Ok, We Admit It: We’re Scared.

Seriously, we are.

Not sure why it just started; maybe because now we have both quit our jobs or because we are actively planning our move out of Switzerland, but it seems like just in the past week, it has really hit both of us what we are planning to do and what it is going to mean for us.

Maybe fear isn’t the correct emotion- it’s more like apprehension. We are just now realizing that we are giving up our amazing quality of life, our comfortable apartment, our good jobs, our great friends- all of that, and in return, we are choosing to put ourselves through significant discomfort for a year. OF COURSE there are massive benefits to what we are going to do and I’m sure we will appreciate those so much that we will forget the feelings we have right now. It’s just that at this point, we are only seeing what we are giving up and haven’t started seeing what we are giving it all up for, and that is what is so scary.

We were talking the other day about how we were feeling and admitted to each other for the first time that the nervous, borderline-negative feelings were creeping into our consciousnesses, almost to the point of being equal to the excitement we have about the trip.  Just saying it out loud and realizing that we both felt the same way was a relief. It is normal to be a little scared; we are making a huge life change and taking big risks.

We also might have been a little naïve in our excitement before. We were just so thrilled to be doing this and were so caught up in the planning that we didn’t give a lot of thought to the reality of traveling for a full year. Also, before the last few weeks, the trip was far enough away that it wasn’t yet real. Now, we have two more months in Switzerland and three more months before the start of our trip and time just seems to be flying. It’s overwhelming, and frankly, terrifying.

All of that said, I think the fear is a good thing because it is making us look at the trip more realistically. For example, we are starting to talk about and plan for what we will do if things don’t go as well as expected or if we find ourselves in a dodgy position. We don’t want to psych ourselves out, but it is important to mentally prepare for discomfort, confusion, aggression, sickness, and all of the million other negative things that we could, and probably will, face during the trip.

In terms of where we are in our planning: we are in full ‘leaving Switzerland’ mode. We have the moving out plan set (special thanks to Christian and Michelle, who will help us move all of our shit out of our apartment and into the Bertots’ place in Burgundy), we have our cars and apartment ads up, we have all of our doctor’s visits out of the way, we are getting vaccinations in the next few weeks, we have cancelled all of our contracts. Basically, all of our energy is focused on the inconvenient leaving stuff, and not at all on the exciting travelling stuff, which can probably explain the emotional funk we are in.

Next steps are to do more research about volunteering in South America and get that finalized, get our travelers insurance, and buy any gear that we won’t get in the States. Once we get back into trip planning instead of leaving preparation, our apprehension will probably dissipate and our excitement will return. At least, let’s hope so…

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Resignation and Rabies

So now it's official- I gave my notice to my job this week. This was the last step to take before we start screaming our plans from the rooftops (although we have been mostly doing that for months- hence this blog...). My two supervisors reacted very well, with emotions ranging from relief that I was leaving for personal, not professional, reasons, to disappointment that I had only been with the company for a little over a year, to excitement and support for what we are planning to do. I really couldn't have asked for a better response.

Next on our to-do list: vaccines. We went for a consultation at the vaccination center this week and sat through a two hour monologue by a young doctor about all of the different exotic diseases we are going to die from during the trip. She gave us her recommendations, some of which we will ignore, and we'll start getting the shots in October. She recommended measles, mumps, diphtheria and tetanus, which we will get; rabies, which we won't; yellow fever, hepatitis A and B, which we will get; Japanese encephalitis and typhoid, which we probably won't; and emergency malaria pills. She also explained that we need to prepare ourselves to basically have diarrhea the entire trip. Awesome. Honestly, we aren't all that worried about the big diseases. We of course want to protect ourselves with vaccinations and knowledge about the risks, but we do not want to load up on vaccinations that are only 50% effective, like typhoid. Where I personally am concerned is my stomach during the trip. I have a super-sensitive stomach and no self control when it comes to what I eat, so I'm expecting to suffer considerably as a result of my eating choices (like the time I had a fish sandwich from a street vendor in Morocco in 90 degree heat. Terrible decision.)

