Dettifoss

Dettifoss is the largest waterfall in Europe by volume of water and has a reputation of being one of the most powerful waterfalls. It sits on a river that flows from the Vatnajokull ice cap and there's a few other waterfalls in the area as well.

Getting to the waterfall was very... uh... interesting. We ignored our GPS and took a newer road that was just recently built, which was the better choice because this side had port-a-potties (ew) and a better view of the falls.



The falls isn't too far from the parking lot and was only about 800 to 900 meters away. But, we didn't realize it would still be covered under a foot of snow! The path was well marked and carved out by previous hikers, so it wasn't as difficult as it could have been. Some of the trail made me nervous though because of the "Stay on trail! Deep waters nearby." Deep water nearby?!? I tread very carefully after reading that one!



Once we finally reached the beautiful Dettifoss, it was difficult to get a good picture. Because of all the waterfall mist and the cold, the lower region, where the best view points are, were marked off due to the frozen ground. Although it looked like someone had been down there recently, I was not going down there in my little sketchers and risk slipping off of the side to get the picture I wanted. I was perfectly fine viewing the falls from where I was. Dettifoss was beautiful, but maybe I'm bias because of my love for waterfalls.



But there were also some mega mean looking clouds coming our way and we needed to snap, admire and run back before we got slammed by whatever it was that was coming for us. We carefully but speedly made our way back and just as we came to the car, the storm unleashed its power. Down came ice and snow, covering our car and the roads before we could get away. Luckyily though, we made it out fine and left the big wall of white behind us. On to our next destination.

Bucket List Completion: Jokusarlon Glacial Lagoon

Jokusarlon was every bit of amazing and more. After mom and I had finished our glacier walk, we headed to our hotel and ended up passing it on our way. It was unexpected and the moment the lagoon came into view I squealed with excitement and demanded we pull over.



We didn't stay long, but long enough for me to take in the wonder of it. Huge and small icebergs float throughout this huge lagoon. It's 8 km from the shore to head of Breidamerkurjokull and it doesn't even look that far.



The lagoon was created once the glacier began receding, much like other lakes and such that are formed in front of glaciers. The lagoon is only about a mile from the ocean and covers almost 7 square miles! While you are at the lagoon, you're visiting the lowest and highest point of Iceland. The lake is around 814 feet deep and the peak right near it is the highest point.



Getting up the next morning and knowing that we would get to take a boat ride around the lake had us leaving our beautiful guesthouse at 6:30 am. I wanted to make sure we were finished with our Svartifoss hike by the time the rides started at 10 am. Since our hike finished up way early, we got to the lake right at 10.



They had us on a car boat thing which was weird and at first I though they were just going to drive us around on a car that looked like a boat, but no, they drive the boat to the edge of the lagoon and then turn the motors on and everything.



The 30 minute ride around the outside of the lake was incredible. We saw icebergs covered in ashes and dirt and ones that were completely white or blue. The icebergs that appear white are the ones that have been on the surface the longest. I'm not going to get all scientificky because I don't really understand it but the "blue" icebergs are not really blue. It's just an illusion. A pretty illusion but an illusion none the less. If the icebergs do appear blue, those are the ones that have more recently flipped over and out of the water. 90% of an iceberg is hidden under water, so you can never fully see all of it.



Once the guide finished giving us our lesson about the lake, he grabbed an iceburg out of the water and cut little pieces of ice off for everyone to try. I got to eat a 1000 year old piece of ice!! How freaking awesome is that? And then... I got to hold the iceburg, which was heavy and extremely extremely cold.



So if you're visiting Iceland and don't know if you should take the boat tour, you really don't have to. When you're on the ring road (road 1), you'll see it right from there. There is a parking area and a path around the lake you can walk. The boat goes about three km into the lake and no further because of how many iceburgs there are but the different view points you get are worth it and the fact that they let you have a piece of iceberg to eat!

Svartifoss in Skaftafell National Park

After our wonderful two hour glacier walk, we planned on hiking to Svartifoss. Little did I know, it was a four mile round trip. Once our hike was over on the glacier and we sat down to eat, I knew there was no way we could do that. So we planned to return in the morning before our Jokusarlon boat tour.

When we returned in the morning, I double checked our maps and the description of the hike. It said the hike should take us about two to two and a half hours and be about 7 km round trip. That's what were planning on. What we didn't plan on was our GPS taking us on a secret route that would cut our time in half.



