el nido, philippines:

This will be our last post for about a week, so thought we should share some photos before we go offline, just to tie you through. The below images are from our time spent so far in El Nido, the Philippines. This is our starting point on a very exciting journey ahead. Today we took a boat out to some nearby islands, doing plenty of snorkelling and swimming. Tomorrow, however, Andrew, Sarah, Ben and I will be hopping onto a boat for a week and travelling north to a town called Coron. This leg of the trip is very much about the journey rather then the destination as we will be visiting various island groups and staying in villages along the way. We cannot contain our excitement for this and look forward to sharing all about it. Will be in touch soon!

where we're at:

Hi all! Well after three flights, a six hour van trip and one flat tyre, we have finally arrived in the gorgeous little town of El Nido in Palawan, the Philippines. Well worth the distance and effort! This is the view from where we are staying. We will be amongst those islands tomorrow, and will hopefully be able to post in more detail about this leg of the trip sometime tomorrow evening. Stay tuned!

El Nido, Philippines

the big trip:

So the time has come - well almost  anyway - tomorrow we jet off on our grand adventure! For those who are not sure of where we are going, I created a map, above, that might help. We are are going to try our very best to update this blog every couple of days so you can see what we are up to. There'll be loads of images and not very much writing! (I'm not a writer by any means!) We would also love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a line here. You will find out more information about trip as we go along, so stay tuned!
First stop is the Philippines, and in particular, beautiful Palawan. We will be island hopping with my sister and her husband for 10 days. Can't wait!

Here is a bit more info on where and why.



where:

We will be travelling throughout the Middle East (starting in Istanbul, meandering down to Cairo) and Central Asia (the Silk Road from Beijing to Tashkent) if all goes to plan. We will however, be taking a short detour at the start to the the Philippines, as this was planned as a separate trip last year with my sister and her husband.

Choosing where to go was really hard. REALLY hard. We had a million ideas and places we wanted to visit. However we did have a bit of a criteria and chose accordingly.

We really wanted to travel to places that:

 - we had always want to visit

- that may change in the next few years whether it be politically or culturally

- that are adventurous and off the somewhat beaten track

- that cater to our interests (architecture, textile design, shopping, food etc)

- are culturally interesting and different to Australia

- where we can 'rough it' a bit while we are young and don't need our comforts as much

- that we couldn't do in the 3-4 weeks of annual leave we have per year

why:

We have been talking about doing a 'big trip' ever since we have been together. Towards the end of last year though, we decided that this year would be the year. It was something we needed to do sooner, rather then later.

Ideally we would have loved for it have been a 6-12 month trip, however we had to compromise as we both will have our jobs upon our return! This is a massive blessing as we both love our jobs and it'll take a bit a bit of pressure off financially once we get back. So we thought this was a pretty good deal. Plus four months is still a decent amount of time to be out and about!

laos:

To celebrate the countdown of our upcoming adventure, I've been posting past travel shots - just so you can get an idea of what to expect once we're off and away on that jet plane. Two sleeps to go!

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After we visited Cambodia, Andrew and I went to Laos. We arrived in the chilled out town Luang Prabang, surrounded by mountains and rivers. It was blissful and such a lovely mix of Lao and colonial French culture. From there we made our way down to Thailand via Vang Vieng and Vientiane. It is one of our favourite countries and we are both keen to return one day soon.

some pink:

New Zealand

maricor/maricar:

Words cannot express how much I adore the work of creative duo Maricor/Maricar. Take a look and you'll see what I mean - it's the perfect combination of colour, typography, geometry and tactility. Beautiful, beautiful!

Maricor/Maricar