Beyond confirming our departure with our companies and worrying about diarrhea, we are now working to figure out volunteering for South America, planning our moving out plan of attack and finalizing our equipment. Vincent is nearly finished with his equipment and is ready for a test-pack. I'm still lagging behind, but once I have everything, we will do an equipment post to show what we are bringing. We plan to try to carry less than 12 kilos on our backs and I would really like to shoot for 10, so packing will be a challenge. I will document that adventure when we come to it. In the meantime, this is our current packing list, which I am religiously following and Vincent is pointedly ignoring: RTW 2012 Packing list

So, as we are finally getting serious about our planning, I will be posting more often with updates on our progress. It's coming up so quickly!!

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Starting to Solidify

As I said in my first post, I only plan to document the planning of the trip when we take some significant step in organizing. Well, we have made leaps and bounds without any new posts, so it's high time I write about it.

The first huge news is that we bought our plane tickets! This was the step we were most looking forward to because it is really the foundation of everything else. We bought a Round the World (RTW) plane ticket through One World alliance which means that all of our continent-to-continent tickets are booked. We still have flexibility with the dates, but the locations are set (they can be changed with a small fee- $125- but we are not expecting to make too many changes). While the ticket is insured, this purchase seals the deal- there is really no turning back now short of something major (even then, I can think of many scenarios that would keep either of us from going).

So, the big reveal is our final itinerary. I use the word "final" pretty loosely since anything can change, but here's generally what we are planning to do. Everything in bold is included in the RTW ticket, while the rest will be figured out along the way:

From	To	When	Comment
London (UK)	NYC	12/15/2011	RTW
NYC	STL	12/18/2011	RTW
STL	Santa Cruz (Bolivia)	12/28/2011	RTW
Santa Cruz (Bolivia)	Cuzco (Peru)		Surface sector
Cuzco (Peru)	Lima (Peru)	1/2012	National flight
Lima (Peru)	Iquitos (Peru)	1/2012	National flight
Iquitos (Peru)	Manaus (Bra)		Boat
Manaus (Bra)	Salvador de Bahia (Bra)	2/2012	National flight
Salvador de Bahia (Bra)	Rio (Bra)	2/2012	National flight
Rio (Bra)	Buenos Aires (Arg)		Bus
Buenos Aires (Arg)	Santiago (Chile)		Bus
Santiago (Chile)	Easter Island (Chile)	5/01/2012	RTW
Easter Island (Chile)	Santiago (Chile)	5/08/2012	RTW
Santiago (Chile)	Auckland (N.Z)	5/15/2012	RTW
Auckland (N.Z)	Sydney (Australia)	06/01/2012	RTW
Sydney (Australia)	Darwin (Australia)		National flight
Darwin (Australia)	Singapore	07/01/2012	RTW
Singapore	Bangkok (Thailand)		Surface sector
Bangkok (Thailand)	Angkor (Cambodia)		Bus
Angkor (Cambodia)	Chang Mai (Thaliand)		Bus/ Train
Chang Mai (Thaliand)	Laos		Bus/ Train
Laos	Vietnam		Boat/ Bus
Vietnam	Hong Kong		National flight
Hong Kong	Kathmandu (Nepal)	10/01/2012	RTW
Kathmandu (Nepal)	Johannesburgh (S.A)	11/15/2012	RTW
Johannesburgh (S.A)	Cape Town		National flight
Johannesburgh (S.A)	London	12/14/2012	RTW

I know, it looks like a lot for only one year, but that's the plan. Those are just the main jumps, everything else we will figure out as we go. While we have an idea of what we want to do, we know that all of that can easily change as we go along.

"How much?" you ask? Well, the RTW ticket cost us £7243, which ended up being a great deal for us as we paid in Swiss francs which was really high compared to the pound. We plan to spend another $1500-2000 per person in internal flights and around $1000 for buses, trains, boats, etc. All in all, we are looking at around $8000 per person just for transportation, which makes up a little under one third of our budget. I will eventually get around to a Budget post, but we are still working out all of the actual costs of the before-leaving expenses.