There's this road a little bit further up and a parking area down at the bottom of the hill but our GPS man told us to keep going up and the warning sign said the road was only monitored June 1 through September 1. So we kept going. We didn't see anyone and no one tried to stop us.



After an extremely steep drive up and making it to the top, we kind of looked around trying to find out where we were. There were these cute little houses built into the mountain on one side and cliffs with stretches of land on the otherside. There was a spot big enough to park two cars, so we parked ours and got out to look around. We found a hiking trail that said Svartifoss and we began our two and a half hour trek up.



Five minutes after hiking straight up a mountain, we saw a sign that said Svartifoss was only .5 km away from where we were. Uhh... What?!? The hiking guide and all other signs said it would be a 3.5 km hike!! Some how, we had significantly decreased our walking time and mileage by taking that turn at the other parking lot. I'm still not even sure if we were allowed up there but we hastened our pace after that sign. The clouds were not looking promising. The last part of the hike was down hill and made it easy but it is some what difficult if you have knee problems.



Svartifoss is not as big as the pictures make it look but worth a visit. If you take the hike you're supposed to take, you get views of one of the glacier tongues near by along with another waterfall and nature life.

Glacier Walk in Skaftafell National Park

After our shockingly late wake-up and beautiful visit to the town of Vik, it was time for our glacier walk! I had no idea what to expect and just knew that it would take anwhere from 2 to 3 hours to do.

The glacier we walked on, Skeidararjokull, is located in Skaftafell National Park, which is part of the larger Vatnajokull National Park. Skaftafell was named a national park on August 23, 1968. The park has amazing views of Iceland's highest mountains and the area has the biggest valley glacier. When Skaftafell was first established as a national park, it was 500 square km. In 2004, it was extended to 4800 square km!



On June 7, 2008, the entire Vatnajokull ice cap became a national park in Iceland. Discussions about making the ice cap a park had been going on for some time and it finally became a reality. Skaftafell National Park is now apart of Vatnajokull National Park which takes up 13% of Iceland and is that largest national park in Europe.



Our walk began with a lesson on how to put on crampons. I had never heard of these things but they are to fit around your shoe and tied on tightly to help walk on top of the glacier. We had to be taught how to walk in them as well so we didn't fall or slip. When you walk up a hill, you have to walk hard and penguin like, making you look silly. And going down, you point your toes straight down. Easy peasy.



The guide took us all up and down and around this beautiful glacier, showing us all of the different views. There were small and large crevices in the glacier due to the melting of the glacier and the need for the water to find a way out. Some of the crevices were quite large and nerve-wracking to walk close to.



Glaciers are formed by snow build up over an extremely long period of time. Snow falls one year and doesn't melt all the way and then the next year the same thing happens and so on. After so many years of that happening, a glacier is born. It is natural for them to begin receeding, especially now but they are receeding very quickly, which causes concern.



We came to a small flow of water in the glacier and the guide informed us that all of the water in Iceland is some of the purest water in the world to drink. I couldn't resist asking if I could have a small sip from the water flow and I'm so glad I asked! The water was ice cold (of course!) and so delicious. If you're not a water drinker, it probably won't make a difference to you but I drink water all of the time and had never tasted anything so good. But because the ice traps in all of the minerals and only releases the water, you could not survive off of glacier water. It lacks nutrients and minerals like all other water does.



The darker colored ice we passed that looked like dirt was full and covered in ash from past eruptions. Also, the mounds of ash we found were from holes in the glacier. The glacier used to be about 30 to 40 meters higher than it used to be and when water and sediment needed to find a way out, it would find holes in the glacier. The sediment would dump in the hole and the water would keep flowing, creating these huge mounds of ash that solidified due to the freezing conditions.



In 1996, a huge eruption occured in Vatnajokull. About 15 million cubic meters of iceburg broke off of the glacier and was carried away by a flood that occured three weeks after the eruption. That's Iceland's main concern with an eruption. Not the lava, but the floods that occur because of the eruption. A lot of those glaciers sit on active volcanoes, so it is a constant concern for the people in that area and careful monitoring is done to watch seismic activity.



The hike around the glacier was tiring but very rewarding. We got to see many different geological features of the glaciers and learn how they're formed, what happens when they melt and the effects is has on communities. We also got to see where some scenes of Game of Thrones was filmed for scenes from outside of the wall (whatever that means. Fans, I'm assuming you do). We learned a lot, had tons of fun and was plenty exhausted by the end of it!

