Наши путешествия Our travels

I really love to dream, and how wonderful it is when dreams come true. For example, one of my dreams is the phrase "Yes, they have already traveled half the world", which sounds literally, and not figuratively about us. And I see that this is quite a feasible task for us. After eight years of unforgettable and fantastic adventures, we can safely say that we have seen a third of our planet! Behind 177 flights and hundreds of transfers, 1800 visited attractions, parks or just interesting places in 336 cities of the world. Fortunately, our desire to travel could not be stopped by flight cancellations, or closed hotels, or broken buses, or an outbreak of the plague, or the Zika virus, or encounters with snakes, or severe currency inflation, or Molotov cocktails flying at us, or meeting with malevolent guys armed with machetes, no stealing money. It all just adds gems of adventure to our priceless memories. Even the global lockdown allowed us to change the approach to our travels and have a year no less travel-packed than the previous ones. And yes, we are really very grateful to this world that after hundreds of thousands of kilometers we are now sitting whole and healthy. And how cool that in the era of the Internet it is easy to share all the moments with other tourists! On the one hand, such a story can be regarded as boasting, but I know for sure that there are people who rejoice with us and are inspired to adventure!

With each open country, we are more and more worried that there are fewer and fewer countries that will be radically different from those already seen. But we are already deeply dependent on the emotions that we experience, discovering more and more new places. But so far, oddly enough, the enthusiasm is only growing. Here, it would seem, what could surprise us with another island - Zanzibar? But no, he surprised several times a day! Now think about it, more than a thousand tourists fly to the island every day and almost everyone will experience such a wow effect - isn't this world beautiful?

And we are also extremely proud that we can call ourselves experts in the direction of Asia and exotic islands. These are our favorite areas and, fortunately, they are the ones we have explored the most. There, in general, everything always goes like clockwork, easy and saturated. I really like to surprise people with the directions we have been in and talk about them in colors, in the hope that the audience will also fly and be able to share our impressions with us. Even if not on those trips that were planned for 2020. Let Nice, Monaco and Rome have been canceled, but what wonderful trips have come to replace them. And the open new places in Ukraine this year exceeded all expectations in terms of quantity and beauty. Quarantine has only untied our hands, giving us the opportunity to work remotely. And the most important gift of quarantine is Zanzibar, which was not even close to the plans. I conducted entire surveys of tourists about how they ended up on this paradise island, basically the answer was the same: "We did not plan to fly here, but since everything was closed, the choice was obvious. "

On this island, we met other people who are always traveling like us. It was amazing how much our thoughts coincided with them during our travels. For example, when something does not go according to plan and perhaps not the most pleasant experience, the first thought is that this will be something to tell upon arrival. Other tourists even re-play the wedding after a while, just like us. So for Zanzibar, which we didn’t even have in our plans, special thanks to the quarantine. True, now it is more and more difficult to return home, because you know that you can stay in the country and live in the format of an endless journey. But if you do not return, then there will be no travel to other countries, and this is impossible. One couple on the island told us that they ended up in Zanzibar, because they paid for a tour to Hainan Island and on the same day an epidemic began and the Chinese island was closed, the operator eventually transferred the money for the tour in favor of Zanzibar. The irony here is that on that winter evening we also decided that we would take a package to Hainan tomorrow, and when I wanted to book it the next day, I found out that the island had just closed and simply did not have time to make a reservation and send money. So we would have even more adventures with correspondence on the return of money.

In general, part of this year we only consisted of endless correspondence with all the services who managed to cancel tickets with us. These were 10 pairs of air tickets, 5 buses and just an indecent number of hotels, including paid ones and those that cannot be canceled. As a result, absolutely all the money from all services and hotels was returned, and even those hotels that did not allow cancellation were also returned the money. In total, we lost 3 euros on small commissions and entered a big plus on the difference in rates in our favor. Which only reinforced my conviction that you can continue to buy tickets for a year with discounts. Let only the borders be opened now.

