuala Lumpar or Singapore back to Sydney to join our RTW ticket.

QF003 SAT 16 JUL SYDNEY to HONOLULU,HAWAII (OAHU IS.) 2030 0950

AA028 THU 21 JUL HONOLULU,HAWAII (OAHU IS.) to SAN FRANCISCO 1325 2126

AA1915 MON 25 JUL SAN FRANCISCO to LOS ANGELES 1055 1216

AA034 FRI 29 JUL LOS ANGELES to NEW YORK (JFK) 0800 1633

We will then purchase our own flights to London or Bordeaux for Muriel and Alex's wedding straight from New York.

We will fly back to New York on the 16th August

AA1385 SAT 20 AUG NEW YORK (JFK) to BRIDGETOWN,BARBADOS 1000 1440

AA946 SAT 27 AUG BRIDGETOWN,BARBADOS to MIAMI 0723 1104

AA2187 WED 31 AUG MIAMI to CANCUN 1156 1238

OWN ARRANGEMENTS - Overland from Cancun to Mexico City

LP627 MON 19 SEP MEXICO CITY to LIMA 1845 0025 Arrives 1 day later.

LP071 WED 21 SEP LIMA to PUERTO MALDONADO 1045 1320

LP072 SUN 25 SEP PUERTO MALDONADO to CUZCO 1350 1435

OWN ARRANGEMENTS - Overland to Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca and to Bolivia and La Paz

LA961 SUN 16 OCT LA PAZ to SANTIAGO (CHILE) 1210 1810

LA752 SUN 23 OCT SANTIAGO (CHILE) to RIO DE JANEIRO 1115 1615

BA246 MON 31 OCT RIO DE JANEIRO to LONDON (HEATHROW) 1545 0700 Arrives 1 day later.

Round the World Ticket

We've decided to go with the Oneworld Alliance Global Explorer Round the World ticket.
The Oneworld Explorer makes planning a round the world trip easy.
The fare is divided into continents or regions. The price is then based on the number of continents/regions you visit on your trip. This is not a mileage based fare.

You are allowed to take two stopovers in total within your continent of origin in order to get to or from a gateway to begin or return from your international travel.
After departing from your continent of origin, you are allowed to take up to four flights to explore each of the other continents (six flights in North America).
You can book up to two additional flights per continent, at a set rate.
You can fly up to 20 flight segments on your trip.

The flights between the regions do not conut towards the continent total (4 or 6) but do count towards your total allowable (20)

Overland segments do not count as flight segments as with some other tickets.

If you are taking 5 or 6 continent tickets you will not be able to use your full compliment of glights for each continent as you need to keep to a maximum of 20.

You can change the date of any ticket other than your first ticket for free. You can change the routing but for a fee.

The Oneworld Regions are:
Europe/Middle East - including Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia)
Africa - (excluding Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia)
Asia - (including the Indian Subcontinent)
Southwest Pacific - (Including Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea)
North America - (including the US, Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and Panama.
South America

The Oneworld Airlines are:
British Airways
American Airlines
Qantas
Iberia
Lan
Aer Lingus
Cathay Pacific
Finnair

Another annoying thing is the price of the ticket varies depending on where you buy it. We bought ours in the UK. The cost was £1719 plus £60 cheap airline surchage and a whopping £296 taxes. We also payed for an extra flight in Australia for £75. If we had bought the same ticket in South Africa the base fare quoted was R29 000 (£2555) and then still taxes and surcharges.

Remember the price is the same regardless of how many flights you take, its only set on continents so you may as well use your full compliment of flights.

Every flight conuts as a segment so if you are not able to fly directly to your destination, that will count as multiple flights.

Travel Health Information

We've used the UK NHS Fit for Travel website which has been very good especially for information about Malaria.

You will need to think carefully about inncoluations many months before you travel. Go and visit your doctor or local travel clinic six months before you plan on going and go through everything you need. Some of the jabs need to have 3 doses months apart so this is not something you should leave to the last minute.
Also the cost of some of the innoculations is very high so doing it in advance will mean you know how much of your budget will be spent.

We used the NHS for whatever jabs they offered and the Trailfinders Travel Clinic in Kensington for the rest.

Plans / Equipment / Stuff

Here you'll find our packing list, latest travel plans and anything else when we have a chance to update the site.

Basically we're flying from London to St. Petersburg on the 22nd August.
We then go by train to Russia's capital, Moscow and then take the Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia to Irkutsk, onto Ulaan Baatar, capital of Mongolia and then to Beijing, China's capital.
We will spend 5 weeks in China, hopefully going overland through Tibet to Nepal. A month or so in India and then back to South Africa for Christmas, New Year and weddings!
We'll fly back to India and then onto Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, over to South America for a couple of months and then back to London when a year or our money is finished.