To plan a massive journey such as this one, I’ve found it useful to create a Travel Planning Mantra.
This is the thing that will truly help you in your planning decisions. Especially for an indecisive person such as myself, spending time creating a Travel Mantra, is imperative to efficient and consistent travel planning.
Consider this your Goal or your Thesis for the trip.
A few things to consider:
- Why are you doing this?
- What do you hope to gain from this trip?
- What is more important to you, flexibility (being able to go where the wind takes you) or being sure to hit up all the places you planned on hitting up?
- Are you staying in one place for a long period, or are you going to keep skipping around? or a mixture of both?
- Are you planning on working while on the move?
- Are you doing one continent or is the focus circumnavigating the globe?
- Are you OK with traveling over land in less than stellar modes of transportation?
- What kind of experience are you looking to have (a down and dirty, couch surfing, hostel, bread & butter experience or a more luxurious option)
Keep adding questions, answer all of them. Then read them over & over and compose your Travel Mantra that either explicitly or implicitly states these in a few sentences.
My Travel Mantra:
I want to travel through all the continents (excluding Antartica), to see and experience most of the countries / destinations that I dreamed of seeing, be immersed in the cultures of each place and gain insight into local living at certain places. I want to eat well, travel with minimal baggage, read a lot and visit my friends around the world. I want the flexibility to be able to travel where the wind takes me while keeping in mind there are places I must not miss. I want a year to remember, where I get to also explore business opportunities that will enable me to travel extensively.
From this, when it comes time to deciding on flight packages and such, I can make decisions faster and with more satisfaction because I am sticking to my goals.