As a traveller you enter a wonderful community of people from around the world – people from all manner of backgrounds, cultures and age groups.
And with an abundance of people comes a whole new train of thought to tap into and experience. You’ll find throughout your travels that people have a huge range of opinions and knowledge – some you’ll want to hear, some you won’t, and some you don’t have a choice in!
Living Free, Byron Bay
It’s exactly a year to the day that I first rolled into what would become my main home in Australia – Byron Bay. So what would be more fitting than a picture from those first few days that encapsulates the free living, hippie ideology that makes this small beachside town such a major stop on the backpacker trail? So here are my original Byron Crew – Frank, Sammy, Ben, Myself, Kerri, Katie and Dan skinny dipping at Broken Head – good times!
Once you’ve decided where you’re heading, how you’re getting there and how you’ll be carrying your life around you’ll need to start deciding what you actually need to take with you!
When preparing for my trip to Oz I passed a kit list – a kit list which had originated sometime before it got to me, had been rewritten, edited, edited some more and then I added and took away some additional items.
Base Camp, Fraser Island
The above shot was done on my last night on Fraser Island. As with most of Australia the stars are uber bright in the night sky – but especially so on Fraser due to the lack of light pollution. So I setup the tripod and decided to backdrop it against our base camp for the trip – tents, tarps and 4×4’s! For me it sums up the beauty of Fraser Island – tranquil, remote but with a dash of carnage thrown in!
It’s that time of year again – the cork hats are being dug out, the Tooheys is in the esky, the BBQ’s are warming up and the whole neighbourhood is heading to the beach.
That’s right – January 26th is Australia Day!
Ok so we’ve dealt with where you might head and how you’re going to lug all your kit there – but what are you going to do once you’ve got there?
Another massive divide amongst the backpacker world is how much planning you should actually do. And that’s what the third part of our Gap Year Planning feature is focussed around – do you plan it or wing it?
An Aussie Icon
One of Australias great draws is the sheer variety of wildlife and animals that inhabit the equally vast types of environments found across the country; from dry arid desert to lush tropical rainforest. Many of which are unique to Australia itself – the kangaroo is undoubtedly the most recognisable of these. And with random animals comes an abundance of equally random roadsigns – from Roos to Echidnas! A great slice of the unique Aussie landscape.
So you guys might have noticed a slight few changes to the site over the last few days – mainly the revamping of the web address and the title of the webpage.
My good friend Jimmy sent me a link from my beloved Byron
Bay today – it contained news that made me slightly sad. Byrons top
surf school – Kool Katz – is under immediate threat of
closure.
Read the rest of this entry »
This may sound like a slightly obscure part to planning a gap year but it’s also one of the most fundamental:
Where do you want to visit?!
Cat Nap, Ecuador
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