Day of Getting Lost

Our third day in Iceland was rather frustrating. It was spent getting lost because of our GPS, but every negative has a silver lining and we found it. Mostly.

We began our day driving back to Skaftafell National Park through the snow and taking a nice hike to Svartifoss. Mom and I had to get up extremely early to catch up from not seeing it the day before. It was gorgeous, of course and I'm glad we took the time to go back and see it.



Our hike finished up just in time because it started snowing! We headed over to Jokulsarlon Lagoon (second bucket list completion!), making it just in time to grab a cup of coffee and be off on our lagoon boat ride. It's impossible to take a bad picture of this wonderful place.



Next up, the eastern fjords of Iceland. This is where things got really frustrating. Our GPS got us incredibly lost and kept telling us to go the wrong way. However, we saw beautiful views of the coastline.



We stopped at several villages looking for gas and food (which our GPS told us there would be). It was hard to find something open and that didn't serve pastries. The towns were cute but weren't necessary to go in to since almost everything was closed anyways.



After finding food, we made our way to our hotel. Or so we thought. I plugged in our hotel's address and was taken 30 minutes in the wrong direction. Finally we gave up and stopped using the GPS all together and used our trusty map instead. We got to our hotel and hunkered down for the night.



Even though this day was filled with frustration, we actually saw a lot of gorgeous sites. Traveling around the eastern fjords and coastlines is something magical to behold and after ignoring the GPS, we made our way up a mountain and crossed it to get to our next town. It was truly amazing. Pictures do not do it justice.

Recap of Day 2 In Iceland

Today was just as fast paced as yesterday because we woke up about an hour late. Jet lag, combined with a few hours’ sleep and non-stop go, go, go really wiped us out. But every moment was worth and tomorrow is going to be just as full because we ended today early.



After being shocked awake at hearing "OMG Taylor, it's 8:30!," mom and I rushed to gather our things, eat breakfast and head out. Our first stop was Skogafoss.



We had stopped there the night before to eat dinner but decided to come back today to get some better pictures. Unfortunately, because we woke up an hour late, I didn't have time to run to the top. However, the views from the bottom were perfectly fine.



We headed to Vik to fill up on gas and was pleasantly surprised to see how absolutely gorgeous it was. This beautiful little city sits on the coast with a lot of character.



Next up, Skaftafell National Park. I knew we were there the moment I saw the HUGE glaciers come out right in front of us. Vatnajokull is the largest glacier in Europe and the second largest in the world. Our hike was on Skeioararjokull (don't ask me to pronounce it!) and it was more than I could have hoped for. I also got to try some glacial water! How awesome is that??



The hike took us two hours and after climbing up and down the icy hills of the glaciers, we were both freezing, tired and hungry. So we hopped on over to have some dinner with the best of intentions to return to Svartifoss. Once we sat down, ate and relaxed, the weather went slowly down hill. It got colder while we were inside and started raining.



To see Svartifoss, we'd have to do two mile hike there and then two miles back. We decided to head to our guesthouse and come back tomorrow. While that seemed like a great plan at the time, we looked at tomorrows schedule and realized it will be even busier than today.



But I do not mind one bit. I came to this beautiful country to see and do as much as I could. Iceland deserves more than 10 days from me, but it is all I can give and I will spend it well. I do not want to end up regretting something I missed out on because I was "too tired." So, here's to tomorrow being an amazingly scenic day!

Brief Overview of Day 1 in Iceland

Today has been hectic and slam full of sight seeing. The tour my mom and I booked was supposed to be for 10 days and 9 nights. But because of jobs, we couldn't get in until one day later and had to put two days together.

Everything worked out though and we only missed out on a few minor parts of the experience.

After picking up our teeny tiny car at the air port, we grabbed some breakfast at a place called Cafe Paris. Before I remembered to take a picture of this delightful breakfast, I had scarfed it all down. Cafe Paris seemed to be the only restaurant opened at 8 in the morning. Iceland appears to be a sleepy town. I'm not sure if it's because we came in on a Sunday or what. But NO WHERE opened until at least 9.

Once we scrunched our faces up at our $50 breakfast bill, we headed to the Blue Lagoon. I was on the fence about this whole blue lagoon experience. But it turned out great and loved it!



