How many cities have you traveled in total? What route did you travel

Pavel Zaporozhets graduated from the Institute of Mechanical Engineering at KPI, starting with a bachelor's degree he worked in an international company specializing in the maintenance of electro-mechanical systems. He built a career from an ordinary engineer to the head of the systems engineering department, managed to work as a project manager in Cairo and São Paulo. In 2016, he decided to make his old dream come true - a trip around the world. In three months, Pavel flew around 40 countries and almost 60 cities, with an average cost per day of $ 100. How he planned and organized the trip, what services and devices he used on the way - Pavel told about this in an interview with the editor of the website.

How did the idea of \u200b\u200btraveling around the world come about?

When I was still working in Cairo, I thought about it. I didn't really make friends with anyone there, I was very bored, it seemed that all my friends in Ukraine live a full life, and I locked myself up in Egypt in pursuit of some kind of career growth. I had a dream for a long time - to drive around the world. And I decided that if not now, then I would never do it, and the dream must be realized.

For the first six months, I figured out the total budget, the duration of the trip. I thought it would be cool to travel around the world in 80 days around the world (a reference to the popular novel by Jules Verne - ed.), But in order to remember the figure, it is better to plan a trip for 79 days. In August 2017, a year before leaving Kiev, I bought the first ticket and from that moment I began preparations.

Already in winter I was transferred from Cairo to Kiev, and it was unsuccessful, because in Cairo there is a wider range of embassies, it would be easier for me to issue visas. I arranged a vacation with my superiors without any problems, since I had to renew my visa in Brazil, this came up with difficulties, and the question of my work on the Brazilian project was resolved by itself.

How many months did you count on, how did you choose the route?

I started planning with the route. There is such a site Rome2rio.com, without it my trip would not have happened. There you can set the travel route, and the site will calculate the transport price corridor.

On this price corridor, I clicked on cheap destinations (they are also the busiest ones), where there is high competition between operators. So I built five routes, all around the world. Then I took these routes and started counting by day. I estimated the budget for about 80 days, it turned out to be feasible. I chose the route according to my geographical preferences, but the main factors were: where is it easier to get a visa, where tickets are cheaper, etc. Where difficulties arose, I made loops in the track. For example, I had to make a loop in South America, where I was not sure about the adequacy of the carriers, instead of Australia, which did not issue me a visa, I flew to Indonesia, and so on.

How much did the trip cost you?

I planned my budget for the lowest price and added 30% in case I couldn't save. And my trip cost about $ 12,000, of which about 33% was spent on tickets, 50% - pocket money and 16.7% - overnight.

I saved a lot on tickets. On average, a ticket cost me $ 100-150, because I got confused and developed a system of how to buy them. When I picked up all the air tickets and understood where I wanted to fly, I started checking the optimal time in each direction. I figured out that there are two windows: spring and autumn, they are the cheapest. I got into autumn, from August to November, flew on low-cost airlines, calculated the temperature changes so much that I did not take winter clothes with me, which allowed me to fly around everything with a single backpack.

It was also possible to save money by not visiting museums, I was interested in comparing cities, countries, urban cultures in contrasts. Museums are a story about the past, and I wanted to know the present, see the sights, and then go to the sleeping areas, watch how people live.

How many cities have you traveled in total? What route did you travel?

My route looked like this:

Full list of cities:

What impressions from different cities and countries do you remember the most?

I have never been to Poland before and it amazed me. I always thought that Poland is something between Germany and Ukraine, but it turned out that it is much more to Germany. And since I had low expectations, I was pleasantly surprised.

And vice versa, I always had high expectations about Germany, but when I was there, I did not like that the historical centers were restored by scrupulous Germans to the smallest detail, but at the same time it is clear that it is restored, not real.

I was very impressed by the architecture of Zurich. Italy seemed unkempt, garbage on the streets, many migrants. After Egypt, I had a shift in cleanliness on the streets, and I felt myself in Italy approximately like in Ukraine.

Iceland, sculpture "The Sun Wanderer"

Loved Barcelona, \u200b\u200bperfect for a weekend by the sea. The rest of Spain pales in comparison to Barcelona. I can understand why the Catalans decided to become independent, they are the brightest there. In no case should you fly to Paris on Ryanair, because the airport where Ryanair flies is located roughly between Brussels and Paris - that there, that it takes three hours to get there, is very far away. After Paris I flew to Brussels. It seemed boring, but with great beer. If you are in the mood to get bored with a glass of good beer, this is the perfect place.

What do you remember besides Europe?

Everyone said about the USA that the service was excellent there, but it seemed to me that the service was even worse than in Ukraine. It is in vain that we criticize Ukrainian for reason and without reason. In Ukraine, you come to PrivatBank, they will look at you with zero emotions, but they will solve the problem. In Egypt, all the staff are very glad to see you, they call you by name, but they cannot solve the problem, and this was much more infuriating than the Privat consultant who forgot to smile at you.