The other big solidification steps we are currently taking are all of the "leaving" tasks. Vincent gave his notice at his work a few weeks ago and I will give mine in about a month. We both have to give two months notice to our jobs, but decided to give a little more to give them time to replace us. Vincent's resignation went very well and his boss actually told him that he wished that he had done the same thing before having kids. We are getting that a lot, which only confirms that we are making the right decision at the right time.

Vincent did get mixed responses from his colleagues though. Most were happy and excited for him, while some were openly resentful or jealous, telling him the he is "lucky" and has a "good life." While I would never argue that we don't have an amazing life, I find it hard to accept that luck is the reason that we are doing well. Both of us are extremely lucky to have the health, intelligence and good upbringing to be able to do the things we are doing with our lives, but in my opinion, it's our choices and the result of risks we have taken that make up our "good life." Sure, we have certain resources necessary to do a trip like this, but most of those resources are a result of a series of decisions we have made. The trip is going to cost us the equivalent of a really good down payment for a house or a college fund for a kid, but we made the conscious decision to make this experience a priority over those things. We have those funds in the first place because we have risked moving our lives and our couple to take jobs abroad and have worked hard to save as we go along. Those are choices, not luck.

The other "leaving" tasks we are currently taking care of are much less exciting: ending contracts for insurance, phone, gym, etc.; giving notice on our apartment (we are leaving it completely, not sub-leasing); organizing storage (we'll store most of our furniture at the Bertots' house in Burgundy, the cheap stuff will get tossed/sold/given away); closing banks accounts, transferring money, tying up pension funds, etc.; scheduling doctors appointments; and all of the other million little things to get done before we leave Switzerland. It's INSANE that we are leaving in a little over three months. It is almost overwhelming to think of all the things that need to happen before then, but knowing what the end result will be makes it much easier to get through.

Here's our project plan to help us stay on top of things:

Task	Deadline	Notes
Finalize destinations	March	Done
Get E's passport renewed	May	Done
Buy intercontinental plane tickets	June	Done
Let rental agency know re:apt	August	Done
Book accommodation for Carnival	August
Stop insurance policies in CH	August
Get necessary vaccinations	September	Hep A, Hep B, Yellow fever-E, Typhoid, Tetenus
Finalize volunteering for S.Am	September
Dentist/ doctor visits/ Note blood type	September
Figure out closing bank accounts, savings, pension, etc.	September
Get visas for first countries	October
Get travelers health insurance	October
Buy electronics	October	Ipod touch/ Small laptop
Sell cars	October
Organize storage	November
Get one year prescriptions	November
Finalize volunteering for Aust/NZ	November
Buy gear	Ongoing	Backpack, Clothes, Medicines, Journal, etc.

Next big steps, we get vaccinations and I quit my job. I'll try to get some posts up about those milestones as they happen.

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Where to go? What to do?

We have finally figured out the answer to the big question, "Where to go?"

The "What to do?" is much more difficult.

We have our list of countries and a general time line, however that continually changes as we research what to do in each place. For example, we originally thought 10 days in Bolivia was enough, as we planned to get acclimated in La Paz and then head directly to Lake Titicaca and cross the border into Peru. Upon researching both countries, however, we realized that we might actually want more time in Bolivia, where it's cheaper and less touristy, and only hit one or two places in Peru. It's not easy though. How do you really get a feel for what a country has to offer from guidebooks and online forums? There is just SO much research involved that part of us just wants to say, "F-ck it," and just figure it all out along the way.

We have started putting together a general trip plan, which changes almost daily. This plan simply gives us an idea of when we will be where and how long we plan to stay. It not only helps us understand our projected costs, it also helps keep us on track in terms of getting back to Europe in time for Xmas 2012. Here is our current plan, which will probably change by the time I publish this post:


These destinations are pretty much set. The countries in which we spend more than one month are those in which we plan to volunteer. The countries were we will spend under two weeks are transit countries, where there is either only one particular thing we want to do or where we plan to fly in or out of on the way to somewhere else. We are looking at the most flexible plane tickets possible, as we want to be able to have the flexibility to stay longer in a place we love or leave a place we don't earlier than expected.

