Where to From Here? (a South Asian detour)

It’s been a while since we’ve written an update on our travel plans. I guess the main reason we don’t publish this information ahead of time on the blog is that we usually have no idea where we’ll be next week, let alone months from now.

But can you believe we actually have a plan for the rest of the year?! I know, this NEVER happens!

This advanced planning has basically been born out of necessity. We have several travel blogging conferences to fit in over the next few months and if we’re going to make the most of these opportunities, then spending some time thinking about how we’re going to get from A to B seems like the logical thing to do. Plus, I’ll be honest, sometimes deciding your itinerary on the fly can be exhausting and it’s kind of nice to know where we’ll be for the coming few months.

The reason we’re deviating so much from our original travel plans (as loose as they were), is actually a pretty exciting one. We’ve been selected as hosted bloggers for the inaugural Professional Travel Bloggers Association Conference in Sri Lanka!

That means we’ll be sent to/from Sri Lanka for a week-long hosted blogger trip in which we’ll get to experience some of the best the country has to offer and learn from some of the best in the industry. Just looking at the itinerary makes us beyond excited!

The conference will take place in mid-November and means we’ll be venturing on a *slightly* different route for a while.

So now that we’ve left Rome, this is what our basic schedule looks like.

Now – September 19th: Other cities in Italy including Florence and Venice.
September 19th – October 15th: Cross the land border to Slovenia and then gradually head down to Greece via the Balkans.
October 15th – 27th: Athens (where we’ll be attending TBEX, an international travel blogging conference).
October 27th – November 10th: London (where we’ll be attending World Travel Market – a HUGE global travel industry event).
November 10th – 11th: Rome (back for our Sri Lanka flight).
November 11th – December 10th: Sri Lanka (for the Professional Travel Bloggers Conference and general exploration. We’re thinking of perhaps coordinating a little trip to the south of India too).
December 10th: Fly to a mystery destination! ;)

The added benefit of having a more or less set itinerary is that we have more of a chance to arrange meet-ups with people along the way. If we’ll be heading to a town near you, we’d love to hear from you!

OK, I think that is all for now. Better head to bed as we are going to visit Pisa tomorrow and although Hai will cringe (he is not a fan of tacky touristy photos), I’ll definitely get a pic of me holding up the Leaning Tower! I think this one has to be done, right?!

Before we call it a night, we’ll be trying to rid our room of mosquitoes and covering ourselves with repellant. There are a crazy amount of mosquitoes in Florence! Usually it is Hai who gets massacred and me who escapes the carnage, but it seems even my blood is on the menu here.

A lot goes on everyday of our travels, things that don’t make it to posts on top tips or experiences, but are part of it all nonetheless. Would you like to read some more casual updates on the blog about what we’ve been up to, the good, the bad, the ugly and all of that? Would love to know your thoughts in the comments section. Cheers and hope you’re having a great week!