The purpose of this travelogue is to tell a story from the original idea, the reasons, through to what goes right and wrong in the planning and booking stages, to the start of the journey in Brentwood, Essex, UK on the 15 December 2018 to our hoped for safe return on the 31 January 2019.
Entries will be made if there is something to say, so not too much between now and December. The main reason behind starting so early is to show how random some travel is, how exciting planning can be and the disappointments too. So here we go...
We live both in the UK and France, we still work but are semi retired. Brexit features large for us as our holiday home in France may not be tenable if Brexit goes horribly wrong. This isn't a political point, just a plain fact and plays a big part in the next few years of our lives.
Our business is busy between mid August through to the end of March. There is a dead spot from around the 7 December through to the 31 January every year. Now normally we don't always make the most sensible decisions when it comes to travel, we are self described 'travel junkies'. True to form after 4 journeys in a row which all included some part of the USA and always including Amtrak and Greyhound we decided some of our other travel dreams need to be fulfilled, Iran is at the top of the list.
This is before Mr T decided to pull out of the nuclear deal too. So initial enquiries told us that September/October was a good time for us although this is the epicentre of our first period of busy at work. Next up because we are British (along with US and Canadian) citizens we have to have an official guide from the moment we arrived in Iran to the point we leave, not our style at all and this knocked us back. This only applies to citizens of 3 countries on the planet, bad luck for us.
Where next on the list. Central Asia, that would take a lot of planning, South America the same. Then by chance we were talking to a friend and he mentioned Algeria, a country we had tried to visit in 2002 with our camper but were refused entry as we had no visa. At that time visas were very difficult to get, because they had on going internal troubles and again because we're Brits.
That evening checked out Algerian entry conditions for 2018, no more difficult than a year and a half ago for Russia, the visa just takes a little longer. Our idea is a good one. Algeria has some of the best Roman ruins anywhere around the Mediterranean, and the Arab world of north Africa has always excited us. We (Rosie) has good French and they have more than 1000 kms of a good railway system running across the Mediterranean coast, this is a really good trip for us and we've waited a long time to go there.
Planned a route, starting from the UK or central France, train down through France to Marseilles, overnight ferry to Algiers. Using mainly Algerian railways plus taxis and buses visit maybe 4 or 5 cities/places/sights in Algeria, then ferry from western Algeria to southern Spain, train back into France/UK. Created a second alternate return route which would be via Sicily, then mainland Italy where the train is actually driven on to the ferry, we were set with great outline plans.
Then Brexit started to get serious. Any Algeria visit would have to be the same September/October time of year, the middle of our busy season. If we have to sell up in France there is an enormous amount of work to do there first, enormous is not a big enough word. We had a couple of talks around this and decided that for the first time in years we should be sensible, we can't take 4 weeks out in our busiest time, very deflated.
But you can't keep travel lust at bay. When an email popped up from our dear friend Milton asking when were we visiting the US next it hit the button! We found excellent reasons for not being in Europe from December to end January, convinced ourselves that as Brexit day was 29 March 2019 we would return to Europe rested and refreshed ready for whatever the politicians have managed to concoct for us, the perfect answer all round (ok we kid ourselves a little).
There was one condition we threatened each other with. This trip had to be as close to a regular 'holiday/vacation' as we could get, not at all like the last journey earlier this year which felt at times like an assault course (although it may have been one of our best ever travels).
All we have to do is to get ourselves to Los Angeles a few days before New Year, in the most comfortable but interesting manner possible and on the lowest budget possible. All do-able so we started to plan...
Entries will be made if there is something to say, so not too much between now and December. The main reason behind starting so early is to show how random some travel is, how exciting planning can be and the disappointments too. So here we go...
We live both in the UK and France, we still work but are semi retired. Brexit features large for us as our holiday home in France may not be tenable if Brexit goes horribly wrong. This isn't a political point, just a plain fact and plays a big part in the next few years of our lives.
Our business is busy between mid August through to the end of March. There is a dead spot from around the 7 December through to the 31 January every year. Now normally we don't always make the most sensible decisions when it comes to travel, we are self described 'travel junkies'. True to form after 4 journeys in a row which all included some part of the USA and always including Amtrak and Greyhound we decided some of our other travel dreams need to be fulfilled, Iran is at the top of the list.
This is before Mr T decided to pull out of the nuclear deal too. So initial enquiries told us that September/October was a good time for us although this is the epicentre of our first period of busy at work. Next up because we are British (along with US and Canadian) citizens we have to have an official guide from the moment we arrived in Iran to the point we leave, not our style at all and this knocked us back. This only applies to citizens of 3 countries on the planet, bad luck for us.
Where next on the list. Central Asia, that would take a lot of planning, South America the same. Then by chance we were talking to a friend and he mentioned Algeria, a country we had tried to visit in 2002 with our camper but were refused entry as we had no visa. At that time visas were very difficult to get, because they had on going internal troubles and again because we're Brits.
That evening checked out Algerian entry conditions for 2018, no more difficult than a year and a half ago for Russia, the visa just takes a little longer. Our idea is a good one. Algeria has some of the best Roman ruins anywhere around the Mediterranean, and the Arab world of north Africa has always excited us. We (Rosie) has good French and they have more than 1000 kms of a good railway system running across the Mediterranean coast, this is a really good trip for us and we've waited a long time to go there.
Planned a route, starting from the UK or central France, train down through France to Marseilles, overnight ferry to Algiers. Using mainly Algerian railways plus taxis and buses visit maybe 4 or 5 cities/places/sights in Algeria, then ferry from western Algeria to southern Spain, train back into France/UK. Created a second alternate return route which would be via Sicily, then mainland Italy where the train is actually driven on to the ferry, we were set with great outline plans.
Then Brexit started to get serious. Any Algeria visit would have to be the same September/October time of year, the middle of our busy season. If we have to sell up in France there is an enormous amount of work to do there first, enormous is not a big enough word. We had a couple of talks around this and decided that for the first time in years we should be sensible, we can't take 4 weeks out in our busiest time, very deflated.
But you can't keep travel lust at bay. When an email popped up from our dear friend Milton asking when were we visiting the US next it hit the button! We found excellent reasons for not being in Europe from December to end January, convinced ourselves that as Brexit day was 29 March 2019 we would return to Europe rested and refreshed ready for whatever the politicians have managed to concoct for us, the perfect answer all round (ok we kid ourselves a little).
There was one condition we threatened each other with. This trip had to be as close to a regular 'holiday/vacation' as we could get, not at all like the last journey earlier this year which felt at times like an assault course (although it may have been one of our best ever travels).
All we have to do is to get ourselves to Los Angeles a few days before New Year, in the most comfortable but interesting manner possible and on the lowest budget possible. All do-able so we started to plan...
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