Now that we were nice and relaxed and washed all of the air plane crd off of us, we headed for Thingvellir National Park, where we got to see our first waterfall and the split between two plates (I'm a nerd and TOTALLY thought this was the coolest thing ever and had been looking forward to it from the start of this trip!)



By the way, I'm purposely uploading some of the more unscenic pictures so I can save the best for each of the individual posts :)

Next up, is the pretty awesome Geysir area. I wasn't sure what to expect since I had seen geysers in Yellowstone, but it was fun to watch!



Now on to my favorite part!

WATERFALLS!!!

I don't want to spoil all of the awesomeness that are these waterfalls, so here is a sneak peak ;)

First we have Gullfoss. Absolutely breathtaking but prepare to have a nice shower!



Then, one from my top 15 bucket list, Seljalandsfoss!



Tomorrow, I'll be climbing to the top of this one, Skogafoss. Super excited and can't wait to share the pictures!

I can't wait to share with you all how much I've seen and learned in just ONE day, but stay tuned for some more spectacular awesomeness! :D

Liebster Award Nomination

So, I was nominated for my first virtual blog award called the Liebster Blogging Award. I haven't been nominated for anything before and it was quite exciting :). The word “liebster” has German origins and can be translated to a variety of English meanings, such as lovely, kind, pleasant and beloved. The award has been around for a while and the rules have changed over time but then general rules of the game are to answer the questions of the blogger who nominates you and then nominate other bloggers and they'll answer your questions.

Who nominated me?

Justin and Lauren from Justin Plus Lauren nominated me for this awesome award after they were nominated. Justin and Lauren are a couple from Canada that seek new places to travel too all of the time with extensive travel in North America. They are currently saving up for a trip to Italy next year and both work as video editors in the media industry. Their blog focuses on their travels and their vegan eating lifestyle. So go check out their blog for some interesting stories :)! Thanks for nominating me y'all!

Justin and Lauren's Questions to me

1. Why did you start writing your travel blog and what is the inspiration for its name?

I started writing my blog because I will begin a trip around the world in just a few short days and wanted to share my stories and experiences with friends, family and anyone else who would enjoy reading my story. When I thought about making a website, I went through a whole list of names and World Trippin' It was at the top. I'll be gallavanting across the world and thought it suited me the most. And it's catchy ;)

2. What has been your favorite travel destination so far?

I absolutely LOVED visiting Switzerland. The people are so nice and the views there are absolutely breathtaking!

3. Where was the first place that you remember traveling to?

The first place I remember traveling to is Disney World. My parents had their honeymoon there and once I was born, we began going every single year. I always loved going and participating in the parades once I was a bit older. I always enjoyed watching the shows at MGM studios.

4. Where are you traveling next?

The first stop on my around the world trip is Iceland. My whole route can be found here. I'll be visiting about 20 countries or more if I have the time and resources.

5. What destinations are at the top of your bucket list?

New Zealand and Iceland. All the way. Ever since I began watching Lord of the Rings when I was younger has put New Zealand at the top of my bucket list. I love hiking, nature, waterfalls and endless amount of green. Both of these destinations encompass all of my loves into one and pack even more wonderfulness. I am ecstatic for these two destinations and Iceland is my first I'll be visiting on my trip!

6. What is your most memorable meal that you’ve enjoyed while traveling?

My dad and I visited a roadside stand when we went to Hawaii and while we didn't have a meal, we tried their fried bananas and fresh fruit. I tried fruits I had never seen or heard of. Lychee was my absolute favorite fruit that I had never had before and the mango slices we bought were so juicy and amazing. It was the first time I had ever tried fried bananas and ended purchasing two of them because they were so delicious.

7. What place would you enjoy returning to again and again?

I would LOVE to go back to Costa Rica. It's a beautiful country and embodies all my loves <3. My first time around, I didn't see any where near enough of what I wanted to and I went with a tour group (which was awesome). I got to do a lot while there but we moved around very quickly. I could definitely see myself going back there over and over just to experience the beauty.

8. What was your least favorite place to visit and why?

My least favorite place that I have visited would have to be Nassau. Maybe it would be different if I didn't come in to the port. The destination is strictly for tourists and has so many tourist traps and people trying to trick you into buying things. When I went, I would try ignoring the people or explaining to them I didn't want to purchase what they were selling. They would proceed to try and guilt us into purchasing stuff from them.