In terms of planning around our destination list, we have put together a spreadsheet of country facts. This is a very rough work in progress, but the goal is that it will help us to get a feel for what we need to do to prepare for each country (visas and vaccines), as well as what we should research to do in each country. Here is a rough draft of our country plan (click on the image to enlarge):



As we start to solidify the "Where?" and "What?", we will be able to get a better feel for the "How much?" That is another post in itself, but we are starting to get there and it's terrifying. This trip will be a huge investment. I use the word "investment" instead of "expenditure" because we are really hoping to get enough back from it to make it worth the cost. Every time I get frustrated by the amount of planning required, I remind myself that I put more time into wedding planning and that was just one day. I truly (albeit, naively) believe that the time, effort and cost that will go into this trip will be paid back in ways we can't even imagine right now. Fingers crossed those ways aren't just malaria and food-poisoning... :)

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Planning Pains

We need to back up. In the excitement of planning, we dove into the deep end without knowing how to swim. So back to the starting block, where we will actually create a plan of action before taking action.

This realization came last night, as we spent several hours looking at round the world (RTW) plane tickets only to come to the realization that we don't even know where we want to go yet. We thought we did. Or at least, I thought we did. But a huge project like this that involves two people takes communication, compromise and patience- three things that were sorely lacking as we attempted to plan our itinerary.

We started the planning by creating a spreadsheet with each country we wanted to visit and how long we wanted to stay there. It started off pretty straightforward, but then quickly went South as Vincent randomly started wanting to add countries and take time away from the countries that interested me most. Such is trying to plan a trip with two people. Between the constantly changing itinerary and the online RTW ticketing program, which alternated between tedious and maddeningly frustrating, dear reader, I lost my sh-t.

The ensuing tantrum led to an extremely necessary coming to Jesus talk, during which we stopped all discussion of planning and went back to why we want to do this trip in the first place. When we first talked about the trip and made the decision to do it, we had certain goals in mind. But as we started reading books and blogs, looking at maps and itinararies, watching travel shows and rising ticket prices, our excitement took precedence over our goals. We just wanted to see and do and taste and experience without asking why.

So now was are backing up and asking why. Why do we want to do this? What is our goal? Part of asking those questions is recognizing and accepting that each of our answers might be different. We asked each other the questions, "What is your goal for this trip? What do you want to get out of it?" My answer was, "I want to gain knowledge of both the world and myself, as well as experience and skills, to have clarity on how I want to live my life and what I want to do going forward." Vincent's answer was, "I want to have a completely new experience in order to see life and myself from a different perspective, which will help me see things more clearly."

Those two answers sound similar, but we acknowledged that they meant different things. While Vincent was looking for new experiences, I was looking for knowledge and skills. We could easily see this difference when we started planning, as V wanted to see as much as possible, while I wanted to take more time to volunteer and stay in places longer. To work through this difference, we then made two lists: one list of things we wanted during the trip and one of things we wanted to avoid during the trip. These lists looked like this:

WANT:
• Feel like in each place we go, we are there for a reason
• Enjoy ourselves
• Take time to relax, live at a slower pace
• Experience/do things that are completely unique to the places we visit
• Learn another language

DON'T WANT:
• Feel like we are always on the move and missing the experience
• Spending too much time in transit, especially on planes
• Spend too much money, not spend money wisely

After looking at these sub-goals, we both had much more clarity as to what kind of trip we want and therefore, how we need to plan it. Vincent realized that he actually valued quality over quantity, while I realized that I can't see this trip as a compass for a resulting career. Most of all, we cannot put too much pressure on ourselves to see and do, and lose sight of our goals to enjoy ourselves and relax.

We are going to try to restart the planning tonight with these goals in mind. As we go forward, every decision we make will be held up against our goals. We can always be flexible, but now we understand that as we plan, we need to continuously ask ourselves the most fundamental question:"Why?"

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The Beginning

The hardest part is over. After talking about it for months, maybe even years, Vincent and I decided a few months ago to take a year off and travel the world. At first, we thought about taking 6 months to do it, but the more we talked about what we wanted to do, see, experience, the more we realized that 6 months wasn't enough. Hell, a year isn't enough, but it's a start.

