I'm now nearing the end of a 21-month Round-the-World trip with my wife and our was-eight-now-ten-year-old son.

Since leaving our home in Scotland, UK in August 2015, we've travelled through Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, South Africa, Namibia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador & the Galápagos Islands and we are now finishing up our trip in the USA.

If you guys have any appetite to know more, or have any how/what/why questions, then reply and we can get a thread going if there's any interest.

don't care if no brown whore stories

just kidding
ok, kinda kidding

I live in Brazil, btw. Which states did you visit?

Galapagos photos please!

Been on my list of places to go for years.

Round the world for nearly two years while hauling an 8/9 year old boy along? Wow...!! Would def like to read more!

You wrote that you're "nearing the end"; I have to assume that your trip somewhat "changed" you and your wife...it will be interesting once you actually return home to see how you adjust to life back in Scotland, staying/living in one place, presumably re-entering the work force, etc. Wondering if you will find your old life a bit "boring"?

Did you visit any place that you and your wife actually seriously said to one another "We should move here!"? If I were in my 20's or 30's with young children, given the opportunity I would snap emigrate to Oz or New Zealand.

Very interested in this thread. Thinking about picking 11 countries to spend a month in next year with my wife. I'll play poker online and she will work remotely.

Were there any countries that you felt unsafe?
Any countries where good internet is tough to come by?

Thanks!

OK. Easy stuff first. A few Galápagos pictures.
The boat you can just about see in the bay is a catamaran we cruised on for a week to explore some of the smaller, uninhabited islands.

Yep, it will be interesting returning to "normal" life. We left with a plan to travel for a year which seems to have morphed into almost two. We both worked for ourselves before we left and we are going to need to start earning again as our money is running low now! It's been great living a life where, every single day, we can wake up and choose what we do and where we go without any commitments & usually in a place where the weather is nice!

Did we fall in love with anywhere that we seriously considered moving to? Nope, although I'd happily consider settling on the Sunshine Coast in Australia, in Singapore, in San Francisco, on either of New Zealand's islands or along the Garden Route in South Africa. And, if I thought I could learn some Spanish, then there are a few great places in Latin America for a nice lifestyle too.

Nowhere where we felt particularly unsafe. We just made sure we were aware of our surroundings and took sensible precautions like not wearing nice watches & jewellery or carrying & flashing lots of cash. With our son in tow, we've not been drinking hard and partying all night which reduces risks somewhat. We used a lot of public transport and walked around a lot of cities, but never encountered any hairy situations.

Internet was a lot more readily available that I ever imagined. We were able to connect almost everywhere we went, including campsites in the Namib desert and cruising round Halong Bay, Vietnam. Some of the slowest, costliest and unreliable connections have been in the US and Caribbean. The fastest connection we ever found was at Uyuni airport amongst the salt flats of Bolivia.

We spent time in São Paulo and at Foz do Iguacu in Paranã. We had also intended on going to Rio, but the Olympics were on at the time we were there, so we missed out.

Thanks for the response! What were some things that you did to keep costs low? Any good websites that helped you along? What was constantly a hassle for you and your family? (For instance, I traveled through Europe and had a hell of a time exchanging money.)

Yep, those are all solid choices. OK, so few more questions for you:

Did you most often book places to stay in advance, or did you most often just find places to stay once you arrived?

I'm imagine it was somewhat of a mix, but where did you mostly stay--hotels, guesthouses, airbnb, or ____??

Did you try to keep a daily/weekly budget? How much would you estimate you spent on the entire trip--food, flights, hotels, entertainment, etc.--how much for everything??

Any great "travel tips" in terms of great websites, blogs, apps, or whatever to recommend?

Great questions!

I wouldn't say that we went out of our way to keep costs low, but I would say that we tried to ensure we got good value for our money. Booking flights a few weeks ahead and using comparison sites like Kayak and Skyscanner helps. We opted for RTW tickets from Star Alliance for the big legs of our trip, then used local low-cost airlines on a hub/spoke basis to explore particular regions. We used Airbnb to find good value stays in more expensive cities then splashed out on some 5* hotels in cheaper countries such as India. In Galápagos, we booked an expensive cruise on a small catamaran, but haggled directly with the operator to get a great deal. In South Africa, we figured out it was cheaper to book a week-long private tour with a driver/guide than to book our own car and accommodation, so we benefited from that. We also enrolled for every travel points programme we came across and benefited from numerous free nights, special rates and discounts.

