In a Lost Girl’s life, nothing’s ever set in stone, and that holds true for the path we plan to travel during the next year. It’s not if we plan to change cities, schedules, ports of call and our minds, but just how many times we can do it...and get away with it.
Since the moment we decided to take this trip, the three of us have been fantasizing about the places we’ll go and the people we’ll meet. So, to get the ball rolling, we dusted off Amanda’s old school, 3rd grade globe and tried to put a basic route together. It took all of 14 seconds to realize that our concepts for a world itinerary were very different.
Holly, the biggest dreamer among us, wanted to hit all six continents, including Antarctica, in a six-to-nine month journey (“let’s go there on our way to Turkey!”). Amanda, the instigator of the group, insisted that we remain on the road for no less than a full year (“c’mon, do you really want to rush back to work?!”). And Jen, the strategist and voice of reason, pointed out that the more countries we added, detours we took and months spend traveling, the likelier we’d be to come home completely broke...if we even made it home at all!
So, we deliberated.
After hours of discussions—and a several cocktails to keep the negotiations rolling—we successfully compromised, deciding on a eastward-crawling route that took us to five of the six continents over a one year period. But rather than trying to rack up as many stamps on our passports as possible, we choose just a few countries in each major region, enough destinations to give us an amazing sampling of the planet, but not so many that we got burnt out. And since many of these spots are in developing areas, we could conceivably stay on the road for a year or more—and still have enough left to buy a plane ticket back home.
Here’s a list of the countries we hope to visit (as of July 9, 2006)…watch for changes!
South America: Peru, Brazil, Boliva
Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa
Europe: Turkey, Greece
Central Asia: India, Nepal
Southeast Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos
South Pacific: Australia, New Zealand
