Technology at its best – Eight guidebooks in a phone.

Christmas is getting close. Regardless of where and when we spend Christmas, most of us are preparing for it. I have to say though, that my focus is on Sunday. After spending the fall with my master thesis and learning a bit of Russian, I feel both a certain nervousness but at the same time I am itching to start some “real” travel. I also feel it has taken too much time to get ready. In other words: it´s time to go. I have gotten quite a few questions about where and when I am going. In order to answer that, I hereby present my travel plan.

On the 27th of December I´ll by flying out of Copenhagen, via Moscow to Beijing. On the 29th, I´m off to North Korea. After spending New Year´s with Kim on the 38th parallell, I´ll be taking the train back into China. Most likely I´ll be traveling southeast from Beijing since I´ll spending the Chinese New Year (February) in Taiwan. I´ll then move north to Japan and South Korea, completing the circle by arriving back in Beijing in the end of April or early May.

Then it´s a bit more sketchy. I´m currently going back and forth between three routes:

• follow the Silk route west, heading into the Stans and beyond,
• head southwest from Beijing, taking the train to Lhasa and spend time in the Himalayas including Nepal, Bhutan and northern India,
• head south from Beijing, going back to South-East Asia and see what I didn’t see last time (15 years ago).

All I know is, it´ll be overland travel (or by sea). Facing bullying security, worrying about lost luggage and be overcharged for bad food – it just doesn’t interest me. From a traveler´s point of view, every flight has to be considered a failure. (For those of you who yet haven´t read, I explore this topic a bit more in my own “travel manifesto“.)

Then, on September 5th, me and a friend start heading down the Karakoram Highway. Our trip starts from Kashgar in western China, takes us through the northern parts of Pakistan via Islamabad and Lahore into India. After about a week in New Delhi, I´ll be joining Untamed Borders´ Melons & Grapes – Grand Afghan Tour, a 15-day tour of Afghanistan. By early October, I´ll find myself back in New Delhi ready to take in what India has to offer. I´m planning to spend at least a couple of months in India.

I then see myself working my way east from India to South-East Asia. I know I´ll make time to go “Down Under” for a while, visiting friends in New Zeeland as well as in Australia. If everything works out according to plan, I´ll be back in Sweden in the late spring of 2017. But again, so many things can happen during this time – I might be back sooner and be fully content with the shorter trip. Or I´ll just find the place of my dreams and settle down right there and then. I guess I have the luxury to play it by ear, right?

My ambition is to update my blog about once a week and my Instagram account (busygoingnowhere) about once a day. You are more than welcome to follow me here and there – and tell your traveling friends to do the same. I´m glad if I can inspire other people to travel as well and/or leave the all – inclusive trips behind. My experience is that whether you follow travelers, read travel magazines or read about people who travel – or all  of them – you get pushed in the right direction.

But for now, I wish you all a Merry Christmas. And since I´ll be offline for the last days of the year, I also want to wish you all a Happy New Year as well.