As well as a Kayak, Skyscanner and Google Flights, we also used TripAdvisor, Triposo, Google Translate, Travellers Point, Metro, XpenseTracker & TripIt quite frequently. Also, the UK government travel advice site was very useful to check health recommendations, visa requirements, entry conditions etc.

We haven't really had any constant hassles which is probably down to just doing some up-front research and prep and having a carefree, go-with-the-flow attitude. In lots of countries and we did regularly get approached by people trying to sell items or services, and a few scam operators, but a pleasant but firm No always seemed to be an effective deterrent. Language was a challenge in some places as none of us has much Spanish and English is not as widely spoken is South America as some might think, but that just added to the fun usually. Google Translate was a god send in restaurants without English menus.

Changing money hasn't been a problem. We've got a MasterCard with no foreign transaction fees which we use wherever we can, then we've just used ATMs to withdraw cash when needed.

As we were travelling with a child, we tended to book places in advance but, with hindsight, this was probably unnecessary in a lot of places. When you've got a young person that you're responsible for, you tend to be more cautious around stuff like this.

Stayed in a real mix of places.... Hotels, Airbnb, Gueshouses, Hostals, apartments. We also slept nights on boats, trains, camper vans and ships.

We set a budget per "region" then planned within that. I have kept a detailed log of all our expenses using the XpenseTracker app. By the end of month 19, we have so far spent $36k on transportation, $7k on food, $32k on accommodation, $30k on entertainment and $14k on other incidentals. This works out to about $70 per person per day for the three of us although the averaging is increasing just now as we're in the super-expensive USofA.

Surprised to hear you say "Super-expensive USofA"--depending upon where you are (NYC, San Fran, D.C. are exceptions) I wouldn't have guessed that USA was a "super-expensive" country, certainly not in comparison to most/all of western Europe, Singapore, etc..

Where are you in USA and what is your planned travel route here?

In FL just now, which is pricey due to Spring Break we think. Heading to DC next month when it's a little warmer up there then on to NYC and Boston by train. Then we're heading over to Chicago and up into Wisconsin. Earlier in the trip we were in New Orleans, LA at Mardi Gras and before that in Austin, TX, San Francisco and LA.

Singapore was expensive and we've not included Europe on our itinerary, preferring the other continents instead. Sydney, Australia was also pretty pricey.

Was there any stops where the language barrier was quite challenging? Any places you do not recommend?

I live in DC, let me know if you need any recommendations!

Sounds awesome, what's the best story from your trip?

Did you have a favorite country, or is too hard to tell?

Did you learn any Spanish before going to SA?

Is the internet that bad in the US? I'm from here and usually when I travel around here it's decent, and if not there's free wifi everywhere. I was blown away when I was in Australia with regards to how bad and expensive the internet was, so I'm surprised that Oz didn't make your **** list...

Anyway I'm from Chicago, so if you need any recs let me know!

We did quite a lot of pointing and smiling in São Paulo (Brazil), Montevideo (Uruguay) and Uyuni (Bolivia). And trying to buy Sea Sickness tablets in Quito (Ecuador) was quite a challenge.

There is nowhere which I do not recommend - everywhere we picked was rich in some experience or other. However, there are a few places which we can't really find reasons to return to. Hue in Vietnam, Phuket in Thailand, Windhoek in Namibia and Cozumel in Mexico all make this list.

Happy for all top tips for DC suitable for a couple with a ten-year-old in tow :-). Hopefully, we have timed our visit to coincide with the cherry blossoms and the Easter parades - arriving this Friday for 12 nights.

Picking favourite countries is really hard, but Cambodia and South Africa would both be in a top 5 for sure. Bolivia, Thailand and India are all fascinating countries in their own rights and the Galápagos Islands were a privilege to visit.

The only Spanish we knew before we arrived in SA was picked up by our son from watching Handy Manny cartoons. We didn't even know how to order a beer (but quickly learned that one)

Internet in the US has proved very good on the whole. Australia is patchy outside of the cities and super expensive, but it is a huge country with few people so I guess it's understandable. SE Asia and India were well connected and cheap and coverage in Africa was surprisingly advanced.

Happy for any top tips for us for Chicago :-) We've been once before, in February. It's was damn cold outside so we visited a lot of great & warm museums