Travel route and accomodations

20th dec
departing Stockholm and heading towards Delhi via London Heathrow.

21st dec
Arriving in Delhi around 10 in the morning. We’ll be staying at a place called Bajaj Indian Home Stay, which is situated in an area of Delhi that’s called Karol Bagh.

22nd dec
Checking out from Bajaj and heading to the train station to catch an over night train that’ll take us to Jaisalmer.

23rd dec
Arriving in Jaisalmer around lunch time. Here we’re gonna stay at a place called Shahi Pallace, which is situated pretty close to the old fort.

Nothing special planned for our stay in Jaislamer apart from trying to celebrate Christmas in some odd way and making an over night trip to a place called Sam Sand dunes, where we’ll be staying in the desert in so called swiss tents… some kind of camel safari is also included.

26th dec
Leaving Jaisalmer and once again heading to a train station to catch an over night train to Jaipur.

27th dec
Arriving in Jaipur early morning (around 5 AM!). Staying at a place called Umaid Mahal. Apart from exploring the city, which seem to have quite a lot of interesting sights, we’ll be doing a trip outside of town to a place called Amber Fort.

30th dec
Departing Jaipur with train (this time only a 2 hour journey) heading to Sawai Madhopur where we’ll be picked up and transferred to our fancy (?!) Ranthambore Forest Resort where we’ll stay two nights exploring the Ranthambore National Park, going for jeep safaris and hopefully spotting some cool wild animals such as the Indian tiger! We’re also booked for a new years eve gala dinner :)

1st jan
Leaving directly from the New Years celebration (headaches likely included) we head to a train station once again to catch the 5.15 train to Agra. It’s only a 3,5 hours ride and we’re supposed to get a sleeper “cabin”, which sure will come in handy :) (cabin is used in the loosest sense possible)

In Agra we’ll be staying at a place called Taj Plaza, which’ll be our cheapest stay this trip, so it’ll definitely be interesting to see what it has (or don't have) to offer!

Most likely our newly bought deluxe 45 kr flip flops will have to be used when showering...

2nd jan
Heading to Taj Mahal for the sunrise, spending the rest of the day exploring Agra.
Late evening we take the train to Varanasi.

3rd jan
Arriving in Varanasi at 9.30 in the morning, directly heading to our hotel called Rashmi Guest House/A Palace on the river. This place is right on the bank of the river and it has a roof top restaurant (which nearly all of our stays on this trip have!)

4th jan
Up early to catch the sunrise on a boat trip on the Ganges river. The rest of the day will be spent exploring Varanasi and probably chilling out on the rooftop of the hotel.

The train that’ll take us back to Delhi leaves at 7pm.

5th jan
Back in Delhi agina, arriving early morning. This time we’ll stay at another hotel, but in the same area of the city. It’s called Ananda Hotel.

6th jan
Exploring Delhi before heading to the airport to catch the plane that’ll take us on a long, time consuming, journey to Male in the Maldives!!!

(If you want so search for pictures of Male on google, it is advised to add "+Maldives" after typing Male... )

We’re flying from Delhi to Mumbai, from Mumbai to Colombo (Sri Lanka) and from there to Male.

7th jan
In Male we’ll take a little seaplane that’ll take us to our resort called Kuredu! On this beautiful little atoll we’ll spend 6 nights doing nothing else but indulging in the all inclusive food and drinks, staying on the beach doing some snorkeling and probably also doing some island hopping to a nearby resort called Komandoo.

If India makes us loose weight, we are sure to gain it again once in Kuredu!

13th jan
Leaving Kuredu in the afternoon, spending a few hours in Male before taking the plane back to Delhi at 8pm.
Male – Colombo – Mumbai – Delhi

14th jan
Arriving in Delhi at 8.30 in the morning, changing flights for the 12.30 flight back home to Stockholm (via London)

Arriving Stockholm 23:40!!

Travel route and accomodations

(click the image for higher resolution)

1. Anchorage (June 6 - 8)

("Downtown" Anchorage)

Biggest city in Alaska, but not the capital. We will be arriving here, in the evening of the 6th of June. Staying at the hostel Arctic Adventure. Will spend two nights here, before we pick up our faaaancy RV and leave for the wild... or, well, wilder... uhmm... Alaska...

2. Talkeetna (June 8 - 9)

(Mt McKinley, as seen from Wonder Lake)

On our way from Anchorage, going to Denali National Park, we stop in Talkeetna for one night, and an early flightseeing of Mt McKinley (or Mt Denali), including a glacier landing at the foot of the mountain.

