The Plan....or lack of one.
One of the first questions you get when you tell people you are going on an around-the-world trip is inevitably "where will you all be heading"? Good question. Fair Question. But unfortunately, not as easy of a question as you would think.
We'll start with how this idea even came about. Over a year ago, after 7+ years of dating and 4ish years of living together, it was time to have a talk about what was next for us. When I cornered Johnny to get some answers about our next stage (marriage? family? live in a new state?), his response was that he felt like he needed a "big adventure" (thus starting the ongoing joke that this trip is his "mid-life crisis come early").
I've been very fortunate that in my younger years I had lots of opportunities to travel and see the world. Over the course of our relationship, I've regaled Johnny with stories of my adventures and I often talk about how much I loved living abroad and how much I would love to do it again. Add to that some amazing international trips we've had over the past few years, and the idea was hatched. A big adventure we shall have.
When Johnny first proposed this idea, he described it as an around-the-world trip with no set itinerary. Johnny very much likes to travel by the seat of his pants and we've had some memorable experiences because of it. Recently on a trip to the South West, we were at a wine bar in Sedona, Arizona, discussing where we should stay that night; find a spot in Sedona, move on to another town? During that discussion, a random older gentleman sitting next to us joined our conversation, which led to meeting his wife when he invited us to his home, which led to her telling us about a local hike that we hadn't heard of in our research. That hike ended up being one of the highlights of that trip for me. Keeping that philosophy in mind, we're going to make it up as we go.
We're setting out on this trip with only a very loose itinerary and some general ideas of countries we'll hit to meet up with friends along the way. I dropped some of those ideas on our map, and I'll add pin drops to it along the way to see where we've been. We are also issuing an open invite for anyone who wants to join us along the way. Although it's hard to say exactly when we'll be where, we are open to building our itinerary around meeting up with some of our favorite people in their dream destinations.
So let us know where you want to go! We're open to all suggestions and ideas. We'll probably stay away from the more expensive destinations, like western Europe and Australia. Instead, I'd like to focus on countries where we can stretch a buck (or a Baht). Also, if everything goes as planned, future trips may involve lugging around babies, so I'd like to prioritize visiting countries now that may be more difficult to travel to in the future with kiddos in tow.
Our first stop will be to land in Bangkok, Thailand for New Year's Eve. We just have a few days in Bangkok to start, knowing that we'll probably be passing through there again, but then we're headed off to Koh Chang for a week. After that....who knows? Right now we're deciding between if we'll head straight into Cambodia just to the East and then circle back to Thailand later, or head back North to hit our other Thai destinations. The plan will be to stay one step ahead of ourselves, planning the next destination when we get to wherever we're going.
I'm going to try to share photos through our new Instagram account, but I'm not the most social media-savvy person. You can also see through this blog that I'm not a particularly prolific writer, so really we're just talking about an all-around amateur hour. With that said, we're excited to share our trip with you and let us know where we should go and where you'll be joining us. The trip is officially underway as we stop over in CA to see my family for the holidays, then we go international on December 29th.
Looking forward to seeing you along the way!
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