Phew, it feels like we've been planning this trip for years (well, we kind of have been). Neither of us remember exactly when we started talking about doing this, but we agree it was sometime around 2020 when we started getting more serious about it (though, if you ask Melissa, she's been planning this since she was about 15). At the time, we thought we would buy a van and road trip across the U.S. for a while. We would mention it every few months, and after a while it got to the point where we knew we either had to plan to do it, or stop talking about it. COVID delayed things, but by the end of 2022, we were ready to make a plan.
Planning this trip took a lot of time. Most of it was fun; some of it wasn't (looking at you, insurance). We put a lot of time and effort in on the front end to try and maximize our time on the actual journey. Sure, we'll still have to plan things as we go, but we wanted to have at least a loose idea of places we were interested in, efficient routes to take between places, climate considerations, etc. Plus, there were some things we had to figure out before we left (how to handle our jobs, budget, moving out of our house, insurance, vaccines, you get the idea).
So, how exactly did we do it (besides creating A LOT of spreadsheets)? We broke things into bite-sized chunks. We talked to a lot of friends, and read a lot of blogs and books. We also interspersed the fun planning (where do we want to go?!) with the less fun stuff (looking at you again, insurance). And, we held ourselves accountable. We didn't go on a few trips we otherwise would have, and we made ourselves do an hour of prep after work, even when we were tired.
And here we are! We feel ready to go because of all the effort we put in up front. We won't bore you with all of the spreadsheets, but if you want to know any details, we'll talk your ear off about phone plans, eSIMs, vaccines, travel insurance, our awesome storage unit deal, and how we're fitting a year's worth of packing into a 40 liter backpack and a day pack.
See you all in a year(ish)!
snip from one of our spreadsheets- figuring out the best time to visit Asia
You guys really did some work ... this is awesome. I love the spreadsheet and the dedication with the upfront planning. And I would like to know what are the essentials for a 1 year tour around the world that fit in a 40L backpack. (There is a category of optimization problems which are called 'knapsack' problems.) ;-) Philip
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