After we made the decision, the next step was committing to it. We immediately told everyone close to us what our plans were, so that we were tied into it. Forced to do it for our egos' sake. No turning back now. Not that that's a bad thing, it makes it more real.

At this point, we are at the very beginning of our planning. I am hoping that this journal will help anyone following along see what we are doing to organize ourselves and research for our trip. At the same time, this serves as a way to compare and contrast our plan now to what we actually do. Should be interesting.

Our plan now is to leave our jobs and apartment by the end of Nov 2011, spend Dec between France and the US and then leave the US after the New Year 2012 to start the trip. We plan to take one year to travel around South America (at the time of publication, we are looking at Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and a little bit of Chile) then on to the South Pacific by way of Easter Island and Tahiti. We then plan to hit Australia and New Zealand before heading up through SE Asia (Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam are in the cards at the moment). Hoping then to head over to Nepal before jumping down to South Africa and Tanzania. We expect to hit Southern Africa by Nov 2012, so we'll then head back to Europe to be back in France by Christmas. At least that's the plan.

Along the way, we are planning to spend around 4 of the 11 and a half months volunteering in various places. Our tentative plan is to try to do one month of volunteering on each of the 4 continents we are visiting, but that will depend solely on what is available and how long it makes sense to spend in each job. We are currently using the site www.workaway.info to look for volunteering opportunities. We will soon be reaching out to interesting hosts to see what might be available for us. As we know more, I will post links and details.

At this point, we are doing a ton of research to try to figure out where we want to go and what we want to do. We are both really interested in trekking, so we are throwing around ideas like trekking along the Inca Trail, around Lake Titicaca , in Patagonia, around Milford Sound in New Zealand, through the Australian Outback, in Nepal and around Mt. Kilimanjaro. We are also looking at doing as much overland travel as what makes sense and are researching barges up the Amazon, down the Mekong, etc to mix in with the trains, buses and flights we will be taking. We are planning on pure budget travel: hostels, guesthouses, couch-surfing, street food, etc., but also plan to take a few days a month to splurge on comfort and relaxation.

To do our research, we are using guidebooks and online resources such as Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and http://travelindependent.info/. As our plans solidify, we will document through this journal. During the planning stages, I only plan to post updates when we are working on something interesting or have hit a new step in the planning. Posts may be sporadic for awhile, but I'm hoping this will get me in the habit of journaling before the trip actually starts.

To end this post, I'm cutting and pasting an email I sent to my aunt Mary explaining the thinking behind the trip. I think the email captures the spirit of our current mindset:

"V and I have a new plan! We have been talking for awhile about taking time off and travelling or volunteering or something, and after we started looking into it, we have decided that in 2012, we are going to quit our jobs, leave our apartment and do a year-long around the world trip. We want to include volunteering in that, so we are looking at visiting 4 continents (South America, the Pacific/ Oceana, Asia and Africa) and volunteer for a month on each continent and travel the remaining three months. We have looked at different volunteer sites and there is a lot out there, everything from working on an organic farm in New Zealand, to running a sustainable b&b in Chile, to advocating women's rights in Nepal, to helping with the maintenance of a national park in South Africa. We are going to try to do 4 completely different things to really vary our experience, learn new skills and hopefully find things that we love to do that we never thought about before. Best case scenario is that we have a volunteer experience that we absolutely love that helps us to figure out what we want to do with our lives and we come back with a goal and a plan; worst case scenario is that we see the world, learn new skills and come back to our current career paths (well that's not the WORST case scenario, but I'm trying not to think of kidnappings and malaria.)
Either way, I'm super excited. We are still figuring out exactly where we want to go, but we have ideas of course and are now trying to whittle it down to about 10 or 12 countries to really be able to spend time in each place. We are also doing a lot of budgeting and research about backpacking to prepare for all of the logistics, i.e. budget, visas, vaccinations, etc. It's a huge project, but we feel like now's the time for it, when we don't have kids or a house or jobs we are really attached to. We figured that we can budget in order to save up for it in the coming year so as not to dig into our savings and are starting to look at the timeline for everything that needs to be handled before we go. I'm really excited!"

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