The Planning Begins

Oh yes, Now comes time to plan it all out.

Since we decided to peruse this great adventure on the 13th of February, we have begun a very extensive research and planning mission to ensure we are fully able to execute when it comes time to launch into an unknown world. This is no small feat.

Just to give you a little glimpse about some of the planning factors, I'll take the time to break it down for you and give you a little introduction to planning and around-the-world adventure.

This whole adventure begins with research and lots of it. Thank goodness for the World-Wide-Web and the access of information at our fingertips. This certainly helps in many aspects of putting this adventure together. This is certainly nothing like planning a trip to Disney World. This is the real Magic Kingdom called The World.

Here is the list of planning factors we are working on:

DESTINATIONS--We have put together a list of all the countries/locations we desire to visit. Our initial list includes 48 countries. We already know we will need to tailor this list more reasonable list and this will require a little bit of a compromise.

ARRANGING FLIGHTS--This process will be much simpler than is days gone by. There are several companies that specialize in Round-The-World (RTW) travel and they can get all of our major flights for dirt cheap. More to follow on this.

VISA REQUIREMENTS--We have already begun researching the State Department website on Visa Requirements to ensure we have access to each destination we finalize.

ACCOMODATIONS--Once we finalize our primary itinerary, we will begin the research and planning for accommodations along the way. This will include, budget hotels, hostels, work for stay farms and ranches as well as sleeping under the stars. In the case of Nepal, we will be staying in "teahouses" in the Himalayans.

OVERLAND/OVERSEA TRANSPORTATION--Our international flights will drop us into locations other than our departure locations. This will require us to be creative in finding various modes of transport to link up with our next onward flight. This will be a wide variety of vessels. This includes the typical train, planes and automobiles, but also includes boats, chicken buses, trucks, and any other means to get to our next destination.

TRAVEL INSURANCE--We are looking into the many options available to reduce the stress and have a piece of mind while we are roaming the earth. We certainly do not anticipate any crisis, but not including this in our plan would be absolutely foolish.

IMMUNIZATIONS--This is nothing more than another form of insurance. These will protect us from some of that nasty stuff out there and keep us rolling around the world.

BUDGET/FINANCES--We are exploring every opportunity to exploit low cost/no cost options into our plan. There are multiple work for stay opportunities which will save money on accommodations and meals. We will address these later as we get more in-depth, but imagine working on an Organic farm for a week and trading this service for room and board. Heck, I am even looking into spending a week in Australia working on a sheep ranch. Hey, I think Sheep Shearing would look pretty cool on a resume--Eh? We are doing everything we can do to stay within my military retirement budget. Europe will consume the largest part of our entire budget. A one month stay in Europe could eat as much as one third of our entire budget.


PACKING LIST--We are going the ultra-lightweight route on this trip. We will not be carrying luxury items with us. Everything we take will fit into each of our personal backpacks and we will rely solely on what we can carry on our backs. More to follow as we scrub this list.

COMMINCATION-- This bog will serve as our primary means of communication with family and friends. As we travel the world, we will pick up friends along the way and this is how we will track were new found friends are as they travel the world as well. The wonderful thing about technology is that we can find internet access even in some of the remotest corners of the world. Naturally, we will be calling home periodically as well.

OTHER FACTORS--As we continue to do our research, other planning factors will continue to surface. As they do, we will incorporate them into the plan.

The above items are just an introduction to the extensive planning we are doing. As we progress through this process, we will provide updates so you can see exactly the level of details we are putting into this adventure.

In closing, we say Happy Trails to you--Until we met again.

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