Sean and I have done a lot of research into our year on the road—reading books and blogs, watching Youtube videos, talking to friends and family members who’ve gone before us. But plenty of details are still up in the air. And that’s by design: We’re both natural-born planners, and leaving things to chance is part of the challenge (and the thrill) of this next chapter. Here’s everything we know (and all the things we don’t):
The timeline
The trip is bookended by two big events: Oktoberfest in Munich this September, and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo next August. What we do in between those two tentpoles is (roughly) up to chance. We’ve got a one-way ticket to Portugal booked for early September, with the goal of returning to the States around the holidays. After Christmas, we’ll head to Central and South America for a few months, and then trek over to Asia (and Australia?) in the spring.
The budget
Our goal is to spend an average of $100 per day (though we’ve saved quite a bit more than that if and when we need a buffer). “How,” you ask? By sticking to off-the-beaten-path destinations; staying in hostels and private rooms in Airbnbs; traveling at off times like Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and late nights and early mornings; taking public transit whenever possible; and minimizing meals out. We’ll also plan plenty of down time to counterbalance pricier days (we can swing a $100 riverboat tour in Portugal’s Douro Valley if we spend a couple of days lounging on the beach in the Algarve). It’s going to be tougher in Western Europe, but we’re hoping it’ll even out in less expensive locales like Southeast Asia.
The destinations
Someone asked me recently where I’m most excited about going. But other than Portugal, Germany, and Japan, we truly have no idea where we’ll end up. We have a list of places in mind—Italy, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Belize, Colombia, Argentina, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, China—but it all depends on the availability of cheap transportation. And that might be what I’m most looking forward to: looking back on our adventure one year from now and being surprised by all the places we visited.
The luggage
We’re going carry-on only throughout our journey. It’s one part money-saving strategy (we’d rather not pay to check bags on budget airlines) and one part logistical (I don’t want to drag a heavy suitcase through a jungle or share a cot on a sleeper bus with a giant backpack). That means we’ll be doing a lot of outfit remixing and washing clothes in the sink. The good news is, we plan on returning to the States in between continents, so we can swap out our wardrobe to suit the next climate. (The cozy sweater I’m packing for Europe in November will be entirely useless in Asia in June.)
The things we’re leaving behind
We’re getting rid of A LOT. Way more than we ditched when we moved to Boston five years ago. We’re loading what’s left into a U-Haul and driving home to Texas to store it near my parents’ house. The only things we’ll see between now and next fall are our clothes and the handful of knick-knacks we’ll set up in my old room to make it feel a little more “ours.” And what of my sweet angel, Layla? Thank you so much for thinking of her! She’ll live with my parents temporarily before moving in with my brother when he gets settled in a new place.
What’s the first thing you think of when I say Colombia? Cocaine? Pablo Escobar? Narcos? FARC? Terrorism? That’s fair. But what if I told you everything you thought you knew about the country is wrong?