We are now well underway in the planning phase for another South East Asian trip. Nothing has been confirmed or booked, and cannot for another few weeks, as I need to wait for one or two things to come together at home, but as long as things go to plan, I anticipate flying out on approximately 1st to 3rd of March.

This trip will be for considerably longer than my usual annual leave trip, as I am planning on taking extended leave for my day job, and spending 3 months in South east (and central) Asia. Needless to say, I am looking forward to this immensely, and hope it can all come together!

 Anyhow, to sketch out a  plan at this stage, is-

• Fly from Perth to Phuket
• Relax in Phuket, and do a small Itinerary around the island
• Overland up the central west and east coasts of Thailand, probably by bus, maybe a bit of train, via Hua Hin, to Bangkok
• Fly from Bangkok to Kathmandu
• Explore Kathmandu, bus or fly to Pokhara, spend a week or two trekking in the area, possibly doing the Annapurna Sanctuary trek.
• possibly explore other parts of Nepal, including Royal Chitwan National Park, and possibly somewhere closer to Mt Everest?
• Fly from Kathmandu onward to either
• A) back to Bangkok and on to Cambodia and Laos, possibly Northern Vietnam and Southwest China to Hong Kong
• or B) fly to Kunming and travel overland, either via the Yangtze or via Nanning to Macau and Hong Kong
• Fly home to Perth from Hong Kong or Macau

 This is the general plan at the moment, and it will definitely get better defined over the next couple of weeks. The Phuket start through to Bangkok is not likely to change a lot, the rest will evolve over the next 6 weeks before I leave, and the following 3 months will I am away!

I’m sure it will change considerably!!!

I am planning on keeping the Blog fully informed!

I am still constantly amazed as to the low prices that international flights from Australia to South East Asia have come down to!

As I am now into the planning phase of the next AsianItineraries series of itineraries, I am working out how I will most economically get to where I plan to start the trip - Phuket. A year ago, there would have been two options from Perth, Western Australia to Phuket, Thailand. They would have been by Singapore Airlines via Singapore, or Thai International, ridiculously via Bangkok. Thai would have been the cheapest, at about $1100.00 AUD, but would have involved an overnight stopover in Bangkok, and the costs associated with that ( taxi from airport, Hotel).

Yesterday, I researched a couple of the new Low-cost airlines flying out of Perth. Air Asia have been advertising quite heavily in our newspapers. An add yesterday caught my attention, offering one way to Kuala Lumpur from $199.00 AUD. I figured that would get me pretty close to Phuket,and I would check out if they fly onward to Phuket. Also, I figured I would find out how inconvenient their times where!

 But, low and behold, it all looked good!. Flights from Perth left daily, the $199 special was still available on all the days around when I wanted to fly (in about 6 weeks), and they did also fly to Phuket from KL. And the Internet special for the flight to Phuket from KL was $49.00 AUD including taxes!

This makes a flight from Perth, Western Australia, to Phuket, Thailand $248.00 AUD, total! That, I figured, was unbeatable!

 But NO! I then looked into Tiger Airways, the low cost offshoot of Singapore Airlines, and did a similar equation. With them, flying via Changi, Singapore, my total flight was $205.00 AUD!! Absolutely staggering!

Now I will decide which flights are at the more suitable times, and with the lesser layover time. At this stage that looks like Air Asia is considerably better, and it will be well worth the extra $40.

The second flight I am looking at is Bangkok to Kathmandu - that is not looking to good! Hopefully I’ll come across something good soon!

I have been running the http://www.asianitineraries.com/ website of a couple of years now, and it has been an interesting learning curve, on running software, uploading to the www, and learning to get the site on the search engines, on links, and recognised by Google PageRank and Alexa, etc etc

In the last few months. I have made the conscious decision to expand my Web presence. Instead of just spending endless hours editing my links pages and adding and deleting links.

Firstly, I have registered a new domain name - http://www.low-cost-airlines.com.au/, with the intention of developing a site with information on the cheaper, no frills airlines operating within Australia, and internationally, from various Australian airports. I find the new breed of carriers exciting, and a real revolution in air travel, particularly on some of the exciting international routes. I have also felt that as these are often new brands, and don’t pay commissions to travel agents, it could be difficult for the average traveller to consider all options available to them. Although I am not really sure how I will be able to generate revenue from this site, I think it will have potential. I think this has better prospects to the current Asian Itineraries site, as it is a narrower focus and may be able to generate the search results I have struggled to get from Asian Itineraries.

In addition, i have added this Blog to Asian Itineraries website, and hope this can add another dimension to this site. I intend to travel soon, and think I will use this Blog to provide almost a commentary of this next trip. I will detail these plans soon, but am planning to keep regular posts with lots of  info on costs, facilities and activities,all with a lot more detail than I would usually put on a completed Itinerary on the site.

 I also have 2 or 3 more Itineraries I can write and upload, but I find this tedious, particularly when they relate to trips I have taken a year or more ago. Obviously, this information needs to be researched to ensure it is still up to date, and I just find it to easy to get distracted. But hopefully Vietnam will be online soon!

Having run the Asian Itineraries website for the last two years, and looking for ways to grow the site, and create something extra, I have finally made the leap, into this first attempt at a Blog!

I hope to use this forum to share a lot of my thoughts, my frustrations, and my future plans, particularly as they relate to this work. Although I wish to keep this based around the Asian Itineraries website, and my associated projects, I fully anticipate digressing partially into my private and personal life. As i am both passionate about growing the website, and its income, yet almost completely ignorant as to Web programming, Html, SEO and every other skill needed to run as successful site, I get VERY frustrated.

 I hope I may get some feedback from readers, surfers, and even other website developers, as this forum should make that a lot easier and more personal, than emailing to a contactus email address. Please contact me - I would love it!

 I Started the site, and a previous one for a year or two before that (http://www.goyourway.com.au/) , as i love travelling, and living in Australia, have found I have spent almost all of my overseas holidays have been to the easy to access, South East Asian countries. I have enjoyed passing on a “sanitised, ordered and un-personal” suggestions of how to travel easily and independently throughout the area, via the http://www.asianitineraries.com/ website. I am now hoping, through the more personal nature of the Blog, to be able to tell some of the “stories” that I have experienced as I have travelled. To put the personality and adventure of the individual journeys out into the realm, and seeing what comes back!