Planning

So I'm really getting into the details of this big trip of mine. Interestingly, this blog contains notes from the previous round the world trip from 2004/2005.

Last time, the trip went NYC -> South America -> Western Europe -> Japan -> China/HK

This time, the original plan was Trans Siberian -> Eastern Europe -> Africa -> NYC -> Canada -> London

When Bahn and I sat down to plan this trip out last night, we realised a major flaw in this plan. Apparently, its the start of the rainy season in November and we were advised by the tour company not to go to East Africa in that period because game is harder to find! This means that the only way we could do it is to go to Africa in the Spring, Sept/Oct. This completely destroyed our originaly plan. To get to Africa by September we had several issues: firstly, there was no tour available for a lot of the companies at that time so we had limited options. secondly and more importantly it meant that we could not do the trans siberian or eastern europe before Africa, (as I would be in Japan in August).

We then came up with a new itenary that looked like this:

Syd -> Africa -> South America -> Latin America/Cuba -> Mexico -> USA

We would sacrifice Eastern Europe for South/Latin America. In some ways I think this is a better itenary. Travelling in South America is potentially cheaper, and it is a more "out of the way" destination than Eastern Europe, which is easily accessible from London.

I plan to go to all the countries that I didn't get to go to last time around so Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and then up thru panama, costa rica, cuba and mexico.

The next think we need to work out is how long we want to spend doing those places. I want to spend some time with Amos in the ATL and Kitty and her family in NYC. Ideally, I think spending the holiday season with them would be fantastic, so that leaves us "only" 7 weeks to do all the above which actually doesnt give us that much time.. we'll have to figure something out..