How we plan part One.

Currently we are planning a trip for December of 2014. The location will be a surprise and maybe announced just before we leave or when we are en route. This series of posts will outline our planning process. I have no clue as to how many posts this will take so hang in there. 

I was lucky as a child in that my father worked for United Airlines and travel was always a part of our lives. One of our go to planning reference was Pan AM’s New Horizons World Guide. Chocked full of information on over 100 countries covering weather, what to see, local customs, how to get there, government, currency etc etc etc . This was first published in 1951 (a good year to be born in) and probably last printed in the late 1960’s. I remember sitting and reading about far off places and people. This is where my wanderlust was born. 

So where to go? We can be inspired by magazines like National Geographic, Traveler, Cycling, airline magazines. Maybe a television show on the History Channel, Travel, National Geographic, or BBC. Maybe a flyer or a request for a donation to support a wildlife cause. Maybe the inspiration comes from a biography or novel of places far away. Maybe it is an out of way the location where few have journeyed.  As a child we would play a game called Spin the Globe, take your globe spin it close your eyes and put your finger on the globe, and that is where you go. Undergrad degrees in History and Religion and MA studies in Environmental Education combined with a whole lot of wilderness travel could be a factor. Maybe a place where access is limited. The far and exotic have a certain magnetic draw, like Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan.   Probably a combination of all the aforementioned light the spark.  

Do we have a written bucket list,  not really, more of a mental list kinda like The Cloud :). 

So there we were, just sitting here at the Casa Del Spoiled Malamutes and The Wyoming Adventures Club, looking at a travel brochure for a location we know we want to visit. Sometimes the decision is driven by cost, that is kinda what happened for this December trip. The cost of a 2014 trip would be significantly less than a 2015 trip. The operator offered included an incentive of international airfare and charter flights for some of the 2014 dates, and as I often say “Sounded Like A Good Idea at the Time”.  We booked the trip. 

The die has been cast and the planning process has started.