We also have a young traveler growing up who, at the age of nine, sets goals for himself and, oddly enough, successfully achieves them. For example, recently he rejoiced that he was in Egypt more than me in the number of times. At first, Dasha and I did not believe him, since he is with us in almost all package trips. But then Misha painted in more detail all his trips and we were speechless. And his last statements, when he eats something spicy to taste: "I'm ready to fly with you to Asia! ". And, apparently, he is very sorry that when he was less than two years old, his grandmother dissuaded us from taking him to Hong Kong and we handed over tickets for the Infanta. For some long-haul destinations, I even told Misha at what age he would fly there himself. For example, I really want Misha to have the experience of "Work and travel", I regret that I did not have such an experience. I remember how a classmate who flew under this program returned to our institute and began to speak fluent English. From that day on, I began to speak as confidently and freely as he did. Even if wrong, but this was already enough for travel and work. Here confidence took over illiteracy. Then Dasha and I began to fill the practice of spoken English just on trips. I remember how once upon a time we dreamed of distant countries, which are also long gone. Moreover, the brighter the trip was, the fresher her memories seem.

Just yesterday we were on the most difficult trip in South America, but in fact it has already been more than 6 years! And we dream of going back there again. Unfortunately, life is simply not enough to return to all the places you want, but there is an opportunity to see everything at least once and return to the very best! By the way, in terms of complexity, South America held the absolute leadership for a long time, and later it shared the first place with China. If in South America the difficulty lies in the language barrier and physical stress on the body, as well as health problems due to elevation changes, then China is isolation from communications and the same impenetrable language barrier. China needs to be ideally planned from Kyiv, and then it is just as ideally repeated, because there will be no room for error there. And South America is generally impossible to plan completely to the smallest detail, at least due to the lack of train and bus schedules. But, on the other hand, if you go somewhere to Poland, where everything is as easy as possible, then you already get emotions ten times less than from hard-to-reach Machu Picchu.

Relatively recently, we made a list of all the places on the planet that we know about and want to see. Now, in addition to achieving a third of the world, we have one more achievement - visited half of the places on our list. Moreover, many of the remaining places are not so difficult to see, but corny, their turn has not yet reached. But I am sure that in the updated format of work and travel, new places will open more often, and travel will be longer and longer. We sincerely wish everyone to travel as much as possible, because it's so wonderful!

Our statistics

What we've already seen

Carnival, waterfall, glacier, volcano crater, whirlpool, Machu Picchu, Taj Mahal, pyramids, desert with dunes and mirages, high-speed trains, hot air balloon flight, Cappadocia, Pammukale, statue of Christ the Redeemer, salt marsh, Universal amusement park , Halong Bay, Fushimi Inari Shrine, Jerusalem, Firefly Colony, Zalishchiki River, Fjords, Thermal Lake, Venice Canals, Eiffel Tower, Sagrada Familia, Great Wall of China, Avatar Mountains, Gardens by Bay in Singapore, Sheikh Zayed Mosque, Petronas towers, Burj Khalifa, exotic islands, Mount Fuji, Nile, rice terraces, colored mountains, canyons, bamboo forest, black beach, Moulin Rouge, corals and colorful fish, castles, hanging basalt pillars, baobab.

What's ahead of us

Volcano with lava, northern lights, Stonehenge, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Colosseum, statues on Easter Island, Mayan pyramids, ship cruise, Disneyland, Hallstatt, African safari, Burning Man, helicopter flight, Harry Potter castle, Kilimanjaro , Everest, Antarctica, Arctic, Geysers, World Tour, Mexico Cave, Great Barrier Reef, Angkor Wat, Petra, San Francisco Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon, Dead Sea, Plitvice Lakes, Tibet, Provence, Big Ben , Fort Boyard, Niagara Falls, Transylvania, Victoria Falls, Tulip Fields, Anomaly Zone, Bermuda Triangle, Yellowstone, Great Blue Hole, Loch Ness, Standing basalt pillars, snowmobile, paragliding.