The Trip That Almost Wasn't

Okay, so there's been quite gap between the last post and this one. The reason? Well, the whole trip is dependant on one thing: money. I wish it wasn't that way but it is, like everything. It ultimately all comes down to money. Now I am happy enough to get the most out of my money and stretch it as far as I can, but the point is you still need to have some in the first place in order to do something like this trip. Now shortly after my first (and last!) post, I recieved some news which I had not been expecting. Now I won't go into the details, but essentially a sum of money which I was hoping to receive, and use to begin financing the trip, wasn't forthcoming. It hasn't been the easiest of weeks and as a result the whole trip has been brought into question. Until now I haven't been able to update the blog because there was the distinct possiblility that there would be no trip to actually blog about! However, after some legal wranglings an agreement has been reached and plans can once again get underway to start planning the trip.

So, as a result, two major decisions have now been made.

Number One: The trip will last for approx 9 months. We did talk about travelling for an entire year but fear of burn out, the cost and being away from friends and family for an entire year seemed a bit too long, after all, what's the obsession with "a year"? It seems to be the prediliction for a period of time for "travelling". Think about it, "Gap Year", "Year Off", "A Year in Provence" etc etc. Why not 9 months? Okay, so its not as catchy but it could end up being a bit more, it could end up being a bit less, but it does mean the money will go further, but that's because we won't be!

And that leads us to Number Two: Where will we go? Many long hours have been spent in front of the World Map, newly put up on the wall in the lounge, surrounded by even newer star -shaped lights. The original idea, and lets be honest, completely unachievable idea, was to travel through Europe, across Russia, into the Far East, perhaps head across the Himalaya into India, maybe head back east and take in Japan, the Philippines, head south through Malaysia and Indonesia into Australasia, then across the South Pacific to South America, from the tip head up to Mexico and into California, then from sea to shining sea to the east coast and New York, before flying back to London. Obviously, not only would that have taken about 4 years to actually do, but a significant amount of money which we just aint got. So while its help us understand what we couldn't do, it did serve a good purpose because it meant we had to decide where we really wanted to go and how to get the most out of the newly allotted time frame we'd decided on.

As such, we have a basic plan - but its getting late, so I'll save that for next time....