Name: Theodora Sutcliffe
Age: 38
Travel Blog: EscapeArtistes – http://escapeartistes.com @escapeartistes facebook.com/EscapeArtistes
How long have you been travelling?
Coming up for 1000 days!
What’s been your route?
Confusing. We spent most of our first two years in Asia and Australia. This year has been about the Middle East and a bit of Europe, with a stop back what used to be home in London.
What’s your favourite and least favourite country?
Of all the ones I’ve visited in my life? I’d say The Gambia is my least favourite, in terms of a mass tourism nightmare corrupting a local culture, and Indonesia is my favourite, for its size, diversity and beauty.
What’s been the most awesome travel experience you’ve had?
Too many to choose from! Diving an undersea volcano? Trekking for days to find hunter-gathering nomads? Horseback riding through the snow for three days in Tibet? Camel-trekking to a deserted beach to dive, sleep on the beach and dive again in Egypt?
If you wish you knew something when you started traveling, that you know now – what would that be?!
Countries and regions take time to explore and longterm travel requires downtime: you can’t knock off a country every couple of weeks and even keep your sanity, let alone have meaningful experiences.
What was your weirdest travel experience?
A séance at an Indonesian politician’s mansion, where he introduced me to the ghost of a 1000-year-old tribal king. My son, Zac, wasn’t allowed in because his attitude wasn’t right.
How much have you spent on this trip and how long has it lasted?
We’ve been going almost three years. I work on the road so spending tends to match or slightly exceed my earnings. I honestly couldn’t tell you what we’ve spent, but for the first year our budget was $50 a day excluding flights.
Where to next?
I’m currently in Girona, Spain. I go back to Greece to pick up my son, from Greece to Istanbul, Istanbul-Bali, Bali-KL, KL-Nepal, Nepal-northern China and then Mongolia and some ‘Stans. TBC.
What advice would you give to any Aspiring Backpackers?
Just do it. Don’t spend your time planning things and dreaming, just get up and go.
Best advice;)
Love this!
My wife and I and five friends recently visited the Annapurna Base camp with the help of the Nepal Planet Treks. The trip was fantastic and the Nepal Planet Treks fabulous. I confidently recommend to any prospective trekkers that they seriously consider using the Nepal Planet Treks to conduct their tour. The performance of the Team was really good, from the very first email contact to our final departure from Kathmandu airport the staff of the company looked after us really well.
Sanjib was our main contact and he designed a great trek from our request to “see the rhododendron forests and see Annapurna, but not too high an altitude”. He picked exactly the right time to see the rhododendron forest in full bloom, and the best route to get to Annapurna Base Camp to see the full grandeur of the mountains there.
He put together a support team of an expert guide (Vishnu Adhikari ), his assistant and four porters to do the heavy lifting. They were all cheerful, very competent, and helped us through any difficult spots (and there were a few, but nothing we could not manage with their willing help). VISHNU gave us a lot of information about the local customs, fauna and flora, as well as detailed and accurate advice about the nature and condition of the route we would take. He made the trip interesting and enjoyable and took us there and back safely. And the food and accommodation was great too with good meals in comfortable teahouses.
Do you get the impression we enjoyed the trip and was in awe of the Planet Treks Team ‘s performance? That is exactly how we did feel, and thus have no hesitation in recommending them as a company that delivered a wonderful and memorable experience of the Annapurna Region forests and mountains.
Thank you Sanjib, Vishnu and the Nepal Planet Treks.
Visited February 2016