The Travelonians

Luggage.   What size?   Hard case or duffel?   Roller or backpack?   Lots of issues when deciding but especially when travelling for 3 months.   We know it's impossible to carry 3 months’ worth of clothes and because we will be in Southeast Asia, we know the coldest temperatures will be in North Vietnam at around 16-20C.   Also, a good portion of our transportation will be local buses and trains so our luggage will have to be as small as possible, rugged, and light.   After weighing all of the variables, we decided to bring a week’s worth of clothes, with a light jacket and a couple of pairs of footwear, namely sandals and walking shoes. So, now what…..?    Here’s what we know about luggage. We know there are 4 basic categories of luggage: t he suitcase with 4 wheels or 2 wheels, the duffle bag, the traditional backpack, and some hybrids or combinations.   The most interesting of the hybrids have 2 wheels and decent attach...

The obvious question…where do we go? We spent many summer evenings drinking some cold sangrias discussing destinations. There are many factors which come into play but let's just say follow your heart and budget. For us, South East Asia was the choice, we haven't been there, the weather is good, and it is relatively inexpensive. South America was another possibility, and we will likely revisit it next year. Our original thought was to spend a month in each country, concentration on beaches and comfortable living but as usual, the lure of hard travelling always seems to prevail. So, we decided on Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. The first step was to start monitoring air travel websites for alerts and special offers on flights to Bangkok. We soon received an email that Air China had flights for $850 round trip going through Beijing (with a long layover). We decided that this would probably be the best deal we would see, so we booked. We were right, flights...