Trip of a Lifetime..

[Lunahippo]

RJP wins, hands down. That's my dream, minus wife, kids and laundry

(I'm sure they are lovely, but this is a trip I'd do now while single... Though traveling to Egypt as a single girl is a big hold up for me)

I'm hoping someone chimes in and says I'm wrong. Anyway here's what I did on my 3 week dream vacay ( I'm east coast)

As an aside- I did this in july/August - much cheaper because its 'winter' in oz. if anyone else contemplates this: bring a 5mm and worry not. Well, worry not if you own a shovel. Winter is relative.


1 sold my engagement ring and vespa and flew 1st class to Australia got over my jetlag at the 4 seasons, climbed the harbor bridge- ate at est. and numerous other ridiculously good restaurants

2 flew to cairns, got on a mike ball live- aboard and dove the GBR and coral sea: awesome. Made friends for life.

3 took a couple days on land to explore the outback and hold a koala. Whatever people- this is the benefit of traveling alone.

4 flew to lissenung island in PNG and made more friends for life. And had some more fantastic diving in png.

5 Back to reality after 21 days of awesome down-under

I now love solo travel.

Tell us how your trip went!!

 

[Tigerman]

Mine would be an Antarctic liveaboard trip. Leopard seals, whales, crazy ice monsters!

HEY!! DUDE!! Were called Norwegians, not "Crazy ics monsters"

On topic though;
On a 10k USD budget I would definetly fly down to the red sea for a while, continue down to asia and finish off in in australia before going back home.

With the exception that the red sea is to me what the caribbean is to you, so I would flip it around and go caribbean and maybe some US locations, before Australia and Asia..

 

[LiquidDivingAdventure]

I recently put together a trip for a guy to PNG. Liveaboard diving on the FeBrina and resort stay at Walindi Plantation, one week each. Then a week doing land tours that landed at a couple of different jungle resorts for a total of about 3 weeks. Pretty amazing trip. It totalled out at about $22,000pp USD

I have been looking at a number of options for travel to PNG for you and keep coming back to the October-November time frame. This time of year offers the best all-around weather but also the best dive conditions, visibility, water temperature, etc. The limiting factor is the availability of liveaboards in the area. We did have the Aggressor fleet in the mix but they are moving their PNG vessel to Phuket Thailand at the end of this year. That said, the resident ships are a bit smaller than many vessels, again limiting availability. The two most accommodating resorts I have found still remain my top pics after much searching and both have sister liveaboards, the M/V FeBrina and M/V Chertan.


Depending on your desire for adventure and budget, I would recommend a couple of options:


1) Land based resort with local day trip adventures and local diving, and a liveaboard for more remote diving, or


2) An adventure tour that would be out of Port Moresby by air to the highlands and include Ambua Lodge (3 days), Karawari Lodge (2 days) and Rondon Ridge (2 days) . This would include multiple full day trips provided by Trans Nuigini Tours (recommended by both land based resorts I have contacted). The remaining time would be as in option 1 with a land based resort and liveaboard.


In Option 1, the land based dive resorts offer ala carte tours including volcano hikes, the Garu Hot River, and Pangalu Hot Springs that range in price from $45-60 ppdo minimum of 2 people. Some trips are via auto and some pure hiking up to 5-8 hours.


In Option 2, Trans Nuigini Tours offers several stock trips including one with a river cruise on the M/V Sepik Spirit. These vary in price and duration.


Some budget pricing for you, and final pricing might change at time of booking, and should you decide to book with me, I will offer an agent's discount of about $800 per person depending upon the final package…


Land based resort, approx $200 per person per day double occupancy accommodations, meals, laundry service - say $3400 for 2


Liveaboard, approx $3800 per person twin accommodation (may be slightly lower for a non-diver) - say $7600 for 2


Trans Nuigini Tours Wonders of PNG 9 days / 8 nights, accommodations, meals, tour transportation approx $4600 per person - say $9200 for 2


Domestic air fare associated with Trans Nuigini from Port Moresby to remote lodge locations approx $950 per person - say $1900 for 2


Budget pricing total for 2 travellers for Option 2 based on 3 weeks in country is $22,100 and does not include R/T international air from your point of departure. There is some flexibility in tours, room selections, ground trips that could affect pricing up or down depending upon your choices. For example Trans Nuigini offers some longer trips that run close to $6000 per person or $1400 more than the Wonders of PNG noted above.


Pricing is based in part at time of booking on currency exchange rate of the PNG Kina between 0.43-0.50


As mentioned above, I am finding the liveaboard availability the limiting factor but best availability now is the M/V FeBrina for the week of November 10-19, 2013.


I have attached 4 photos from Trans Nuigini of the lodges I mentioned in Option 2, a shot of the river cruise ship and M/V FeBrina liveaboard.


Please let me know if I can provide you with further details, itineraries, resort information, etc. It should be noted that October-November are considered high season, January-March low season and low season pricing for resort rooms would go from $200 pp/day to $160 pp/day. Not a significant difference in the overall cost of the 3 week package.

 

[Darnold9999]

For my 50th we did 5 weeks in Australia. Cairns (Palm Cove) for 10 days - rented a car and explored the area from Palm Cove as a base. Did a 4 day liveaboard with Mike Ball - a couple of day trips to the reef. Then flew to Brisbane, drove from Brisbane to Sydney stopping wherever we wanted. Stopped in Byron Bay and am really pissed at myself for not diving. At the time did not know that the diving was good there. Hunter Valley was a highlight.

On the kangaroo front we saw not one for the first week - until we took a hot air balloon ride. Got in the basket the pilot hit the burners to get us aloft (a very noisy process) and kangaroos jumped up in the grass from everywhere and ran from the noise. Once aloft kangaroos were everywhere you looked we just couldn't see them from the ground.


While this was a great trip I would do again in a heartbeat it was not really a dive trip. More of an exploration that included some diving.


For a more dive oriented trip with only three weeks I would take Mike's advice and spend 10 days on Bali diving and exploring the island and culture. Both are interesting. Then take another 10 days on a liveaboard like Arinui, Damai or Dewi Nusantara. All first class boats. The big difference is the number of divers on the boat. 8 on Damai 16 on Arinui I believe 20 on Dewi Arinui is about the same size as Damai, Dewi is significantly bigger. We did this trip a couple of years ago and would highly recommend it.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Consider North Sulawesi, Indonesia, combining a stay at a first resort where you can dive Bunaken and see large animals for a week, then relocate to a second resort on the Lembeh Strait side and see some of the best macro stuff in the world for a week. A few days of your third week get eaten up by travel, but you would still have a few days left to get out and see what's doing as far as local culture, etc.

 

[LiquidDivingAdventure]

For a trip recommended by Lorenzoid, look at Two Fish Divers. An amazing trip on a budget too. They have locations on Bunaken Island, Lembeh, and Bali and specialize in very small groups, even one-on-one if you want it. A package with them can include a couple of the locations and for stays over 7 nights discounts are available.

 

[Shasta_man]

Neat breakdown, Liquid. Very helpful. Whoa, 22 grand but doesn't yet include international air, TO PNG?! That's probably another 3 grand a piece. If it were me, the resort, while a nice place, wouldn't be so impressive after a week diving on the boat.