Wow - we have actually booked the tickets!!! I am soooo exited! :)

So after months of to-ing and fro-ing, we have finally decided roughly where we want to go and yesterday we went to the travel agents and booked the flights!

We will be leaving on our epic trip on Tuesday 4th May 2010 (only 4 month away!) from Heathrow's new terminal 5 to New York (I hope our luggage goes with us!) We are flying out of LA 2.5 months later, then onto Fiji for 10 days, New Zealand for 6 weeks, Australia & Tasmania for 4 months and SE Asia for a further 3.5 months.

I literally cannot believe it! :) We were sitting there with the travel agent and we just kept saying all of these destinations. She then gave us the printed out itinery and we booked it there and then :) We are actually going to all of these places - it is the most surreal experience I've ever had!

So if you want a bit more of an overview as to what we are planning and why we have chosen the above route, read on:

America

Selena has a lot of family that live in Orlando and one of her uncles will be turning 60 at the end of May. So we thought as we would be on a round the world tour we should start it off in that direction. Up until a couple of weeks ago we were going to go the other way round, but we both agree that this was will be better especially at easing us in a bit more gently rather than starting off in the middle of Asia.

So we are going to fly into New York and stay there for a few nights before heading up to Buffalo to see Niagra falls. Then we'll head down the East coast via Washington. I made an application through the British Embassy out there for us to be added to a waiting list to be given a tour of the White House. I really hope we get in but won't know for a while yet. We need to get to Orlando for the end of May and after the 'mother of all parties' we'll carry on down to Miami to catch some rays as I'm sure by then we'll need some time to laze around on the beach! :) That should be about a month so far, we'll then head to New Orleans before flying up to the North West of the US and go to Yellowstone National Park. We're going to hire a car and do a road trip for a few weeks taking in San Francisco, Hollywood, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and LA. We're definitely going to do a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon and we both want to drive a bit of Route 66 and stop off in motels along the way. That will probably be another month, which gives us a couple of weeks leeway for anywhere else we find along the way.

Fiji

So after 2.5 months we will be ready to leave the states behind and then we will fly over to Fiji for 10 days. The travel agent said to stay in Nadi (the island with the airport) for a few days and then get a boat tour from the harbour around some of the other islands :) We were only going to stay for a week, but we would have had to get a very early morning flight and after what happened in Ibiza we have both sworn 'no more early morning flights for us!' so we thought we might as well add a few more days on in Fiji to get the flights we wanted - I can't imagine many more times in life when we'll be able to just add a few more days onto a holiday to get the nicer flights.

New Zealand

We will then fly to Auckland and spend 6 weeks travelling around the north and south New Zealand islands. It will be the middle of their winter, so lots of time for winter sports - walks on glaciers, snowboarding with some bungeejumping (just don't tell Selena!) thrown in and the likes :)

Australia

We are then going to fly to Sydney for a couple of nights to get our bearings before flying to the red hot centre to see Ayres rock / Uluru. We're staying there for 1 day (apparantly that's all you need to do a tour, watch the sunset and the sun rise as there is nothing else there) and then we're flying to Cairns in the North East. We will work our way down the east coast, do a tour of Tasmania, drive along the Great Ocean Road and eventually fly out of Adelaide to Singapour. This should take aound 4 months. We imagine we will spend Christmas and New Year in Aus and will leave for Asia around the middle of January 2011.

Asia

We will then travel overland through Malaysia and Thailand - stopping off on all the islands and then do a 'circle tour' of Vietnam, Cambodia and maybe Laos before arriving back in Thailand. We will then fly from Bangkok to Hong Kong and spend the last month travelling through China. I especially want to see the Terrocota Warriors in Xi'an and the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China in Beijing.

Then its back to good old Blighty. This is literally going to be a whirlwind trip of the world, and I cannot wait! :)

So I suppose next on the agenda will be the jabs, visas, resignations, leaving parties and packing a very small back pack. My most alarming question so far is "where am I am going to put all my shoes?!"

Roll on 2010!!! :)

Xx.