In the United States, it was expressed a little differently. In a Ukrainian cafe, you can easily ask the waiter what is the coolest thing on the menu. In the States, five times the waiters quite arrogantly pointed out to me, they say, dude, read the menu. This is just one example, but it was felt in all areas. Didn't like public transport very much. The United States is a huge city with inconvenient infrastructure. I would not like to live, for example, in New York and spend so much time just moving around the city.

Iguazu Falls, Brazil-Argentina border

Brazil is remembered for its high crime rate. After the Olympics in Rio, the government went bankrupt there, martial law was introduced, there are constant wars with drug lords and they are not doing very well. In Kiev, in any area, you can run into trouble, but this is more a matter of chance. And in Rio at night it is better not to walk home on foot, in Sao Paulo there are areas where it is better not to appear at all. I personally did not have any problems, but a huge number of people with machine guns and machine guns in the streets worried.

What Ukrainians can like in Argentina is about Ukrainian prices in stores.

How did you plan your trip, what services did you use? What did you save on?

I approached the trip as if it were some big project of my own and created a Google spreadsheet with prices. At first I tried to search for the cheapest hotels by aggregators, but it turned out that there, depending on the site, the spread in prices can be up to 10%, so I searched everything on Booking.

Singapore

Also used Skyscanner. There's a trick here: Skyscanner has a location switch on top. If you buy a ticket from Miami to Rio de Janeiro, and the location is Ukraine, then it costs $ 700-800. If you switch the location to Brazil, the price will drop to $ 250. I saved about $ 1000 like that

How did you solve the problem with transport, did you rent a car locally?

I spent one or two days in every city, did not rent a car, in poor countries I took an Uber, sometimes it was cheaper than any other transport to the airport. For example, in Argentina, it is cheaper to leave the airport with Uber than by bus. I don’t know why this is so, but according to my observations, if a country is not rich, Uber works well for the price, but in America and Europe it is an expensive pleasure.

I used Wikitravel and Google Trips, read about ground transportation applications at the airport before departure, and usually had to go to the trouble of finding cheap buses and trains.

How did you organize mobile communications, the Internet?

For the last two years I have been traveling a lot and stopped using TravelSIM, they are ineffective. I rode with a Kyivstar SIM card, used the Internet for roaming, it cost 1,500 UAH per month, which is very cheap. I tried to save traffic (I downloaded maps, did not watch YouTube), but in most cases I did not limit myself to google something.

Tel Aviv, Israel

Important: you must always have a SIM card with you, for which the hotel and tickets are booked. If something goes wrong, the airline will call you, and if you don't pick up the phone, you can miss an important flight.

Tell us about payment systems, cards, settlements - were there any difficulties or problems?

Each country has its own characteristics. When traveling in Europe, you can pay by card anywhere. But in Brazil, for example, you cannot just take and pay with a card, you need to take into account its type. Only a debit card works in half of the places, which means only a Brazilian card.

I traveled with a PrivatBank card, in North and South America, before each transaction, they blocked my card and called from the bank to clarify whether I was paying. It seems that you can travel freely and withdraw money from a Privat card all over the world, but in India and the United States I received regular calls, apparently, they consider these countries a risk zone. And if I had TravelSIM, the bank would not be able to call her, and I would be left without money.

Honolulu, Hawaii

Usually there were no problems with payments, but there were difficulties with cash withdrawals. There is such a feature: MasterCard and Visa have a system of international transactions (Visa Plus and Cirrus) and if you see its sticker on the ATM, the commission will be 5%, very cheap. But if the ATM converts the payment through its system, it can mean horse fees. I tried not to withdraw a lot of money, so that there was no “dead” cash, I took $ 20-25 to pay where the card is not accepted. When the ATM did not work using the Visa Plus / Cirrus system, the commission for $ 25 could sometimes be $ 10.

Didn't keep a lot of money on the card I used to pay with. The principal amount was on an electronic card, with which I connected a constant recharge. I calculated how much pocket money I need for every day, about $ 100 or a little less, and the system automatically set this figure. A certain amount dripped from the electronic card to the main one every day. I did this for security purposes: if they do it, it will be $ 100, and not all the available money.

Another trick: there are so many places where you need to leave a deposit: car rental services, hotels. They block some amount of money on the card, as a rule, for 14 days, but the trick is that if you travel quickly around the cities, the money on the card will run out pretty quickly. Therefore, it is better to have a credit card with a limit of $ 3000-4000, on which these payments are made.

Did you have to buy something on the go?

Was everything so perfectly planned?

I didn't miss a single flight, I'm proud of my punctuality. By the way, I am very glad that I managed to travel westward. When you fly west, it's like turning the arrows back all the time, you just always want to go to bed earlier. If I were flying east, I would have overslept on the fifth or sixth plane.

In the fall, I lectured at the KPI about this. In short, here is a list of online services that you might find useful:

Urban Planet B4 is a very roomy rolltop backpack, durable, lightweight and comfortable. Ideal for all low-cost airlines in the world. Bobby Urban as an alternative.

