Prologue ~ “The Best Laid Plans…”
The first step to traveling the world had to be to make sure we could. So we planned a (relatively) short-term experiment. In late 2019, we each got commitments from our respective jobs to allow us to work 100% remotely and booked a bunch of destinations, many of them in other countries.
Then Covid happened…
In some ways, this actually made things easier. Instead of being the only people at our company working remotely, we’re now among many who never plan to return to the office, so everyone has adjusted to interacting through technology.
In other ways, it’s made things more difficult. The #1 reason we wanted to do this was to interact with people and an ongoing pandemic made that difficult, to say the least. But we made the most of it and did what we could. But more importantly, we’re completing a successful proof-of-concept that is giving us the confidence to travel farther away from home when phase one is complete.
And while we had to cancel all the international stops in the early parts of our trip, we were able to visit both Mexico and Canada eventually, once travel restrictions were lifted.
Phase One ~ “The Part With A Car”
North America ~ 2020-2023
Green Checks = Places we have visited
Blue Question Marks = Places we plan/hope to visit
Orange Flags = Confirmed upcoming destinations
Red Xs = Places we had hoped to visit that have been cut from the plan
We plan to spend the rest of 2022 exploring the Great Lakes Region and then working our way across Western Canada. We will also be taking a month off from this plan to take a trip to the South of France to see family in September 2022.
Phase Two ~ “We really should learn Spanish…”
Central and South America ~ 2023-2024 (ish)
While our plan for North America is pretty firmed up, the next phase is still in the VERY early stages of development. We know that we want to finish this hemisphere before moving the operation across an ocean, but we are still deciding where we want to go and how long we want to spend there.
So if you have ideas… let us know.
From this point on, assume each phase is about a year. But that will have to be played by ear as we go.
Phase Three ~ “Is It Always This Hot?”
The Caribbean
Phase Four ~ “Under and Around”
Australia and the South Pacific
Phase Five ~ “Bali Ha’i”
Asian Pacific
Phase Six ~ “The Parts of Asia Americans Know About”
Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea
Phase Seven ~ “That’s A Really Big Mountain”
India and Southwest Asia
Phase Eight ~ “Are You Sure You Wanna Go There?”
The Middle East
Phase Nine ~ “Where?”
Sub-Sahara Africa
Phase Ten thru ? ~ “What’s a Schengen?”
Europe and North Africa
Due to restrictions on how long you can stay in ALL OF EUROPE (the “Schengen” countries shown above) for any visit, this will be a complicated, multi-year exercise in weaving in and out of Europe so we don’t stay for more than 90 days every six months.
MIA ~ The Places We Would Love To Visit…
But Probably Can’t / Shouldn’t
Times could change in the next ten years, and we’ll always be re-evaluating and determining what we feel comfortable with. And if we’re being honest, there are a lot of places on the maps above that we probably won’t actually be able to do. (Cuba, China?, parts of the Middle East, etc)
But this is our watch list of places we’d like to visit if we can figure out how to do it with reasonable cost and safety.
These Earthly Delights 