Travelling?

[MusicIsLife]

Hey everyone!

Sorry in advance if I'm posting this on the wrong board, but this seemed fairly general so I hope im posting right. Anyway...

So I came to a new conclusion: I don't wanna just sit around in quebec, the world is a big and beautiful place and I want to travel.

At this point in time I dont feel comfortable travelling to places like Spain or Italy or Greece because I dont speak the language, and So I'd probably learn basic things first before going to places like that.

So my list of places I wanna see [not all at once obviously] are the following: Ireland, Scotland, England, New Zeland, Australia[Sydney, specifically] and Paris. I really really wanna visit Lesbos in Greece, but I need to learn a bit of greek first.

My questions are as follows:

Are these countries generally gay-friendly?
If I go alone, would I be safe?
Are the resturants accomodating [I'm vegan]
How do I organise myself for a trip?
In your opinion which of those places would be best to visit?

I'm planning this trip for april-may, so I have quite a bit of time to save up and get organised [get my passport xD]

Soo yeah.

EDIT: My primary interest would be touristey stuff, historical monuments, tours, snorkelling, etc. Just so you know

[AeonToy]

Hey!

Travelling is a good choice. hehe . I actually just got back from a 7 week trip in South America.

For the gay-friendliness, i think the more you stay in big cities the less prejudice you will see. Ive never really gone out to the gay scene but thats what i hear.

As for travelling alone, there are several people i've met travelling solo but i think the dangers (especially for a single lady) are slightly higher. Even though the dangers are definitely there, i've found that a lot of places overdramatize the danger of certain areas.

Again, like the gay-friendliness question, i think that in the more populates areas will probably have more varieties of restaurants. in south america ive run into a couple vegentarian/vegan areas (in buenos aires, lima, cusco, etc.)

organizing yourself for a trip really depends on your budget and what you want to do. a lot of people use guidebooks. for europe, ive heard lots of recommendations for "Rick Steves" who writes about all of that area. for the rest of the world, everybody has "lonely planet" and it seems to work out for them. They give advice on how to travel with a budget and etc. if you are a student, www.studentuniverse.com has generally worked out for me but there are also lots of other budget airline sites, just look around. also, flights sometimes do get cheaper if you fly into surrounding airports other than the main city center.

and last, out of all the places you've mentioned ive only been to paris so i cant say which would be the best. but if you really wanted i bet you could do paris, scotalnd, ireland and england all in massive trip. that would be pretty epic.

hopefully this was helpful and not redundant to what you already knew...

Come here to San Franciscooooo =) Vegan noms, gays, beautiful, lots to do....

[olides84]

Oooh, traveling! My #1 obsession.

Just do it! Really, in my opinion, there is nothing stopping us from traveling anywhere we want. Well maybe a war zone or truly dangerous place wouldn't be good, but other than that the world is your oyster!

Lots of people travel alone. I've done it for parts of my backpacking journeys. And you know what, if you stay in hostels and places like that, you'll end up not traveling alone as much. Because you always meet other travelers who want to do the same things or are going the same direction. So you can always join up with others for a bit if you want--it's quite common.

And I also really don't think you have to worry about language wherever you go--it's amazing how many people speak english, and if they don't, how easy it is to communicate with a few words and lots of hand gestures. But I agree for a first trip, maybe you'd be more comfortable going to english or french speaking areas. All those places you said are great, safe, gay-friendly, veg-friendly, etc. You'll probably have to choose between europe and nz/australia because they are on opposite sides of the world, but otherwise just make your plans and go!!!!!!