A Minor Detour: Morocco, Madrid, Romania…

Hi all,

I figured we owed you all a proper update outlining our plans for the next little while, aside from the cryptic reference to detours and cheap flights in the last post. On April 26 we will be leaving Lanciano, heading north on a train to a town near Milan called Piacenza. Laura’s friend Christine will be living there by then, and we plan to visit with her for about 8 days before boarding a flight out of Milan for Casablanca, Morocco (!). This will be our first time in Africa and we are really excited. The Morocco plan only came about because we discovered some outrageously cheap EasyJet flights from Milan. After a bit of research, we learned just how affordable Morocco can be to travel in, and figured “why not?”

After three weeks in Morocco, on May 24 we will be flying to Madrid, Spain (another really cheap flight) for a short three night stay, before heading back to Milan. Our original plan was to get back to Istanbul so we could carry on eastward to Iran, but direct flights from Milan to Istanbul weren’t all that cheap. In fact, our entire trip to Morocco, Madrid and back cost less (150 Euros total) than one-way tickets rom Milan to Istanbul (180 Euros), so we decided we could spend our money better by catching another cheap flight into Bucharest, Romania, and then catching a train back to Istanbul. We have tickets all the way up to Bucharest already bought.

We intend to be back in Istanbul by early June, where we will continue eastward, probably entering Iran by about June 7 at the latest. We may or may not spend a week in Eastern Turkey seeing some of the country we didn’t get to when we were there last month. Our current visa for Iran is for 30 days, although it is apparently easy to extend it for a longer stay. As of now, we think a month is probably long enough. Our funds aren’t unlimited, and we certainly feel like we need to make our way further east into Asia sooner rather than later. The only pressures dictating all of this are the amount of money we have budgeted for the trip and a vague deadline of early October when Thailand goes through a bit of a hiring frenzy for English teachers. If the money starts to run out before then, we can fly to Thailand and get settled sooner. If we’re still able and willing to keep traveling, we can also find teaching jobs after this time, although we may have fewer options.

For a bit of a geography lesson, we’ve summarized all of this in the video above. Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
Chris