Itinerary

Creating an itinerary is an arduous process which takes lots of patience, my son. The globe is one big place – you feel like you want to cram everything in and not miss out on any place or experience. When TD and I first talked about our trip, we named tons places we’d been dying to visit…Tibet! Madagascar! Croatia! Israel! Kenya! Galapagos Islands! After our initial flurry of excitement, we realized that we didn’t have unlimited resources or time, so we’d have to buckle down and make some hard choices.

Firstly, we decided to spend most of our time in developing countries where we could get more bang for our buck. Most of Europe and Africa was scrapped in exchange for lots of time in South East Asia and South America.

Secondly, we were limited by certain airline routes. For example, we really wanted to get from Asia to South America but found no direct flights. We had to travel via Australia/New Zealand to get there – neither had been on our original itinerary but ended up on our final plan.

Finally, we tried to avoid crappy weather (monsoon season or winter snows) and places where either of us had already been.

The maddeningly tedious process of booking our round-the-world ticket is documented here.

ARE WE DONE YET?

After tons of back and forth with our travel agent (and our own hemming and hawing), we “finalized” our itinerary*!

*Dates are subject to change for the following reasons: monsoons, explosive diarrhea, sick-of-travelling syndrome, laughably ineffective transportation, coup d’etat, moonshine hangovers, falling in love with a place and staying forever.

** Due to a 7-week organic farm internship we signed up for in Thailand, our itinerary is getting pushed back. We probably have to eat the cost of our South America flights since we’ll barely arrive there before our 1-year ticket expires. Also, our travels in SA will be in a clockwise direction, so that we arrive in Patagonia in warmer weather.

*** Uh, decided to change our plan yet again and will be in Europe for the summer, then head to South America in October.

**** Due to traveler’s fatigue, scrapped Colombia and Guatemala. Added on a cross country road trip though the States, so that we can acclimate to US culture before having to get back to real life.

EUROPE/N. AFRICA
4/20/2009 – London, UK
4/23/2009 – Morocco
5/2/2009 – Italy
5/19/2009 – Helsinki, Finland? (our ticket made us pass through in order to connect to India)

ASIA**
May 22, 2009 – India
Early July 2009 – Nepal
August 2009 – China/Hong Kong
Mid-September 2009 – Indonesia
October 2009 – Thailand Cambodia
November 2009 – Cambodia Vietnam
Late November December 2009 – Laos
December 2009 January 2010 to mid-March 2010 – Thailand
Early January Late March 2010 – Malaysia/Singapore

OCEANIA
January Early April 2010 – Australia
February April/May 2010 – New Zealand

EUROPE PART DEUX***
Mid May – October 2010 – France, Spain, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina

SOUTH AMERICA ****
Late February Oct 2010 – Uruguay
March Nov- Dec 2010 –  Bolivia Argentina
April Jan 2011 – Peru Bolivia
Late April Feb 2011 –  Ecuador Bolivia/Peru
May March 2011 –  Colombia Ecuador
June April-June 2011 – Guatemala Mexico

Nov/Dec 2010 July-August 2011 – Road trip USA

July 2010 Jan Late Aug 2011– BACK HOME (Whew!)