This page is more about preparation and planning, and I hope to make it useful to anybody who might be planning their own adventure. A far more valuable resource would be Julie's blog - The Gap Year Edit - but let me share a few details here with you.

Sunday 27th August - It's real!

We left the house a little after 9AM on a bright clear day to begin our voyage!

• We walked for 20 minutes to York Station

• A busy and confused TransPennine Express train didn't have the coach with our reserved seats, so we just plonked ourselves in the first class carriage (in one of the two Coach Cs!) The train was 20 minutes late into Manchester, but we'd left plenty of time, so no biggies.

• We caught a tram to the Airport, which took a little over an hour to cover the 10 miles. Very cheap and convenient though.

• Ryanair have somehow conspired to make baggage drop hell on earth, as we joined the queue that wound it's way around Terminal 3 for an hour just to dop off our rucksacks. Stupid us had thrown away our water as well, which made this a bit uncomfortable!

• Security was fast for Manchester - about 20 minutes and through.

• We are lucky enough to have a handful of lounge passes from an air miles credit card, so we tried to use these, however the lounges were all full. We grabbed a bite to eat at the Lion and Antelope "Pub" which, while expensive, was actually quite tasty. We then had a callback for the lounge, so spent the next two hours in relative comfort, largely eating cheese :-)

• The Ryanair flight was just under 2 hours late departing, so that was a little frustrating, but no problem as we had no connections to make.

This brought us to our first stop - Podgorica, Motenegro!