Without further ado, here’s a shortlist of some of the things we loved on our trip around the world in 389 days.
Ascending the Tokyo Skytree for sunset over Mount Fuji ๐ฏ๐ต
We went up a lot of high things. This was undoubtedly top of the pile!
๐ Tokyo, revisited (part I)
Braving the snow in Astana ๐ฐ๐ฟ
The coldest (and coolest) city we visited on the whole trip. So glad we made the journey up to 51 degrees north.
๐ Journeying to Astana – the ‘Singapore of the Steppe’
๐ Astana: So good they named it six times
Cycling the temples of Angkor ๐ฐ๐ญ
So. much. cycling. And so. many. temples! But beating the crowds and experiencing sunrise alone in Angkor Wat was a genuine life highlight.
๐ Sunrise at Angkor Wat (but without the crowds)
Driving around the South Island in our little camper van ๐ณ๐ฟ
What an incredible place – we just loved NZ so much.
๐ Ridiculously good views from the summit of Te Tapu-nui, Queenstown
๐ The roadtrip begins! Cruising on Milford Sound, the eighth wonder of the world
๐ Joining the Great Coast Road
๐ Glaciers and gold on NZโs west coast
๐ Pedalling the West Coast Wilderness Trail
๐ Driving to the very end of the road (Punakaiki and Kohaihai) ๐ด
๐ Dophins and waterslides (not dolphins on waterslides!)
Escaping to the desert island paradise of Ko Adang ๐น๐ญ
Just like The Beach, except with far fewer drugs and murders.
๐ All of our desert island fantasies fulfilled on Ko Adang
Floating above the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia ๐น๐ท
Expensive, nervewracking and very, very cool.
๐ Flying high above Cappadocia
Going To The Sun in Glacier National Park ๐บ๐ธ
Over a million acres of beautiful mountains, lakes and bears beginning in a remote corner of Montana and stretching all the way up into Canada, accessible on the iconic Going-to-the-Sun Road.
๐ Eating like a grizzly in Glacier National Park ๐ป๐ป๐ฅง
Hiking in the Cinque Terre ๐ฎ๐น
Not exactly niche, but definitely worth the hype.
Ice skating on the world’s highest rink in Almaty ๐ฐ๐ฟ
Kazakhstan in general was a lot of fun and as always, watching people wobble around on ice skates didn’t disappoint, but this was also a truly spectacular setting in the mountains above Almaty.
๐ Almaty, our final stop in Central Asia
Joining the Silk Road in Khiva ๐บ๐ฟ
Our first taste of Uzbekistan’s section of the Silk Road had the biggest impact on us.
๐ Rejoining the Silk Road in Khiva
Kayaking in Lan Ha Bay ๐ป๐ณ
Paddling (somewhat) serenely through one of Vietnam’s most iconic and otherworldly seascapes.
๐ Kayaking between the limestone mountains of Hแบก Long Bay
Living like a monk on a Korean temple stay ๐ฐ๐ท
Probably the most baffling 24 hours of our entire trip, but we wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything.
๐ A Secret Diary of a Temple Stay, by Sara aged 13 ยพ
Meeting the hiking dogs of the Caucasus ๐ฌ๐ช
Making friends with some gentle giants while hiking in the spectacular mountains of northern Georgia.
Night skiing in Niseko ๐ฏ๐ต
Genuinely the most (and best) snow we’ve ever seen. SO GOOD!
๐ Chasing the powder in Niseko
Observing the New Year festivities at the Hokkaidล Shrine ๐ฏ๐ต
A very different New Year for us, but we loved embracing Japanese traditions and learning our fortunes for the year.
๐ New Year in snowy Sapporo
Paddling through the rice paddies of Luang Prabang ๐ฑ๐ฆ
Making friends with Susan the water buffalo and learning how to grow sticky rice. Who knew it could be so fascinating?!
๐ Ten steps to the perfect Lao sticky rice
Quaffing wine in the vineyards of Marlborough ๐ณ๐ฟ
Gorgeous weather and a whole day of NZ wine. Perfection!
๐ Marlborough by tandem, fuelled by wine
Riding the Otago Central Rail Trail on two wheels ๐ณ๐ฟ
Four days of spectacular cycling through a wild, arid and sparsely populated corner of NZ’s South Island.
๐ We actually finished something! Cycling the Otago Central Rail Trail
Soaking in a snowy onsen in Tazawako ๐ฏ๐ต
Bathing in the forest while surrounded by deep snow drifts was a magical experience.
๐ Beef tongue and snowy onsens in Honshu
๐ Japan in 12 hot baths
Taking the slow boat down the Mekong river ๐ฑ๐ฆ
An incredibly peaceful few days drifting along the Mekong River through Laos.
๐ Messing about on the Mekong
Urb-exing the sanatoria of Tskaltubo ๐ฌ๐ช
An afternoon exploring a spa town full of crumbling sanatoria near to Georgia’s second city, Kutaisi. Fascinating and unnerving in equal measure, and totally different to anything else we did on this trip.
๐ Urbexing the abandoned sanatoria of Tskaltubo
Visiting Meteora’s mountaintop monasteries ๐ฌ๐ท
We loved exploring these precariously-perched monasteries in mainland Greece. The area is apparently one of Greece’s biggest tourist destinations (except that no one seems to have heard of it!).
๐ Walking the mountains of Meteora
Wading through the travertines of Pamukkale ๐น๐ท
A weird and wonderful landscape unlike anything we’d seen before.
๐ Wallowing in the Cotton Castle
eXploring Singapore by night ๐ธ๐ฌ
(Please forgive the shoehorning of the letter X in here – if only we’d had the foresight to do some xylophoning on our trip.) We do love a free activity and Singapore’s supertree light show didn’t disappoint.
๐ Celebrating the finale of our Southeast Asian leg in Singapore
Yodelling our way around Salzburg ๐ฆ๐น
Salzburg way exceeded our expectations – another city to add to our list of places we’d happily live.
๐ ๐ถ The hills are alive with the sound ofโฆbeer halls ๐ป
Zooming across Japan on a bullet train ๐ฏ๐ต
Japanโs rail network has got to be the best in the world, and boarding a Shinkansen felt more like getting on an aeroplane than a train. What a way to travel!
๐ Getting buried alive in Ibusuki
๐ Christmas in Hiroshima and Osaka
๐ Four together again in Tokyo
๐ New Year in snowy Sapporo
๐ Itโs called Hakodate, mate*
๐ Beef tongue and snowy onsens in Honshu
๐ Memoirs of a geezer (in Kyoto)
We realised two things writing this post:
- We experienced way, way more than 26 highlights during our nearly 13 months away
- Fitting even 26 highlights neatly into alphabetical order was really quite difficult!
But you might also notice that there’s very little mention of food here – we had to make this a rule, or else all 26 entries would have been about what we ate! We might just have to write a food highlights post too. It’s making me hungry just thinking about it…