9. Who is your favorite travel writer/blogger?

This is very difficult because I follow tons of travel bloggers, but I can list my top three. Alex, from Alex in Wonderland is awesome to follow. I began following her blog while she was jaunting around South America for several months. A lot of my ideas for what I want to do while in South America have come from her blog. Cez and Agness, from Etramping, always have good tips and show that it's possible to travel throughout the world on a cheap budget. There blog focuses on traveling for under $25 a day. It's amazing to see how it can be done. Lauren, from Never Ending Footsteps, always has funny stories to tell about her "incidents" around the world and I love reading her monthly updates about how much she's spent, where she's been and all her stats for the month.

10. What advice would you give to someone who is looking to travel around the world, or live in a foreign destination?

My advice would be not to let anyone else influence your decision. If I had let what people said about my trip bother me or influence me in any way, I wouldn't be going. Follow your dream and do what you want to do. If you feel selfish (I did), DON'T! You are stepping away from the norm of what everyone else is doing. You are doing something courageous and brave. Millions of people would love to be able to travel or move to another destination but don't. They have a whole list of reasons. Don't be like those people. Break away. Break away from the norm, be different and experience this amazing world so many people miss out on.

Who I'm Nominating

Anna, from Slightly Astray . She just began her trip back in April with her partner, Daniel and they are currently traveling throughout South America right now.

Vicky, from The Travel Well , is currently in Australia on a work visa and is finding ways to sustain her long-term traveling goal. Vicky got bit by the travel bug when she went on a World Challenge Expedition to Malawi and has traveled and learned so much since!

Elaine, from The Whole World Is a Playground is currently located in Dublin, Ireland with her husband. They've been to about 11 countries and continue to add to their travel destinations.

Oksana, from Drink Tea and Travel , blogs about her travels throughout 30 countries in three years. After chasing dream from dream, she began to slow down once she moved to China and began experiencing traveling differently.

Jessi and Ken, from Berry Random is a travel blog about the Berry couple. They blog about their travel experiences and their many bucket list items!

My questions for the nominees.

1. When did you begin traveling and why?
2. What is unique about your way of traveling?
3. How do you sustain or save up for your travels?
4. What is the most unique destination you have visited?
5. Which destination did you visit that affected you the most and in what way?
6. Have you ever traveled while in debt? If so, how did you pay off your debt and continue traveling?
7. What has been your favorite activity throughout your travels?
8. Do you collect anything on your travels? If so, what?
9. What do you enjoy most about traveling?
10. What was one person that influenced you about your travels?

How I Have Planned This Trip

I have been getting many questions on how I was able to plan for this trip, if someone planned it for me or if I have had to take out loans to take this trip. I will go through my many ways of how I've prepared for this world tour of mine.

1. Choosing my locations

To plan my route and the countries I'm visiting, I picked out the absolute major sites and countries I MUST visit. After that, I built my trip around those places and looked to see what other places were practical to add.

My major MUST sees were Dettifoss in Iceland, Norway, Amsterdam, the Moulin Rouge in France, Pompeii, Santorini, Hagia Sophia, Great Wall of China, Phuket, Galapagos Islands and Easter Island. Once I plotted those on my map, I looked at surrounding areas and found what else was reasonable to see within a decent or cheap distance.

2. Finding my flights

I have always been obsessed with finding really cheap flights and was able to use my obsession to my advantage for this part. I used three main websites to find and book my flights.

Kayak.com Kayak is a very good resource to use. It has many different options you can use to your advantage.

When you add in an airport you're leaving from and/or flying into, you can choose more than one airport. This was you can ensure you're going to be flying out of the cheaper airport. For my area, I always use Charlotte, Charleston, Atlanta and Myrtle Beach for my home airport.

You can also look at advanced options to change the range of dates. If you're able to be flexible with your dates, you can always find a cheaper flight. I usually set my date for the middle of the week and select +/- 3 days. Again, this will ensure you can fly out on the cheapest day.

Momondo.com After finding the cheapest date to fly out on on kayak, I would put the airports Kayak gave me as being cheapest on the cheapest day and see what prices I got from momondo. Almost 98% of the time, Momondo came back with a cheaper price than Kayak would.

Bookingbuddy.com Bookingbuddy is good for comparing several different websites on one page. I've found several flights on this website that are $20 to $200 cheaper than Kayak or momondo. It's just a matter of checking your resources and cross checking to find the better deals.

