Quote by Heinrich Japp of Hamburg May 2019

We are David and Penny Mitchell.  David is 75/76 years old and Penny 74 years old.  It is now July 2024 and we have been travelling on and off for 18 years and unfortunately stopped in 2019 due to Covid.  2023 first overseas trip to Thailand.  The purpose of this website is to inform people of options for travel that they haven't discovered or considered and maybe help them in finding more independent and inexpensive ways to travel like us.  We have now included some great road trips in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.  As with everyone else we have been curtailed for the last few years, so we've included some great road trips we've made over the years..    The following overseas travels started in 2006 with a very short trip of 7 nights to Hong Kong having not left Australia for around 30 years or more.  Recently starting in 2016 we have travelled every year for approximately 3 months.   Apart from a couple of years where commitments interfered we have travelled to somewhere each year and increased our time away each time.  In 2016 we started to experiment buying only one way airline tickets as we didn't know where we were going to return from.   In other words the trip at that time started in Vladivostok Russia and in this case ended in Frankfurt Germany but we didn't know where we would fly home from until a few days or weeks before we got there.   In that year also we had travelled earlier to Singapore and Hong Kong and just booked one way flights and accommodation but we found that our flight and airline options were limited due to fixed accommodation bookings.   With the Russia trip later that year we spent 5 nights in Beijing China where there are some visa restrictions.  You cannot get a China visa without advising China of your entry and exit dates and your flight details so you need to book both flights prior to applying for a tourist visa.   We generally travel within limited means and use public transport of buses and trains and stay in two, three or four star hotels depending on the cost.  Some countries are cheaper than others with accommodation. We use mainly www.booking.com or sometimes www.expedia.com and carry a tablet computer to book accommodation as we go.  Note:  Some of these travel websites offer reward discounts when used on a regular basis.  We are currently getting up to 20% discount on some hotel bookings with booking.com.  With airline bookings we generally use www.webjet.com.au and www.booking.com or go direct to the airline's website.  There are lots of other options to choose from.

David and Penny Mitchell Urunga NSW 2455 Australia

A few hints:  When using international simcards some have 2 numbers on the card one the original and the second a backup if the original can't access the local network.  We booked into an apartment in Austria that had computerised entry using a phone number.  Couldn't get in because the phone was using the backup phone number, took us two hours to contact the owners. When booking hotels or apartments through whatever booking website you're using or booking direct check for any extras.  Some places charge extra for airconditioning / heating others sometimes charge extra for cleaning fees.  You generally see ticks of what is inclusive of the price.  Always check what you're getting.  We got caught in one place with a shared bathroom. With buses and trains if you can't get accurate information online about timetables go to the local tourist information centre.  Mostly they are excellent and have the information if not they will ring the trains or bus companies.  With simcards for mobile phones we've found that if you're only travelling to no more than three countries over a long period those countries simcards are sometimes better and allow more local phone calls and data but you pay extra for the availability of making international calls.  If you're travelling to lots of different countries, in our case, Europe a simcard for useage in all European countries with us being Australia as the home country.  If your home is somewhere else check out what is available for your home country. Beware some countries do not have data availability so don't stock up on a lot of data it might run out before you can use it.  Just about every hotel, apartment etc we stayed at had Wifi some of it really good some not so good.  Another thing with Europe and a lot of other countries is public toilets.  They are not free so carry some change in your pocket at all times.

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