6 Month Sabbatical: SA + Australia/New Zealand - is this realistic?

Posted by EuropeTrips@reddit | Shoestring | View on Reddit | 9 comments

Hey everyone, Me M25, Solo traveller planning my first big trip (so far I’ve only traveled in Europe) and would love some feedback on my rough plan.

I want to travel from October 26 to the end of February 27 – about 6 months in total – and visit the following countries:

Vietnam

Thailand

Philippines

Indonesia

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

Singapore

Australia

New Zealand

I was thinking of spending about 4 weeks in each country, except I’d shorten Kuala Lumpur to 4–5 days and Singapore to 3–4 days, since the cities are quite compact.

I’m a bit unsure about a few things:

1) is the route and the distances realistic, or would it make more sense to combine buses/flights differently?

2) Could other nearby countries like Cambodia or Laos fit in nicely if I’m already in the region?

I’d really appreciate any advice on which countries or routes are best by bus or cheap flights, as well as tips on how to plan the timing realistically.

Any experience, route tips, or advice on weather and realistic pacing would be super helpful!

[-]

Pruno_Bills08@reddit

Hi! We are having almost the same route with my husband and baby, but we visited Laos between vietnam and thailand. We loved our cruise on the mekong to go from Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai. Our trip is a little shorter than yours, so we skipped philippines and we did indonesia before, and also we wanted to avoid the plane as much as possible…

We have sorta « travel blog » for family and friends, on it you can see what way we used for travel and what route we picked. I can send you the link if you’re interested.

Average_Iris@reddit

October to February is only 5 months btw, so if you want to do 4 weeks each for 6 countries you'll run out of time. That said, I think especially Australia and New Zealand, but also Indonesia are all so big that you can't even get close to seeing everything in 4 weeks. It's up to you to decide if you'd rather see smaller parts of multiple countries or if you'd prefer to see more of each country but visit less countries. For example Australia is as big as Europe, you can maybe see the east coast in 4 weeks, but that's the least interesting part tbh

Xxmeow123@reddit

Should be a blast and very interesting. I think prices will be cheap until you visit New Zealand and Australia. But, they are worth it. Also, Australia is huge. I rode a bike from Adelaide to Melbourne a while back. Those cities and the coast is great, but north of Brisbane looks super interesting.

Street-Stick@reddit

Hitchhiking and stealth camping in NZ totally doable, scoot has or had really cheap flights, check the SEA subreddits

littlepinkpebble@reddit

Yeah super possible … I’ve been to all almost

henicorina@reddit

You didn’t list any timing or logistics so it’s kind of hard to give feedback.

Artimusjones88@reddit

You are leaving this week, and you are asking now, or is this 2026

travel_ali@reddit

I think they mean 2026, rather than the 26th.

Though that confused me too.

This is super vague. You just listed a series of countries and a rough time frame/plan (and even that doesn't fit together, you seem to be a month short of 6 months).

Not sure many people are going to bother putting the effort in on something so open-ended and light on details.