The Seeds of a Big Idea

When people ask me: When you and your husband started planning for a trip around the world, where did you begin? I say, “Everywhere.” That’s just how it was and truth be told, everyone’s experience will be different, but overall there are common elements which I will discuss over the coming weeks and months.

Where do I begin? First of all you’re all over the map (no pun intended). You become overwhelmed with all the things that you need to do. You want to go to all of the continents, visit all the cities you learned about in history and geography classes. You want to experience for yourself the Seven Wonders of the World which are, of course, scattered all over the globe. Well, this is quite the scope. It’s neither realistic nor practical. We would probably need ten trips around the world, and even then, we would only be scratching the surface. But it is a beginning. You have to start somewhere and why not start big?

So we needed to be selective and pick those places that, when ranked would probably be a 10 in our books – places we had talked about going to for years but never had the time - the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal, the fjords of Norway and many, many more amazing places. I still have articles torn from travel magazines – now crinkled around the edges and meticulously stowed in our “travel file”. They are itching to get out and live freely in the outside world.

These thoughts energized us – where would we start, what should we see first, when should we begin our journey? But these grandiose thoughts were soon deflated by reality – what are we going to do with the house, our 15 year old cat, work, and most importantly where was the money going to come from? Of course, money is always the biggest hurdle. Money, not only for our travel and the expenses of maintaining our home while away, but also for when we return and have to settle back into our routine lifestyle, including finding a job for my husband. This was more the psychological factor that we would need to be ready for,and chances are,there will be a huge adjustment period. We’re ready for that, but there’s always the unplanned infringers that will creep into our best laid plans. Having said this, we’re about two years away from that reality and we are both willing to deal with it when we return.

Where would we get the money? Would we borrow? Not a chance – other than a mortgage, we’re not big on borrowing money. Delve into our savings? Thus, began our five year plan. Yeah, our journey started four years ago. I know it sounds like a long time, but we needed to be really careful with everything. I envy people who can do something like this on a moment’s notice. Either they are super rich and have few or no commitments or they just live a life of spontaneity and live life as it comes. Both perspectives make me see green. But for us, and because we plan everything, we had to take a lot of steps to make our dream a practical reality. And, it wasn’t without compromise and the willingness to give up a few things now for the opportunity to see the world.