Round the World Trip - 72 Days 2 Hours and 56 Minutes to go.

Who will buy? Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price for a trip to paradise?
Love for sale.

Last week was a bit slow, but this week…everything happened so fast this week. It was like being strapped to a rocket and being shot into space. Well where to begin… Well we finally worked out where we are staying in Vegas and booked it, New York New York and Circus Circus (seems like I have a stutter). We decided to do the split as it is going to save us about $100USD a couple which is awesome! Turns out that the price basically doubles on the weekend funny that huh. We also booked our tour for the Grand Canyon this week. We are going out to the western rim (where the new sky-walk is) for our tour and Indian cultural experience. It is only a 6 hour tour and if you are going to do a tour I would highly recommend searching on the internet for the cheapest deal as they vary quite a lot. We ended up going with Las Vegas Grand Canyon Tours.

I have also started to look into getting a bank account in the UK. If you are going to go to London then it is not that hard as HSBC will set one up for you before you arrive. You just have to go to their London office when you get there to sign some paper-work. If you want to set-up a bank account from anywhere else in the UK…almost impossible at this stage. I will still search and keep you up to date on this one.

Now for the hectic part of last week, we found out on Monday last week that our house was going on the market to be sold. So we had to make the living areas of the house nice for Tuesday for the photographer. After that we found out that the house was having an Open House Inspection on Saturday. Needless to say we were up very early on Saturday and spend about 5 hours cleaning and tidying the house from top to bottom. All of this paid off as the house was sold that afternoon.

So this week will be another short week as this update has been late. So I will talk to you all later and share what exciting things happen this week.

Dan

Who will buy? Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price for a trip to paradise?
Love for sale.
Love For Sale - Frank Sinatra

Round the World Trip - 81 Days 22 Hours and 14 Minutes to go.

Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum
You came along and everything's startin' to hum
Still, it's a real good bet, the best is yet to come

Well not much has happened that much this week in terms of booking accommodation or anything of the sort. The biggest thing that has happened has to do with activities we have to do before we leave. Out of all the different little things to do what happened this week will help fast track all of that. Our rental house is getting sold!!! That’s right we have to be out of the house by the start of December. So packing up the house has really taken a big jump in the priority stakes. So we have started packing up more boxes and looking at storage (about $1400 a year with insurance for a 1.5m x 3m x 3m unit). We also have to find a home for or dog we which a praying we can find. So the last couple of weeks before we go we will be nomads traveling from friends houses to parents houses. Guess that will get us ready for traveling. Anyway that is really all I have for this week really the only tip I can give is make sure you do get too far ahead of yourself when planning and forget about all of the stuff you have to do before you leave.

Dan.

a-Wait till you're locked in my embrace
Wait till I draw you near
a-Wait till you see that sunshine place
Ain't nothin' like it here

Round the World Trip - 86 Days 15 Hours and 41 Minutes to go.

You'd never know it but buddy, I'm a kind of poet
And I got a lot of things to say
And when I'm gloomy, you simply gotta listen to me
Till it's all talked away

It has been a bit of a boring week in terms of getting ready to go but I guess we all must have some weeks off. We haven't really done much at all. Nothing has been booked, we are still deciding where to stay in Las Vegas. We had a look at some different tours in Seattle and there are a few aviation museums there which I'm getting so excited about (being an aviation buff and all). The Museum of Flight has the only M21 Blackbird left in the world!!! There were only 2 ever built and the other one crashed so that is going to be pretty special. Well this is going to be pretty short this week but hopefully next week I will have some exciting news!!!!!

Ok tip of the week for all you travellers out there. When you are looking at how to get somewhere don't rule anything out! This week we looked at tours to the Boeing factory which is about $15 USD each. The factory is about 25miles away so how do we get there? Well we can do a tour which will pick us up from our hotel and take us there and back which is about $51 USD each so that is a total of $204 for the four of us. Now we worked out that if we make our own way there the tour would cost $60 for the four of us plus we can hire a Hummer H3 for $100 a day and still be $40 dollars ahead. Ulternatively we can hire a compact car for $40 a day and be $100 ahead. But for my money how often do you get to drive a Hummer......I mean come on for the boys it isn't that hard to choose.

Anyway that is it for this week, until next time

Well, thats how it goes
And joe I know youre gettin anxious to close
So thanks for the cheer
I hope you didnt mind
My bending your ear

(Frank Sinatra - One for my baby)

Round the World Trip - 95 Days 23 Hours and 55 Minutes to go.

“New York, New York,
a helluva town.
The Bronx is up,
but the Battery's down.
The people ride
in a hole in the groun'.
New York, New York,
it's a helluva town!”

That’s right this week was all about New York and booking accommodation! Well after creating a google map and pin pointing all the places that we want to visit and see that gave us a really good idea about where we should stay. We then had a look at all the hotels around there that where available at a reasonable price. Now we considered all places that would fit this criterion including hostels. The only thing with the hostels was that they were just as or more expensive than some of the hotels. Well last night we finally booked a place after much discussion and deliberation. So we now only have Las Vegas to book.

We decided to start to look at Vegas stuff as well since we found out that it is NFR (National Finals Rodeo) week in Vegas when we are there so things will book up pretty quickly. We haven’t booked anything yet as hours of looking at this stuff turned our minds numb…….the bundy helped though. Now you may be thinking to yourself that this blog isn’t entirely about New York as he has mentioned Vegas. You would be correct to some extent but I haven’t told you that one of the hotels we are looking into is in fact called …….. wait for it………nearly………NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!!!!

Well we are off to the country this weekend so do know how much stuff will get done, but you never know!!!!

As Frank and the gang sang in that movie “On the Town”
“New York, New York, a helluva town.
The Bronx is up, but the Battery's down.
The people ride in a hole in the groun'.
New York, New York, it's a helluva town!”

Dan

Round the World Trip - 100 Days 1 Hours and 26 Minutes to go.

Well it has been a bit hectic this week and I wasn’t able to do an update on Friday as I was sick and so was our internet. Anyway what has happened since my last update….. We have firmed up and booked our accommodation at Mont-Tremblant and we made an executive decision to stay 2 nights up there and only 1 night in Montreal. 2 Days of skiing can’t wait!!!!

We started to look for accommodation for Ottawa and we have finally booked a place call Lord Elgin Hotel (sounds fancy) through the mob that did our Mont-Tremblant accommodation (The Lodging Company) and it was fairly cheap. It is located steps away from the canal (which freezes in winter and becomes an ice skating freeway) and close to museums etc.

We also searched and finally found a place in downtown Seattle about 600m away from the Space Needle. The best thing of all is it is only $95USD per night for the 4 of us! That’s cheaper than a backpackers!!!! Now a note for all would be travellers, if you are travelling with a few other people it may end up being cheaper to stay in hotels rather than a backpackers, it has ended up that way for us in all the places we are visiting…..well maybe not all but we don’t mind paying a little bit extra for a place which has got a lot better location.

We also started to pack up more of the house……this has got to be the worst part of this whole experience. Although I must admit at times it is very liberating through out old stuff and also fun considering I have to pack up all my lego. Anyway where to from here I hear you asking yourselves. Well hopefully we will finally book New York this week after much debating, searching and deliberation (this has got to be the hardest place to work out where you want to stay). We will still pack up more stuff and put more things on eBay we may start to look at booking some tours through the Grand Canyon and out to the Boeing factory. So anyway will sign off and I’ll get back on track this week and have an update put up on Friday (fingers crossed). As Franky use to sing “Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away” Until next time I hope your seats are in the upright position.

Dan