We started out by separately listing up all the countries or places in the world that we'd like to go at some point. With only one year and a limited budget we didn't expect to see it all, but we felt this a good place to start. Once we had our lists, we shared and talked about all the choices, noting any overlap.
It was a lot of fun telling each other why we wanted to go where, especially for the places only on one list or the other. India and Brazil were at the top of my list, and she wanted to get back to Africa and do a safari. These three thus form the base of our course. We are purposefully avoiding places like Europe, Australia and the US to maximize our budget, and living in Japan, we've both already seen a bunch of SE Asia already.
From here, we started researching RTW (Round The World) tickets and planning a route. Putting in a basic route on the Star Alliance planner, we looked at countries around our basic route that were of interest to both of us and added a few extra places. I found Travel Independent to be a great resource for checking out countries.
Next, we made a few more adjustments after we started researching the timing and seasons for each location. Given the weather, we decided India in August wasn't a good idea, so we front-loaded the trip with a short stint in Thailand and Cambodia to give things time to mellow. Not only does this let us see Angkor Wat, but it also will help us save a few yen by not getting immunizations in Japan.
So, that's it! Things may change along the way, but that's part of the fun. Here's our list of possibilities for now, in order:
- Thailand
- Cambodia
- India
- Nepal
- Turkey
- Jordan
- Israel
- Ethiopia
- Kenya
- Tanzania
- Rwanda
- Zambia
- Mozambique
- South Africa
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Bolivia
- Peru
- US (for a stop back at my home before...)
- Return to Japan
Been somewhere that not everyone thinks about and have to tell us? Or do you have any info on any of the places on our list, good or bad?
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