Planning a Trip Can Be Hell!

I have to give credit where credit is due...This incredibly fun idea came from an amazing couple that Bruce and I met on a dive trip in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. Ana and Rich were the most amazing people! They had decided to give up on "normal" life and sell most of their worldly goods to travel the world for a year!!! A YEAR! I think that they thought I was their #1 stalker by the end of the trip. I bothered them with incessant chains of questions..."What made you do this?", "Where is your favorite place?", "What is your itenearary?"...Ana and Rich answered each one patiently and enthusiastically. They were my kind of people!
I remember that night, I hounded Bruce about the idea. I wanted to know what was stopping us from doing the same thing? We had already quit our jobs and decided to move overseas. We were currently in a "holding" pattern before we moved. What was stopping us? After several weeks of furious research and using my favorite sources (Thanks again, Ana and Rich!) we were officially planning our trip!

FIRST THINGS FIRST
Ok, I'm excited. Anyone who knows me, if you give me a task, i'm gonna hold on to it like a bulldog puppy!!There was no letting up. I spent hours researching weather, places, etc. The biggest question was: Where did we want to go? We already decided to go to the Philippines so Bruce could see where he was born but that was just one place...After some brainstorming, we decided that we definitely wanted to go to Europe, Southeast Asia, India, and South America.  Then all we had to do was choose countries to visit. Sounds easy, right? WRONG! Seems that Bruce and I had a couple of different ideas on what was considered "must see" in the world. I was insistent on Italy (specifically Tuscany), France, Spain and  England in Europe. In Southeast Asia I knew I wanted to go to Thailand and Indonesia. South Pacific was a must! I dreamt about small islands in crystal clear water! I had seen an article in a travel magazine about a little known island called Aitutaki and I KNEW that I was going to go there. We also are scuba divers so we knew that a famous diving destination was important. Thats how we chose Palau, a small island in the South Pacific well known for awesome diving. For South America, we both agreed on Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Peru (Macchu Pichu).
Ok, so we have our places and now we started researching. The biggest thing is that we were trying to avoid the rainy season in Southeast Asia and make sure we were NOT going to be anywhere during the hellish "peak" tourist seasons. So we decided based on weather that we should travel around the world going west to east. That meant, hitting Asia then Europe and finishing up in South America. Easy...now all we do is pick cities!

EENIE MEENIE MINEY WHAT?!

Ok, you would think that nothing would be more fun than picking cities to visit all over the world, right? Wrong again! We had taken the advice of our travel gurus, Rich and Ana and purchased their tickets on the One World Round the World Program. Its actually pretty awesome deal. Instead of buying a bunch of individual tickets or use a program that bases the price on mileage, the One World Round the World program is one set price based on how many continents that you visit.  You can do 3, 4 or 5 continents for one flat price. Sounds great BUT the rules are friggin crazy! I mean, you need an advanced degree in engineering, quantam mechanics and astrophysics to figure out how to book a damned trip! I mean seriously!!!!? Ok, these are some of my favorite rules:

1) All travel must be in a east-west direction or vice versa but you can back track throughout the continent..
2) You can't cross the Atlantic Ocean or Pacific Ocean more than once. No matter what you learned in geography, the One World people have a very different definition of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans...It seems like any liquid around a country on the East side of the world can be the Atlantic Ocean and any wet stuff on the west side of the world is a Pacific....
3) You can only use 16 flights to get around the world...Each flight is a "segment". Since you only have 16 "segments" it doesn't make sense to fly from Paris to London for example, because your using up one of your segments and you can easily find transportation from one to the other...BUT they foil you with the next rule..
4) You can't arrive in one airport and then depart from an airport in another city/country or you will be charged a "segment". They call it a "land segment"...Dammit!
5) You have to be able to say the alphabet backwards in 30 seconds while hopping on one leg backwards

It was a real pain in the butt. Over the span of two weeks our itenerary changed no less than 5 times. We dropped Indonesia (time issuses), dropped Palau (couldn't figure out how to get there to save our lives), dropped France, Chile and Uruguay (couldn't make the time work), added Maldives (diving!) and added Denmark (my brother's recommendation). Now, four short weeks after we got the inspiration, we have a round the world itenearary planned!!!!

February:
Japan-Tokyo and Mount Fuji
Thailand-Phuket and Khao Lak
Maldives-Liveaboard diving trip for a week!!!!
Hong Kong-Quick city tour
Philippines-Manila and Boracay

March:
London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Venice and Tuscany and Barcelona

April:
Peru-Machu Picchu
Argentina-Buenos Aires
Honduras-Utila for more diving!!!! Whale Shark season!!!

Ok, we are set! Now to packing and fine tuning! Should be fun!!! Right?