travelling from HK to all over the world.

[anthro]

hi y'all now i am a novice or completely inexperienced when it comes to travelling and i'm planning to go on a solo trip all across europe, by traveling through the east, i want to take a train from here to beijing and then from there to mongolia and then to lake baikal in russsia and then take the transiberrian train to the scandavian countries, like Sweden, Finland and norway and then head down to the mediterrenean like Italy, franch and spain Greece etc.

now thats what i have planned but how to do it i have no idea. i have no idea where to book for tickets or whom to consult or how to consult. i don't want to take a direct flight or anything, want to stay on the ground and experience it all by first hand, seeing everything, meet epoele along the way in my stay in hotels.

now anyone has any ideas what or whom should i consult regarding travelling and booking of hotels and etc. or do i have to individually book cheap low cost hotels to the individual places i'm visit. I heard off travel expert in HK, do they help, what do they do? I just want to clarify everything and makes sure before I go for it. and if possible anyone can tell me how much it could cost overall in total approximate.

thanks.

[bibbju]

I think the first questions you need to ask yourself are how much time do you have available and what is your budget?

[HK2A430]

We recently circumnavigated the globe as one last hurrah before settling here in HK. We did everything ourselves, booking tickets online at sites like agoda.com, hotels.com, priceline.com, etc. Airlines and hotels often have their own web sites that you can use. One of the resources we consulted the most was Google. Seriously, unless you have tons of money and can hire a personal assistant to do everything for you, Google is your friend. We also bought a bunch of books for the destinations we wanted to visit. I personally am a fan of the Lonely Planet series.

Travel agencies can be useful if your time is limited and you're not into planning everything yourself. For a trip like the one you're thinking of, I'm not sure how much help they'll be. Another reason to go with a travel agency in certain situations is they have more buying power than you do, so they're able to get volume discounts from hotels and airlines. I doubt that Siberia is a place that many HKers go to.

If you really have no idea what you're doing, then I suggest planning and booking a trip to a nearby location first, like Taiwan, or even Japan. Do everything yourself, get some experience, figure out what kind of accommodations you like, etc. Get practice. Once you do it you'll gain confidence and then booking that once-in-a-lifetime trip won't seem so daunting.

Lastly, sign up to a frequent flier/stayer program and you'll rack up points for free flights or stays. They really add up quickly.

Good luck to you, sounds like it's going to be an awesome trip.

[drumbrake]

What passport are you holding, and what visas do you need for China and Russia, is something you need to tell if you want some useful advice.

[Gruntfuttock]

One of the attractions of a hk passport is no visa needed for either...

[virago]

Book your first flight and hotel, book your last flight back. Anything in between is organise on the trip.

As mentioned take a guide book (or electronic version). A good ipad type device is also your friend.

[anthro]

time is no problem, budget it depends, about 20k i was hoping.

[anthro]

hksars passport

[virago]

time is no problem, budget it depends, about 20k i was hoping.

You talking about HKD?

[Drunken Master]

Every trip starts with an itinerary. In your case it looks like this:

1. Beijing
2. mongolia
3. lake baikal in russsia
4. Sweden
5. Finland
6. norway
7. Italy
8. France
9. Greece etc

Next step is to decide how to get to the destination, how many days you want to stay in each place, which hotels, attractions, restaurants, visa required. You can find information on Geoexpat and travelsites like virtualtourist.com.