You can also sign up for cards that give you miles for purchases and flying their airline. I signed up for Spirit Airlines and that's how I got my $17 flight to New York. I also have a Citi card in my wallet that collects miles for American Airlines. I have over 35,000 miles which I plan on using for my flight from New Zealand to South America.

Using these three websites, mileage cards and booking my flights 6 months to a year in advance saved me a ridiculous amount of money. Yes, it cuts down on the amount of freedom I have, but I'm going on this trip to experience as much as I can and not just float around wherever I please. I needed some certainty and security on this trip and booking my flights gave me that. I know most travelers don't do it like this and that's perfectly cool. Maybe one day I'll do that as well, but for now, I'm happy with saving a ton of money and the certainty.

3. Research

Next up, was research and finding out all I could about the countries I'd be visiting. I used Lonely Planet and Frommers for basic information such as finding out the "in" season and shoulder seasons, rainy seasons, average weather for particular times of the year and so on.

For more in depth research, I went to government and embassy websites, travel bloggers who have traveled for years and years and tripadvisor forums.

I looked up visa requirements, vaccination requirements, average daily costs for living and food expenses, costs of all the touristy things I wanted to do and different modes of transportation and the cost of those different ways. One thing I also focused on was finding the American Embassies in all of the countries I'm going to be visiting. usembassy.gov shows you where they are all over the world.

This took up most of my time when figuring out this trip... Not only do you need to know what to expect to spend, when to go and what places to see but also how you should act and the culture of the people you're going to be around. When you go some where different, you need to be aware of the differences between you and the people in the country you are visiting. Respect the fact that you are a visitor in someone else's "home." Don't go in ignorant because that will create conflict and unnecessary problems.


This is pretty much the process I have gone through for each and every country I have decided to visit. I want to make sure I am well prepared and know the necessary and maybe even unnecessary information about the places I am going to. I love learning about these areas anyways. I mean, I'm going to visit them, so I want to learn about the countries. The research was long and sometimes annoyed me but overall, I loved going through this and it has helped me learn a lot and made me more prepared for where I am going.

I hope this post has been helpful and can maybe help you for booking your future trips, whether they're short trips or longer ones like mine.

Final Expenses Before I Leave

When I first started this website, I broke down my expenses based off of my flights and my camera purchase. Since then, I have completed the list of items that I needed and have a total pre-trip expense report.



Flights are my largest expense because I had to book all of those. I already had the majority of the items I needed except for the flights and clothes and I also purchased a new camera.

So here is a break down of what I spent on each category.

Electronics Camera $518.39
Laptop Charger $16.90
Adapter Plug $4.13
Mini Surge Protector $12.95
2 Extra Batteries for Camera $31.02
32 GB SD Card $17.32
Nikon Lens Cap $7.59

Total: $608.30

Gear Wallet $6.98
TSA Locks $14.02
2L Platy Bottel $12.95
Coolmax Adaptor Liner with insect Shield $57.95
Backpack Rain Cover $11.99
Packing Cubes $29.50

Total: $133.39

Clothes Merino Wool Socks $13.83
Columbia Arcadia Rain Jacket $41.90
Tank Tops $11.88
Smartwool Socks $31.90
2 shirts $80.00
2 Shorts $90.00
Capri $55.00
2 panties $40.00

Total: $364.51

Beauty/Bath Veet Facial Hair Cold Wax Strips $3.52
Soap Holder $0.97
Eyeliner $5.94
Tweezers $2.47
Hairbrush $1.06
DryLite Towel Large $36.95
DryLite Towel Small $7.00

Total: $57.91

Health World Nomads $253.00
Ibuprofen $1.76

Total: $254.76

Chinese Visa Actual Visa $140.00
Service Agency Fee $40.00
Shipping (Back) $6.00
Visa photos $12.95
Shipping Cost (To) $5.60

Total: $204.55

Flights Myrtle Beach to New York $17.50
New York to Iceland $264.00
Iceland to Bergen $93.80
Oslo to Amsterdam $68.11
Paris to Barcelona $39.10
Barcelona to Rome $39.10
Rome to Frankfurt $51.91
Istanbul to China $422.00
Hong Kong to Bangkok $106.00
Phuket to Kuala Lumpur $29.03

Total: $1,130.55

Total: $2,753.97

(This list does not include prices on items I already had or items I received for Christmas).