3. Denali National Park (June 9 - 13)

(Iced in toilet at Teklanika campground)

After the flightseeing of Mt McKinley, we will head closer to the mountain, and the national park bearing its name. Staying in the park for four nights. We were originally meant to spend three nights at Teklanika Campground, which is as far in as you can go with an RV. However, due to extraordinary circumstances (such as the coldest winter in Alaska in 50 years!), the campground has been covered with Aufeis... which is basically 2 meters of solid ice (see image above).

4. Nenana (June 13)


After the stay at Denali, we head to Nenanna for river rafting.

5 - 6. Denali Highway and... the rest (June 13 - 19)
From here on, where we stop, and what we see is not planned in detail. We know that we will drive the Denali highway, and probably stop for one night on that highway. We will also travel Glenn Highway, on our way back to Anchorage. We might go Valdez, Copper Centre, Matanuska Glacier.

Unfortunately, we will NOT be going to Circle, Eagle or Chicken. North Pole is also, unfortunately, not possible to visit this time around.

1. Anchorage (June 19 - 20)
Back in Anchorage (staying at Arctic Adventure) to do some washing, leave the RV, and pick up a smaller car that will bring us to...

7-8. Seward and Homer (Kenai peninsula, June 20 - 25)
Nothing really planned, except that we are going on a glacier hike of the Exit Glacier in Seward. We will also probably do some sort of boat trip from Seward. Nothing planned for Homer. Hiking, mountain biking... eating fish... looking at the Volcano Mt Augustine.

Will be staying at Moby Dick Hostel (Seward) and Homer Hostel (uhmm... naturally its in Homer... )

1. Anchorage (June 26th)
Heading straight for the Anhorage airport from Homer... plane is leaving at 1 in the morning...

Off the map (June 26th - July 1st):
The plane from anchorage will take us to Las Vegas, via Salt Lake City. In Las Vegas we will stay at this hotel:

(The Luxor Hotel)

We will also travel to Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon, in a rental car, before we spend two more nights in Las Vegas and head home. The night before we head home, we will watch the magic show of Penn & Teller at the Rio.

In Grand Canyon, we will spend one night in Grand Canyon Village at the hotel called Grand Canyon Village, which is in Grand Canyon Village... which is the village (people!?) located near Grand Canyon... you see... hence the name...

Oh, in Vegas Joakim will probably gamble for (that is lose) all the money we have left at this point. And Sophie will go bonkers at the slot machines.

We will try to keep this place updated as often as possible, but Alaska is a desolate place so internet hook - ups might be, in fact probably are, very infrequent.

Travel Route and accomodations

1) Beijing - arriving on May 12th
From Beijing we're thinking of making a day trip to a town called Chengde and of course also to The Great Wall of China.. apart from the in town tourist sights

Chengde

The forbidden city (Beijing)

The great wall of china

2) Xi'an - arriving on May 17th
The home of the Terracotta Warriors. We're also making a trip to Hua Shan

Hua shan

Hua shan (no way we are doing this...)

Terracotta warriors

Xian

3) Chengdu - arriving on May 20th
This is where the planes leave to Lhasa. Also Panda Breeding Center and nearby Dafo Leshan (a giant Buddha carved out of a rock).

Dafo Leshan

Chengdu


4) Lhasa - arriving on May 25th
A few days rest and sight seeing in Lhasa, then off to visit Shigatze, Gyantse, Yamdrok Lake, Tingri, Rongbuk and of course the Mt Everest Base camp!!!

Potala palace in Lhasa

Rongbuk monastery, Tibet (Mt Everest is in the background)

Shigatze

Tingri

Gyantse

Yamdrok lake

5) Shanghai - arriving on June 3rd (going back to Sweden on the 10th of June)
Making a few days excursion to the cities of Suzhou (where we're staying two nights.. known as the Venice of China and also home of many silk manufactures), Tongli and Zhouzhuang.

Shanghai

Zhouzhuang

Tongli

Suzhou


Accomodations
Beijing: staying at Red Lantern House, supposed to be a hostel built in a typical chinese court yard style in one of the Hutongs in Beijing

Xi'an: staying at Bell Tower Youth Hostel

Chengdu: staying at Mix Hostel Chengdu Guesthouse

Shanghai: staying at Mingtown Hiker Youth Hostel
Suzhou: staying at Suzhou Youth Hostel

The prices for our accomodations (and we do have our own seperate bathroom at all hostels..) rates from 56 SEK to 103 SEK. If we wouldnt have chosen own bathrooms, the prices would be less than the half :)