What are we up to today? The trip planning has been lagging a little bit but we are about to go head-on into it. We have been a bit overwhelmed and have been plagued with a bit of analysis paralysis. The only way to combat this is to start planning.. but not every last detail. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the USA and that also means a 4 day weekend. We’re taking advantage of it so we can leave by June of 2019.
Packing
We are doing a sample packing this weekend to see what size bag or bags we need for our trip – this is important! This also allows us to get some things on our Christmas wish list. We have completed accumulating most of our needed items for the trip, and we will discover what we are missing during this process.
We’re considering things like size (small enough for carry-on in most cases, yet large enough to hold all our stuff), organization, comfort to carry, and even color (do we want to blend in with the crowd or stick out?).
Choosing our Starting Point
While we claimed we know where our starting point is in a prior post, we’ve found this to be somewhat in flux as we consider weather and one-time activities that affect where we go. There is a solar eclipse in Chile in July, and that may change where we start. We also have to consider what it is like to travel to Patagonia in the Spring. This is something we will need to figure out very soon and plan to have wrapped up by January (so we can book our first flight!). At least we picked a continent.
Rough Outline of Our Trip
It will be very important to have rough draft of the trip. We don’t necessarily need to plan every last detail, and some people have even encouraged us to just go and figure it out along the way. We will definitely learn the critical elements of each place we visit before going. While flying blind is ok with Brianna, that just isn’t my style. The rough draft will become the road map for our detailed plan.
Vaccines
Getting our vaccines is essential over the next few months as some of them require multiple visits. We will be traveling to some yellow fever countries, so we need to have this in order before we go. We already have a travel clinic picked out and will make an appointment so we meet these requirements.
Shutting Down Our Current Lifestyle
As the date gets closer, we need to start selling all of our things and deciding what we keep in storage and what we sell. That will require some hard decisions as we fight over sentimental items. It is funny how attached we are to physical things we accumulate over the years. This will be the ultimate purge. We also need to decide which ongoing expenses we will keep such as Netflix, Creative Cloud, phones, etc. so they can be appropriately budgeted.
We will keep you posted on our progress. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you’re in the States, or just an awesome weekend otherwise. Enjoy the holidays and try to not overindulge too much.
Have you ever been stuck in analysis paralysis while planning a trip? Tell us about your story in the comments.
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