With any long term travel, it is particularly difficult to provide a concrete timeline for a travel plan of any sort. Even if you were to spend the countless hours researching, comparing and refining, it is arguably foolish to try and plan ahead long term travel with any level of detail for two main reasons:
- The only thing certain is change. For long term travel, your plans will change whether you like it or not. There will be delays and unforseen events.
- Ask any person with travel experience and they will tell you that the best travel experiences are those that were unplanned.
For long term travel, flexibility is key. Flexibility means you can get the cheapest deals. Flexibility means you can actually see a place and not simply tick and flick a checklist of tourist attractions. Flexibility means you can jump at opportunities as they come by. Flexibility also means less stress.
But of course, you have to do some planning. No one wants to arrive at an unfamiliar town late at night after an uncomfortable 8 hour bus ride only to find out that there is no accommodation available anywhere due to peak tourist season! So what is the right amount of planning?
Well to be perfectly honest, both Jo and I had our fair share of analysis paralysis in trying to plan or book too much of this trip too far in advance, especially with the internet only being so helpful. What we learnt from all of this though was to treat travel planning like you should with most things in life – focus on the things you CAN control and of these things make sure you focus on “the big rocks”, the things that are truly important. Let the “pebbles”, “sand” and “water” play themselves out along the way. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my references, make sure you check out the following link or view the 2min video below. The “Jar of Life” analogy is a personal favourite of mine, one of which I have used for many years to prioritise tasks, especially in the work environment.
As soon as Jo and I changed our mindset to align with the above principal, planning became less of an arduous task. Effective decision making however is still and will always be a challenging task.
So finally what is our travel plan?
Well sticking to the aforementioned analogy, “the big rocks” for us are the following:
- Trying to visit countries when the local weather is suitable – we don’t like too much rain!
- Learning Spanish first to get the most from our travels through the Americas
- Travelling overland where we can to minimise cost
- Following a travel path that is safe
- Avoiding tourist locations during peak season to avoid inflated costs
- Being aware of big events (i.e. Carnival in Brazil) but not letting them rush our plans
So with those constraints in mind, Phase 1 of our travel plan is to start in Guatemala from late May 2015 and learn Spanish where it is very cheap (possibly the cheapest in the world at A$25/day pp including accommodation, 3x meals and 4hrs a day of tuition), then follow the warmer weather south through Central and South America avoiding the super tourist locations during peak season where possible. All things going well, we expect to finish our travels through Central and South America somewhere between February and April 2016. Our very rough travel route is shown below but one thing I can guarantee is that the exact route through Central and South America WILL change.
Phase 2 of our epic adventure focuses on the northern half of the Americas where we plan to travel through Mexico, USA and Canada. We will likely fly from a southern location in South America up to Mexico and make our way north through the many states of the USA and the provinces of Canada. Our exact route through USA and Canada will be heavily dictated by the seasons. For example, an arrival in the USA early June 2016 after Mexico will mean that we can look at the northern part USA and Canada as a starting point. Stay tuned for our exact starting location closer to this date.
For an up to date overview of our location make sure you follow us on either of our social media platforms here. And if there is anything specific you would like to know, feel free to contact us directly on operationwhiskey@hotmail.com.
Enjoy the ride amigos,
Aaron & Jo
Operation Whiskey 