Why? Where? How? What?
Oy, the planning, the preparations! Never in any of the research that was done for this trip was there any kind or realistic idea of the magnitude of what’s involved in taking off at least 6 months from work/life. Maybe the information was ignored or looked over on the websites and guidebooks, lost in the exciting idea of traveling – it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done this. Always one to choose instant gratification over the satisfaction of using the phrase “it was worth the wait” has probably made this endeavor more challenging than it should have been. Jon is more methodical, he says he’s wanted to do this all his life and has taken all of the bumps in the road, delays, glitches, etc in stride. Me, I just thought it was a great idea - why put off something fun for later if you can do it now!
Why? Is what’s been asked over and over. Sure it’s the “Trip of a Lifetime” lots of people talk about it but how many people actually follow through with the dream? Anyone can do it really, we just happen to be two people who made the decision and are following through with an idea. I do know that for Jon and I it just happened to be all about timing. It was a good time financially, professionally and personally. We were able to pay off our debt and let me tell you that was a great feeling in and of itself! How many people can say they are debt free?! Once we got out of debt we vowed that this trip would not but us back in the red. What this meant was a whole lot of saving, a whole lot less of “going out”. We joined Netflix and cooked at home even more than before. We worked overtime whenever possible. We consulted with a financial planner (Naomi Mason who works for Edward Jones – her office is located on Mercer Island) and told her our plans – this was monumentally helpful. With her help we were able to make what we think is the best financial plan for this trip and for the future. We also met with a travel agent (John who works for Polyways travel in Wallingford) who admittedly had never planned a trip like ours but was excited at the prospect of assisting us and has been really easy to contact and work with via email, phone or in person.
Before going any farther I should say (and I’ll bet Jon will concur) that there was always the alternative of completely winging it and doing everything by ourselves which is definitely an idea we entertained on more than one occasion. Ultimately, by consulting outside sources we were able to stay focused, worry less about minor details while being presented with other important and relevant things to worry about/focus on that we wouldn’t have necessarily realized on our own.
It’s only been in the last couple of weeks that we put together a firmer itinerary and bought tickets out of Europe. With Jon’s collection of frequent flier miles we had enough points to pay for two round trip tickets – we just had to decide where. The kicker was that with a Round the World trip you aren’t really planning on a round trip ticket – we had been thinking one way only but hey, it was free, we would be accommodating. But where would we go, leave, and then want to return too? We had never been to Thailand which we decided was the next stop out of Europe but had heard great things. There. It was decided. Travel to Thailand use the frequent flier miles to get us to South Korea to visit my family for a couple weeks then return to Thailand. Sounds like as good a plan as any. No need to consult the travel agent – we knew exactly what we wanted. Tickets to South Korea from Thailand? Not a problem. Return tickets to Thailand from South Korea – problem. We couldn’t get a flight back to Thailand on the dates we needed to leave South Korea BUT we could still use the frequent flier miles to go anywhere in South East Asia. Great! So we started naming off some countries and cities we were interested in visiting. NOTHING! Nothing was available and we were running out of ideas. I finally had to break out the world map to find out just what WAS available for us to visit, was not involved in too much political upheaval and seemed relatively interesting. We were able to get a flight to Singapore on October 10th. We’ve heard great things about Singapore! We’re also hoping that we’ll be able to get a cheap flight to New Zealand departing from Singapore.
Now that most of the tickets have been purchased we have more structure to this trip than we have had in the last year – now we can start planning! Well, kind of, we have maps of Italy, where we plan to spend a month and intend on obtaining more maps as we go but, we’ll pretty much take our cues from fellow travelers we meet along the way. This philosophy really meshes well with Jon’s easygoing personality. While I’d like to think that I can be equally easygoing, carefree and flexible – I’ll admit I am having to work on my “go with the flow” attitude. I’m sure this will be a topic for future journal entries. I’ll be honest this casual philosophy has been handy because, good god, if I had to plan in anymore detail I think I would go nuts!
In an effort to be as efficient and responsible as possible we’ve written our wills, granted power of attorney for finances and for making medical decisions. We’ve arranged access to our finances to various responsible family members, contacted credit card companies, debit card companies, we’ve consolidated and rolled over retirement funds, arranged for the cats to be cared for, medical insurance for the trip, car insurance for our car while it’s sitting in my parents driveway, life insurance, put our belongings in the attics of both of our parents who live on opposite sides of the Puget Sound. We’ve had papers notarized and witnessed. We’ve been given a clean bill of health from our health care providers, had our teeth cleaned and examined and are almost done with our vaccinations/immunizations. We’ve been exercising regularly in hopes that we won’t be curled up into a big ball of lactic acid once we really start putting the miles on our bikes.
