So this is the big finale, our last blog to summarise our amazing adventure.

What an incredible trip it has been over 6 months and 9 days, from packing our backpacks and leaving hand in hand on 1 December 2014 to arriving back exhausted at Heathrow on 9 June 2015. It could never have been long enough!

Altogether we visited 15 countries (including 3 stop overs) and used 14 different currencies. We met a crazy number of fellow travellers of 24 different nationalities. Funnily enough we met more English than anyone else, followed shortly by Canadians. And we learnt to say a minimum of hello and thank you in 9 different languages.

Along the way we've done some amazing things, making a massive dent in our bucket list. To list but a few we:

- Watched a Muay Thai fight in the Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok

- Visited the beautiful temples of Angkor Wat near Siem Reap

- Experienced the 'Killing Fields' at Phnom Penh

- Had a full body massage on the beach in Sihanoukville

- Got engaged on the untouched island Koh Rong Samloem

- Cruised down the Mekong River from Ho Chi Minh City

- Kayaked around Halong Bay

- Went tubing in Vang Vieng

- Trekked and stayed with a local village in Luang Prabang

- Stroked and laid with tigers

- Rode an elephant bare back and bathed him in the river

- Learnt how to scuba dive to 18m on Koh Tao and achieved our PADI licences

- Visited Universal Studios Singapore

- Fed the Balinese long tail monkeys in Ubud

- Swum with turtles in Gili Trawangan

- Dived with sharks by the Neptune Islands

- Watched the Australian F1 Grand Prix in Melbourne (and Lewis won!)

- Saw a nemo scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef

- Sailed the beautiful Whitsunday Islands

- Drove a giant 4x4 on the beach on Fraser Island

- Hand fed a kangaroo in Steve Irwin's zoo

- Listened to the Sydney Orchestra play at the Opera House

- Listened to 'the Concerning Hobbit' as we visited the Shire, Hobbiton

- Watched seal pups playing in a waterfall near Kaikoura

- Saw a million stars above Lake Tekapo

- Did the Nevis Bungee! (Shortly followed by a rewarding Ferg Burger)

- Skydived from 16,000ft over Franz Josef

- Then, after a short helicopter trip, hiked the Franz Josef glacier

- Went caving in Waitomo and saw the beautiful glow worms

- Hitchhiked a ride and experienced the kava ceremony in Fiji

- Had a Kung fu lesson in Yangshuo park

- Rode a tandem bike for the first time in Yichang

- Met the Terracotta Army in Xi'an

- Trekked the Great Wall of China

- Crossed Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo (a few times)

- Wondered around the amazing temples of Kyoto and met the bowing deers of Nara

- Visited the Peace Memorial Site in Hiroshima

- Finally, we ate sushi for breakfast at Tsujuki Fish Market in Tokyo

In order to do all of these wonderful things in different places, it took a fair bit of travel time! We went on 22 flights with 12 different airlines, stayed on a sleeper bus, 2 boats and 5 different sleeper trains. We insisted on avoiding taxis where possible and walked to places to stay when we could. As we loaded up on souvenirs along the way, to make our backpacks bearable to carry we pruned them more times than we care to remember! It's funny, as you go you learn to be less of a hoarder - a lighter backpack is the most glorious thing.

Altogether we stayed in 60 different places, from beach huts to hotels and everything in between (only about 4 of which were cockroach infested - not too bad odds we suppose). The cheapest place we stayed was Chillao Guesthouse in Vang Vieng. We had a gorgeous double ensuite room overlooking the mountains with a hot shower, free wifi, and free tea or coffee for only 70,000 kip (£5.44) per night for both of us.

Travelling was the best thing we've ever done, but of course it got tough at times. Our 6 hour hike to stay with a village in the northern mountains of Laos was unbearably hot and humid followed by plummeting temperatures at night. The longest bus journey we endured was 27 hours, not an easy feat with crazy techno music thumping through the speakers all night and locals getting on and off. We only lost 5 things along the way - not too bad going! A travel towel, a pair of sunglasses, an iPhone cable and our charging blocks (thanks to 'Chinese regulations'). Nothing irreplaceable so we're good.

And we arrived home with a few scars each, Max's mostly from coral whilst diving in Thailand and Steph's from tripping down a mountain in Cambodia and falling out the toboggan on the way down from the Great Wall of China. One of the toughest (but the best) times was having our campervan in New Zealand. We stayed in 19 different camp spots, and at one time, we stayed in free spots for 5 nights in a row without a shower. But without a doubt, the hardest and most testing times were when we had horrific food poisoning which made us lose crazy amounts of weight and when we only had a few days to find an embassy to get our China visa.

But the hard times helped us to grow as a person and learn to deal with difficult situations. It also brought us closer together than ever.

Despite the hard times, travelling opened our eyes to the beauty of the world. Off the top of our heads, the most beautiful sight we saw was from the top of the Mt John Summit at Lake Tekapo, NZ. It was a magnificent view of ice blue lakes and snow capped mountains. This is probably followed by Angkor Wat at sunrise. Travelling together began to feel like a way of life. Waking up together everyday and seeing new things, moving to new places. But like all good things, it had to come to an end.

The prospect of flying home was so weird. Just thinking about arriving home and being able to walk into a shop and get a normal deodorant or some teabags, and have a chat with the cashier, was strange in itself. Not having to struggle with language barriers - you can easily have conversations. Being able to watch English TV and eat normal food. It all felt like foreign ideologies! Travelling becomes your life, a lifestyle. It's a very strange prospect going back to reality.

But we took so much home with us from our travels (not just souvenirs!). We learnt things that will stay with us forever and achieved so much:

- We've made friends from all over the globe, connections we can call upon in the future to go and visit

- We've gotten so many recommendations from people we met along the way that inspired our travels as we went and will inspire our travels to come

- We definitely discovered our adventurous side, since when were we going to jump off a ledge so high or fall from a plane in New Zealand again?

- We appreciate the importance of capturing every little moment. Despite having thousands of photos, there are things we remember back to now and wish we had a picture of it

- Trying so many different local cuisines has inspired our need to keep trying new things and cook stuff from scratch from around the world

- Some of our best travelling moments were the simple ones, and it's made us able to appreciate the small things like having a bottle of wine under a million stars with each other

- Going travelling with anyone requires a pretty strong, resilient friendship. Things can get tough and we wanted to throttle each other at times, but it's made us stronger than ever and taught us how to deal with difficult situations together

- We really, really appreciate how many little comforts we have back home, like a kettle in the kitchen, being able to drink water out of a tap, being able to eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and having a private bathroom with a functioning western toilet (but we know that if we have to, we could s*** anywhere)

- But even with all these comforts at home, we know that all we ever really need is what we can fit in a backpack. Stuff just isn't important - only places, people and food

- Connecting with people around the world, such as our village home stay in Laos, has made us realise what we're grateful for

- Mixing with the locals and finding out their opinions, learning the local slang, and generally immersing ourselves in the culture as much as we could has let us discover things we never could have learned from any book or article

- Coming face to face with so many wonderful animals, including tigers, elephants, seals and monkeys, has given us more respect for nature

- We've learnt that being in the present is what's really important. It's easy at home to just think about the weekend coming and wish for those holidays but when you're faced with some of the most beautiful views in the world, it's impossible not to take it all in and appreciate how incredible just living in this world is

- Last but not least, our thirst for seeing the rest of the world has become stronger than ever. The list of places we would like to visit is now longer than when we left. Welcome to wanderlust!

When stuff is hard at home, just remember how beautiful the world is.

Steph and Max x