So here we are…

We have a few things in order. The visa question for my husband, the sabbatical question for work. I signed up for an online travel writing course and started  photography courses. Everything seems in place except….where are we going and how are we doing it?

Planning a 3 month world trip with your life partner you think would be fun (and it is a bit) but it’s similar to planning our wedding. We don’t need input from other family members but we do need to know what it is we want and this trip does need (at least for us) to represent our style of travel within the budget we had laid out for the trip.

So to help you avoid some of the pitfalls we [expected] to encounter here’s a list of helpful things to consider and questions to ask each other:

1. Budget: 

It is so so soooooo very important to know how much you are willing to spend on this trip. For us, we have a bit of a liberal budget and we know that at least one of us will be working when we come back home. But there are still many considerations. We needed to think about what will happen to our place and if we could rent our place out short-term for the time we will be gone and of course to lessen the burden of paying rent out of our savings while not working. We opted to put our place up and are hoping for a taker. We also set a budget limit and that limit included the costs for airfare, hotels, tours, and transportation. We then made sure to leave a lot of wiggle room for food, experiences, and anything unexpected. That means we used points to book flights when we could and points to stay in hotels. We booked cheaper accommodations in expensive locations and booked inclusive tours when we needed.

2. Travel Style:

My husband is the silent type who takes a long time to express what he actually feels but can talk at length about programming, Sci-fi movies, and financial systems. We are the definition of opposites attract since I am talkative, philosophical, political, and deeply in tune with my inner voice. But what that meant for us is that we had to be 100% honest and patient with each other. Me being patient to give him time to decide what it is he actually wants and him being 100% honest and patient with himself and me. We started off by asking ourselves the question: “What is my preferred travel style?” and came up with totally opposite answers. Then we answered the question “What is my spouse’s travel style?” and wrote down what we thought. Then we established bottom lines (things we 100% do not want to do) and a list of things we are willing to try out. For example I will climb a mountain but I am terrified of baby planes. Christian will avoid some sports but will jump in a baby plane in a minute. So we know which activities we are doing on our own!

Then we gave each other each a week. What I mean by that is we agreed that for one week (he gets one and I get one) we would travel in the preferred style of each other, but at all other times it would be a compromise and agreed what that looked like. For example he gets a week in Thailand to do whatever he wants. I get my week in Spain with my friend. He gets to go to South Korea (was not on my bucket list) but we will stay in an inexpensive hotel. He comes with me to Mongolia but we take a tour with better accommodations for his style.

Finally, after much discussion, I sat down and planned out every detail on a calendar and booked hotels and hostels ahead of time and I got his input. What we agreed on we kept and what we disagreed on we changed. Then finally we also agreed that there would be times during the travel that we will have to go alone at things. Experiences only one of us wanted and the other was opposed to. Of course the ideal is to spend every moment together living this awesome experience but the truth is we are different and that difference doesn’t necessarily mean in order to have fun we have to become each other. We can go at it alone and that’s fine too.

3. Discuss any obligations and realities.

Yes, just because you take a world trip does not mean the world mends to your every command. My husband is a German citizen and I am American so that means there are some places I just can not go. His work vacation only allows 3 months and so how much time do we actually have? His visa only allows him to be away for around 6 months so we need to be back by then.  My in-laws are throwing a family event in the middle of this all which means we’ll need to in Austria for the event. We want to have kids at some point so what countries should we avoid and when [Fyi, Zika stays in the male system for 6 months and the female system for 8 weeks- always consult with your doctor but something to think about while planing for travel]. I have three friends who live between Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium, so I would like to go see them. We talked about these things and included them in our plans.

Hopefully these tips can help you like we (hope) they will help us. After going through all of these we came up with a tentative plan for where to go and revised it over and over again:

So here it is….a list of tentative plans of mice and men

[Tentative plans of mice and men]

• Fly to SF and drop puppies with mom.
• Southeast Asia
  • Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam
• Mongolia
  • Must ride a horse, must see Gobi
  • Must leave before September 2nd
• Spain, Portugal, Amsterdam, Belgium
  • Spend time with friends
• Austria – Family Event
• West Africa
  • I have dreams of spending time in West Africa but I don’t speak French so I booked a tour.
  • The only tour I could find in West Africa that seemed to fit the needs of my husband (comfort) with the needs of me (cultural immersion) was a tour by TransAfrica. I saw zero reviews about them on trip advisor. They aren’t cheap (2,500 euros per person) but they are intimate (groups of 6) and it covers Ghana, Togo and Benin. I have no idea what to expect but we have put down a deposit and are set to go.
  • Christian is going with me on this tour so we will spend a week on a Island somewhere in Africa to compromise with a vacation in his preferred style.
• South Africa, Namibia
  • Must see Dune 45 and Sossusvlei
• Chile, Argentina
  • Maybe take a Spanish Course
  • Maybe a friend will join
• Tour to Antarctica
  • I learned you can go camping in Antarctica
• Mexico?
• Mother & Daughter Travel to India, Ethiopia
• Family Travel to Kenya
• Decide what to do now that I’m unemployed. Maybe another trip?