Twelve months round the world...sort of

evans6854

I just thought I'd share with everyone that next year I shall be off cycling a little way around the world.

I'm planning on doing a 4000 mile tour of south east Asia followed by the east coast of Aus, NZ and finally the small journey from LA to Vancouver and then across to NY. It's only in the early planning stages at the moment but after reading that backpacking isn't all it's made out to be I've decided to cycle my gapyear.

So any tips, route ideas or little gems of info about places would be gratefully received.

It will be my first ever tour so I'm just going to throw myself in at the deep end as I'm of the opinion that if it goes wrong I'll send the bike back home and get on a coach. (I'll do a mini equipment reconnaissance trip before I go but no more than that)

And to top it all off I'm an insulin dependant diabetic so it could turn into quite an interesting adventure! I'm very excited.

blorg

Don't over plan, just go and do it. Plans can change completely on the road. You would want to be sure you have your diabetes OK and prepared for lack of local supplies over such I long trip; a good friend I ride with is diabetic but I have not ridden more than 1,000km with him in one go and that was all in Europe. Good luck.

jc4lab

A couple of sites to look at are..Thorntree forum( for the Lonely planet )and Crazyquyon abike if you want to read cycling blogs of others who have done the same..Maybe obvious but watch out for local weather seasons which differ everywhere. Tyhoons etc Monsoons. are not to be messed with/. and nowadays may run on longer(SEAsia was once flooded one November).etc

Hoopdriver

I am Australian and have cycled EXTENSIVELY in Australia and if you would like some advice, I'd give the east coast a miss and instead ride Perth to Sydney, across the Nullarbor Plain. It will be a far, far more interesting journey and despite the challenges of tackling the Nullarbor, quite doable, even if you are relatively new to touring (but then you'll be an old hand by the time you finish up in Asia!). It is not as hard as it is often made out to be.

The east coast is pretty heavily trafficked and while much of the 'coastal' highway appears to hug the coast, you won't in fact find yourself breezing along one gorgeous beach after another - the roads actually run a few miles inland, and are busy with trucks - the Sydney-Gold Coast-Brisbane-Townsville-Cairns highway being one of Australia's biggest traffic/trucking/tourism corridors.

By going trans-continental (Perth to Sydney) you'll get a real flavour of the outback, see famously some great wine country both in Western Australia and South Australia, bag the Nullarbor (great bragging rights) then do the Great Ocean Road along the Victorian coast (Australia's most beautiful road), see Melbourne and then go up through the Snowy Mountains (stunning scenery) and on to Sydney. So much better than the East Coast, believe me.

I appreciate that you are diabetic and the 500-mile gap between Norseman and Ceduna - the great emptiness of the Nullarbor Plain - could pose some additional challenges in so far as obtaining insulin and so you would need to plan ahead, but I do not think these challenges would be insurmountable.

In any event I'd be happy to advise you on the Australian sector of your journey if you are interested. It is a great county for cycling.