Such Enormous Joy!
I've heard people say that part of the joy of a journey is planning it... Well, I respectfully disagree... Though it's very exciting to start thinking about all these cool places and cool people I will be visiting, the actual planning part is a giant pain in the ass!! Dates, times, plane tickets, locations, lodging, vaccinations, visas, insurance, packing lists... AAAAHHHHH!!! I've always known I hate traveling (it's the "getting places" part I like), but now I'm starting to feel so overwhelmed by even the early planning stages that it's freakin' me out man!!!
But, I am making some headway with the planning. So, here's a (very rough!) outline of the plan, please, feel free to make suggestions etc.
I want to have a big Dutch boy bye bye bash on probably Friday January 12th. Then I'm getting in my car the next day and will be driving to LA. I'll take my time doing that, I want to make stops in Chicago, Vegas, and some of the canyons. Anything (or anyone) else I should definitely see in between in my last cross-country drive in the US? Then once I get to LA, I want to stay there some 6 days or so.
On January 27th, I would be headed for Nagoya, Japan, to visit Megan & Ben there. Megan suggested going skiing up by Nagano, which sounds awesome! I'll have to leave there on February 2nd (because they're going on vacation themselves on the third), so I'll probably fly straight to Shanghai there, to visit Stephanie and perhaps Julia's brother Jon. Steph actually has some time off after the 4th, so that's pretty sweet!
The next part is a little fuzzy still... I can do something else in China, or I thought about maybe taking a train or something to Hong Kong, but I'm not sure if there's anything fun to do there... Any suggestions for things to do south of Shanghai? I have to take a flight to Brisbane, Australia around the 12th, to visit Nadine there, and perhaps my brother's old roommate Hester.
I'll spend a few days in Brisbane, and then make my way down the coast to Sydney and Melbourne. Perhaps a few days of outback would be sweet too (again, suggestions are welcome!). After that, I'll be hopping on a plane (either from Melbourne or Perth, if I end up traveling west a lot) to Mauritius around the 23rd of February. That'll sort of be the midway point where I plan to do not much else but lying on a beach in the midst of summer ;-) Anyone jealous yet?!?
I'll probably only spend about 5 days or so there (it'll be one of my more expensive stops!), and then hop on over to South Africa around the 28th to see some of my 'roots'... I'll have to talk to Hanna and Ella for some South Africa tips as well, but I'm pretty excited about that stop.
After that, it's all getting very blurry, I haven't worked out these last 4 weeks yet at all. There's a couple of possible scenarios. I would really like to see Tanzania and/or Kenya, though probably one of them might be enough... Another option (or perhaps in addition to Tanzania) would be Ghana, Debs is really rooting for that one (but flights from Dar Es Salaam to Accra are mostly VERY expensive, unfortunately)! Depending on what happens first, I'll then make my way north to Egypt and/or Tunisia, with perhaps a last stop in Portugal. I scratched Saint Petersburg and Moscow off my list, because Yuri pointed out that it's going to be friggin' cold there in March... I'll get there some other time... in any case, I'd end up in the Netherlands some time shortly before April, on this schedule.
Wow, this is a long post... can you tell I'm new to blogging? Anyways, seeing as the point of this blog is to keep y'all abreast of my travels, I guess the plans are part of that... let me know if you have any suggestions for any of this or if you want to advertise an alternative; I'll probably be starting to book all plane tickets around mid-November, so there's certainly some time and none of this is carved in stone yet... and clearly i can use some help!
But, I am making some headway with the planning. So, here's a (very rough!) outline of the plan, please, feel free to make suggestions etc.
I want to have a big Dutch boy bye bye bash on probably Friday January 12th. Then I'm getting in my car the next day and will be driving to LA. I'll take my time doing that, I want to make stops in Chicago, Vegas, and some of the canyons. Anything (or anyone) else I should definitely see in between in my last cross-country drive in the US? Then once I get to LA, I want to stay there some 6 days or so.
On January 27th, I would be headed for Nagoya, Japan, to visit Megan & Ben there. Megan suggested going skiing up by Nagano, which sounds awesome! I'll have to leave there on February 2nd (because they're going on vacation themselves on the third), so I'll probably fly straight to Shanghai there, to visit Stephanie and perhaps Julia's brother Jon. Steph actually has some time off after the 4th, so that's pretty sweet!
The next part is a little fuzzy still... I can do something else in China, or I thought about maybe taking a train or something to Hong Kong, but I'm not sure if there's anything fun to do there... Any suggestions for things to do south of Shanghai? I have to take a flight to Brisbane, Australia around the 12th, to visit Nadine there, and perhaps my brother's old roommate Hester.
I'll spend a few days in Brisbane, and then make my way down the coast to Sydney and Melbourne. Perhaps a few days of outback would be sweet too (again, suggestions are welcome!). After that, I'll be hopping on a plane (either from Melbourne or Perth, if I end up traveling west a lot) to Mauritius around the 23rd of February. That'll sort of be the midway point where I plan to do not much else but lying on a beach in the midst of summer ;-) Anyone jealous yet?!?
I'll probably only spend about 5 days or so there (it'll be one of my more expensive stops!), and then hop on over to South Africa around the 28th to see some of my 'roots'... I'll have to talk to Hanna and Ella for some South Africa tips as well, but I'm pretty excited about that stop.
After that, it's all getting very blurry, I haven't worked out these last 4 weeks yet at all. There's a couple of possible scenarios. I would really like to see Tanzania and/or Kenya, though probably one of them might be enough... Another option (or perhaps in addition to Tanzania) would be Ghana, Debs is really rooting for that one (but flights from Dar Es Salaam to Accra are mostly VERY expensive, unfortunately)! Depending on what happens first, I'll then make my way north to Egypt and/or Tunisia, with perhaps a last stop in Portugal. I scratched Saint Petersburg and Moscow off my list, because Yuri pointed out that it's going to be friggin' cold there in March... I'll get there some other time... in any case, I'd end up in the Netherlands some time shortly before April, on this schedule.
Wow, this is a long post... can you tell I'm new to blogging? Anyways, seeing as the point of this blog is to keep y'all abreast of my travels, I guess the plans are part of that... let me know if you have any suggestions for any of this or if you want to advertise an alternative; I'll probably be starting to book all plane tickets around mid-November, so there's certainly some time and none of this is carved in stone yet... and clearly i can use some help!
posted by Roelieboelie | 9:14 AM
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