Banana is many times safer and more convenient than keeping everything in your pockets.

Would you like to circumnavigate the globe again?

Not. Going around the world is cool, but going around the world twice is not twice as bad as once. There are many more things I want to do.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Mark Beaumont rode his bike 16 hours a day and slept only five hours

Scotland cyclist Mark Beaumont set a new world record by cycling around the world in 79 days. To do this, he had to drive an average of 386 km daily.

The 34-year-old athlete arrived in Paris one day ahead of schedule, covering a total of 30 thousand km. A crowd of fans was waiting for him at the Arc de Triomphe.

In 2008, Beaumont already set a world record: then he traveled around the world in 194 days. However, this record has since been broken by other cyclists, with the last bike tour around the world lasting 123 days.

To break this record, Beaumont rode a bicycle 16 hours a day and only had to sleep five hours a day.

He began his journey on July 2 in Paris and traveled through Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China. Then he crossed all of Australia, New Zealand and North America, after which he entered the finish line, which ran through Portugal, Spain and France.

During the race, Beaumont also set a Guinness World Record for the most miles cycled in a month. During this period, he traveled from Paris to Perth (Australia), covering a distance of 11315 km.

Record-breaking bike travelers

In May 2016, American cyclist Amanda Cocker set a world record, having traveled 138.5 thousand km in 12 months. On average, she traveled about 381 km per day.
In March 2015, Austrian Christoph Strasser set the record for covering the maximum distance in 24 hours. During the day he drove 896 km.
In 2013, Briton Maria Leijerstam became the first person to reach the South Pole by bicycle. Her tricycle has been upgraded to move around Antarctica.
In 2003, Belgians Siegfried Verhayak and Luc Bele and Dane Martin Abserballe made the highest mountain bike trip, riding at an altitude of 7008 m on the snow cover of the Muztag Mountain in China.
In 1985, Australian Hanspeter Beck made the longest unicycle trip: he traveled 6,237 km from Port Hedland to Melbourne in 51 days, 23 hours and 25 minutes.

"It was, undoubtedly, the most severe test that my body and my brain have ever gone through. Physical and mental endurance was necessary for me every day, but I was surrounded by a great team," - said the athlete.

"The success of the 80-day round the world shows that what seems impossible is actually possible and pushes the limits of endurance sports," says Beaumont.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Beaumont was inspired by Jules Verne's novel Around the World in 80 Days

According to him, during the trip he had to quickly get used to different climatic conditions and drive through completely unfamiliar territories, such as Russia and Mongolia.

In the northern hemisphere, the traveler had to travel in subzero temperatures, and in North America, he breathed the air smogged by forest fires.

During the trip, Beaumont fell off his bike twice, and after falling in Russia he received urgent dental care. Throughout the route he was accompanied by a support team, which included a mechanic, nutritionist, doctor and manager.

Mark started cycling at the age of 12. Then he made his first big trip, having covered 233 kilometers in Scotland.

Pavel Zaporozhets graduated from the Institute of Mechanical Engineering at KPI, starting with a bachelor's degree he worked in an international company specializing in the maintenance of electromechanical systems. He built a career from an ordinary engineer to the head of the systems engineering department, managed to work as a project manager in Cairo and São Paulo. In 2016, he decided to make his old dream come true - a trip around the world. In three months, Pavel flew around 40 countries and almost 60 cities, with an average cost per day of $ 100. How he planned and organized the trip, what services and devices he used on the way - Pavel told about this in an interview with the editor.

Photo of the hero of the article

How did the idea of \u200b\u200btraveling around the world come about?

For the first six months, I figured out the total budget, the duration of the trip. I thought it would be cool to travel around the world in 80 days (a reference to the popular novel by Jules Verne - ed.), But to remember the figure, it is better to plan a trip for 79 days. In August 2017, a year before leaving Kiev, I bought the first ticket and from that moment I began preparations.

Already in winter I was transferred from Cairo to Kiev, and this was unsuccessful, because in Cairo there is a wider range of embassies, it would be easier for me to issue visas. I arranged a vacation with my superiors without any problems, since I had to renew my visa in Brazil, this came up with difficulties, and the question of my work on the Brazilian project was resolved by itself.

How many months did you count on when choosing the route?

Photo of the hero of the article

On this price corridor, I clicked on cheap destinations (they are also the busiest ones), where there is high competition between operators. So I built five routes, all round the world. Then I took these routes and started counting by day. I estimated the budget for about 80 days, it turned out to be feasible. I chose the route according to my geographical preferences, but the main factors were: where is it easier to get a visa, where tickets are cheaper, etc. Where difficulties arose, I made loops in the track. For example, I had to make a loop in South America, where I was not sure about the adequacy of the carriers, instead of Australia, which did not issue me a visa, I flew to Indonesia, and so on.

How much did the trip cost you?

I planned my budget for the lowest price and added 30% in case I couldn't save. And my trip cost about $ 12,000, of which about 33% was spent on tickets, 50% - pocket money and 16.7% - overnight.