Backpacking through Asia -- the preparation

After getting laid off from my comfortable job in the Silicon Valley, I decided to do some travel for a month with a couple of constraints -- to keep the trip within a month, to spend as little money as possible and to experience new cultures. Here then, are the steps I took in preparation for the trip. If there are things I should have done better, please suggest them.

1. Research: I used Google search, Lonely Planet and backpacking entry on Wikipedia to see what other people more experienced with budget travel have done. I checked with some friends who had undertaken similar trips. The key thing is to keep baggage to a minimum.

2. Budget: I arbitrarily chose $4,000 for the entire trip, including airfare, accommodation, food, entertainment and miscellaneous expenses. By and large, I managed to complete the trip within this limit. Go, me!

3. Where to go: I was contemplating many destinations including New Zealand, South Africa, South America, Asia and Europe. I settled on South East Asia and South Asia for reasons of economy and also the fact that I had not traveled much there at all.

4. Air tickets: Cathay Pacific has a fantastic deal called the All Asia Pass, which allows "unlimited" travel between 18 cities in Asia for an unbelievable amount of $1,299 for 21 days or $1,499 for 30 days. I chose the latter. Malaysian Airlines has a similar Access Asia pass for $1,399 , but that would mean flying out of Los Angeles. Thai Air has similar packages called Round the World with THAI and Visit ASEAN Airpass, but the pricing is not yet clear and requires additional planning.

I decided to get the All Asia Pass and the next challenge was to find a travel agent to finalize my travel plans. I discovered that the airline websites are useless for these tickets. After unsuccessfully searching through Google and Yahoo!, I found my travel agent on Craigslist. Airbound is the travel agent and located in downtown San Francisco. They are really nice and very accommodating. Give them a call at 1-877-424-7286. They deal with all the previously mentioned air tickets.

5. Destinations: After deciding on the starting date for travel (September 18th, I settled on Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur (with a brief visit to India), Bali (Indonesia) and Seoul (South Korea) in that order. I allocated about 4-5 days for each destination. I'm grateful to Mayona Lim at Airbound for helping me finalize the list. Initially I had included Japan and Vietnam, but Vietnam fell through because it requires a visa and Japan would have meant too much travel. All said, my airfare came to $1,720 including all taxes.

6. Visas: If you are an US citizen see the Foreign Entry Requirements for which countries require a visa. As stated above, Vietnam requires a visa, while all others require none. Incidentally, I had to obtain a visa for India too.

7. Accommodations: I used a combination of Lonely Planet books, Hostels.com and friends' recommendations for lodging. Where possible I stayed in guest houses, which are cheap, reliable and typically near tourist destinations. You have to spend a lot of time picking places, especially on Hostels.com. I learned that it's not worthwhile deciding upon them in advance. Most places will allow you to book and, if necessary, extend your stay upon arrival. However, be prepared to move if you don't find the accommodation to your liking. Another option is to simply use the recommendations in the Lonely Planet guides. For the most part, they are pretty accurate.

I had previously stayed in Youth Hostels and had good experiences with them. This was going to be my first experience with guest houses. Staying in established hotels meant paying a lot more money than I could have afforded, and of course the accommodation and prices are ho-hum. If you've seen one hotel, you've seem them all. Guest houses on the other hand cater to travelers and/or backpackers on a tight budget and each has its own personality and idiosyncrasies. Naturally, you have to trade in the your privacy for the cheapness. The chance to meet interesting people from all over the world more than made up for the privacy. I was a little older than the average backpacker, but no matter. In future, I intend to do more travel this way.

8. Miscellaneous: The final step in preparing for the trip was to buy a medium backpack ($120 at REI), a day pack (almost new from Craigslist), memory cards for my camera (2GB @ $50 at RadioShack), batteries, additional passport size photographs, and not to forget the excellent and indispensable Lonely Planet Guides (Hong Kong and Macau, Seoul and South Asia ($80 for all three guides).

Now it's off to Asia.