planning our year abroad — little world adventure

After years of daydreaming about a year of travel, our dreams became a reality and it was time to plan a route! We are only a bit over a month into our travels, but we’ve already learned a lot along the way.

Below you’ll find some lessons learned so far and a few possible routes that we loved, but just didn’t work for us. And finally, our planned route so far!

LESSON #1 - A YEAR IS NOT THAT LONG!

This thought seemed laughable at first. Before our year long trip, our longest vacation had been 14 nights in Italy. A year seemed full of possibilities. But when you want to travel slow, balance school and maybe a little work, a year starts to fill up quick! We could spent an entire year exploring Europe. Actually, we could spend an entire year traveling Italy or Spain. So a year to travel and see as much of the world as possible started to seem limited.

LESSON #2 - GO AT OUR OWN SPEED

As I mentioned above, we didn’t want to head out on a whirlwind adventure. Spending two to three nights in each city was not what we were looking for. When you see our itinerary below, we’ve decided to go in spurts. We have stretches where we hit a string of cities, spend a few nights in each and sightsee. Then there are longer sections where we have a week or two, or longer, to chill out and recharge.

We also need to go at our own speed in terms of the “adventure” part of our trip. We’ve travelled to Western Europe before and are comfortable getting around. Eastern Europe has felt slightly different, but still very similar to Western Europe. Next we head to Asia, which is the next little stretch of our traveling muscle. None of us have been to Asia before and I’m sure it will feel new and different, but that we will adjust quickly. As much as I want to be that adventurous, find the more obscure place kind of traveller, I’ve learned that in the long run, it’s best to go at our own speed.

LESSON #3 - LEARN THE RULES

Visa requirements helped us build our itinerary more than we thought it would. For example, many countries in Europe are a part of the Schengen area. This means that you can cross borders from two Schengen area countries (example: Slovenia and Hungary) without going through passport or other types of border control. You can visit these 26 countries for up to 90 days in any 180 day period. In our itinerary below you'll see that our plan was to make the most of our 90 days and then we needed to travel outside of the Schengen area for the next 90 days. We left plenty of wiggle room on our first 90 days, just in case our plans changed!

Notecards with each country we wanted to visit, plus a calendar, helped us put together the puzzle that is planning a year long travel itinerary.

We also wrote country information on the back of each notecard for easy reference. Info like Visa requirements, ideal time to visit based on weather, and desired duration of visit.

ROUTE IDEAS THAT DIDN’T MAKE OUR ITINERARY

Camping Road Trip through the USA - Yosemite National Park, caves in New Mexico, lakes in Michigan. Our intention was to show our kids how beautiful the United States is before heading abroad. We planned on starting from our home in Los Angeles, head north to the Pacific Northwest and then make our way across the country to the East Coast. I wanted to spend September in New York City. My favorite time of year there. We cut out this entire itinerary, but I’m sure once we get home we will be doing a lot of camping since it will probably be all we can afford. And we’re definitely fine with that!
Repositioning Cruise - There are some great deals when taking a repositioning cruise. I had my heart set on a transatlantic, repositioning cruise from Miami to Spain until I realized it was only offered once a year in March. Definitely an idea for another time!
Safari and a trip to South Africa - Short story, safaris are expensive. Especially ones that are in a malaria free zone. I will always remember that our family friends went on safari as their last, big family vacation when their last kid graduated from college. I’ve got my heart set on doing the same.

OUR PLANNED ROUTE (SO FAR)

The first six months of our travels are mapped out with flights and accommodations booked. I thought that we would book as we went, but with a family of four, a tight budget and traveling during peak seasons that was not a realistic option for us. Plus, I really enjoy the planning process! There’s still so much to research and explore once we get to our destination. Plenty of unknowns left to discover!

EUROPE LEG #1

Image by <a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/travel">Travel vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com</a>

United Kingdom - 16 Days (London, Devon, Lakes District & Edinburgh)
Vienna - 3 Days
Slovenia - 16 Days (Ljubljana - 6 days in total & Camping - 10 days)
Budapest - 14 Days
Croatia - 17 Days (Pula, Split & Dubrovnik)
Greece - 18 Days (Athens, Santorini & Paros)
Istanbul - 8 Days

ASIA LEG

Japan - 24 Days (Tokyo, Ito, Kyoto, Nara & Osaka)
Cambodia - 21 Days
Thailand - 54 Days
Singapore - 7 Days

What destinations are we missing? Any ideas on how to spend the second half of our travels - housesitting on the Italian countryside? Campervan through New Zealand? The options are endless!