My goal at the beginning was to not spend more than $2,500 on my pre-travel expenses. After using Christmas gift cards and receiving help from my family, I was able to come just under that goal. I know I could have probably spent less by hunting down those hard to find bargain deals or using some of my own clothes instead of purchasing new ones. But I chose to purchase new clothes based on the fact that they are quick drying, cooling and great quality. I plan on hand washing my clothes every few days and they are going to be put through a lot throughout my travels. I needed to be sure I purchased higher quality material to last me my trip. So, now I have my bag packed and all my gear ready to go. It's just time to get on my flight :) 4 More days!

Packing List for my Round The World Trip

After checking though tons of packing lists from other travel bloggers and ideas from my previous trips, I finally made a list of everything I needed/wanted to take. I followed through with most of the things on my list but decided I didn't need some items and ended up adding some items. Listed below are the final contents of my back pack. This is kind of a long post, so tuck in and enjoy :).

The Backpack



I decided to go with a smaller backpack than most backpackers and travelers use. I am shorter than your average person, so I couldn't really see me using one of the larger backpacks, as they would overtake me and would result in taking unnecessary stuff.

I chose the REI Lookout 40 Pack, which is a woman's day pack. It's a 40 liter bag with the dimensions of 20 x 13 x 10.5 inches. Not only did I choose this bag because it fit my size, but because it fits most of the dimensions for a carry on bag, especially Ryanair's strict dimension policies. Their dimensions are 21 x 15.7 x 8 in (I'm sincerely hoping they don't notice that mine is 2.5 inches off on that last part). Bags also have a weight limit of 22 pounds. Mine comes in a 18.6 pounds after everything is put in it :).

The Contents

Shoes

• Sketcher's Memory Foam Tennis Shoes


• Pair of black Old Navy flip flops

Jackets

• Rain Jacket


• Scottevest Hoodie (I chose this jacket because it is warm and has 14 pockets and you can only see two of them. This will help if I need to lighten my load in my backpack and can double as a carry on bag without actually counting as one!)

Shirts

• 4 tank tops


• 2 Columbia T-shirts

Bottoms

• 1 pair of Capris


• 1 pair yoga pants


• 2 pair Columbia shorts


• 1 pair comfy shorts (to sleep in)

Undergarments

• 3 underwear


• 2 sports bras


• 2 regular bras (not pictured)


• 4 pairs of socks (I'm obsessed with socks)

Other clothing Items

• 1 Sarong


• 1 infinity scarf


• 1 bathing suit (not pictured)

Electronics

• All in one converter plug


• Mini Surge Protector


• iPad


• iPod


• Samsung Galaxy S4 (I use Verizon, it's already unlocked and prepared for the use of another SIM card)


• Charger cords and main plug for iPad, iPod and Samsung


• Asus notebook and charger


• Passbook (Not pictured)

Health

• Ibuprofen (I'm prone to headaches)


• Sleeping Pills (To help with the jet lag or over excitement)


• Midol


• Pepto


• Mini first aid fit and extras


• Eye drops

Bath/Beauty

• Mini toothpaste


• Toothbrush


• Floss


• Deodorant


• Fold up hair brush with a mirror


• Soap


• Soap case


• Sea to Summit Extra Large Microfiber Towel


• REI small microfiber towel


• Q-Tips


• 1 self sharpening Eyeliner


• Grooming Kit


• Veet wax strips


• razor


• Hairbows

I plan to purchase shampoo, conditioner and detergent as I need them along my trip.

Writing

• My gorgeous new leather travel journal (yes, it's heavy and impractical but I love it)


• 2 pens


• 1 Glue stick (to glue in important things that I'd like to keep track of)

Misc

• 2 liter collapsible water bottle


• 1 backpack rain cover


• 1 insect proof sheet liner


• 1 travel wallet


• 1 flash light


• 4 TSA approved travel locks


• 1 chap stick (I actually packed 4 because I always misplace them)


• 2 packing cubes (these help tremendously with organizing and smashing things in)

Camera Bag Contents

• Camera Bag


• Nikon D3100


• Extra Lens Cover


• 1 32 GB memory Card


• 1 16 GB memory card


• 1 8 GB memory Card


• 3 rechargeable batteries


• Battery charger


• 1 zoom lens


• 3 filters and filter holder


• 1 Memory Stick

So, what do you think? Am I taking too much, too little? Is there anything I should get rid of or add?