The precursor...

This is quite a long read but there's a lot to say for organising a dual-continental trip and the buildup to departure.

Approvals

Asking for a sabbatical break from work was probably almost as tough as making the actual call itself to take the pause from day-to-day life. That said, both bosses were supportive of the idea and excited for us to go on this journey.

'Approvals' out the way planning could kick off, though, so much has been done in the last few months that it's hard to even think where to start... At the beginning we guess...

Where and when

From the get go we were only looking into the USA and South America. Why? See family plus a great mix of cities, nature, road trips, bucket list places, tours, events and opportunities to see some of the most spectacular places in the world. In our best efforts to chase some sunshine, good weather and not be detrimental to work, we decided to go from September to December and to first go to the US (summer/autumn) and then to South America (spring/summer). Our initial three-month schedule crept up to four months and allowed about seven weeks on each continent.

Routes and dates

Planning routes and dates was no easy feat. Based on our limited time on each continent and that Hil had never been to either, requiring lots of ground needing to be covered, we chose to be quite precise with all of routes, dates and bookings so that all was organised and planned before departure. The two biggest advantages of this are (1) we will do everything we want to do and (2) we don't have to waste any precious travel time planning next stops or figuring out how to get around. The biggest downside is that we haven't left any windows for plan changes or going anywhere off the plan, but we were happy with this trade off. The other disadvantage was the planning time needed to manage all of this and the process of drawing up calendars (Hilit took the cake on this one) and spread sheets (Brett took the cake on this one), researching the multitude of options and opinions and the exact routes and times of movement (especially in South America).

The US route was driven mostly by visiting family (maxing time and visit), being in specific places at specific times (concerts, midweek vs weekend, weather), going to major cities and then going to not so major places by including a Contiki (see lots, random places and places we otherwise would never get to, all in the comfort of an organised tour). We'll be in the US from 25 Aug to 12 Oct 2017.

The South America leg was planned initially around doing the Inca trail and going to see Machu Pichu. There was lots of debate about going to the Galapagos Islands to start off, but we eventually decided against this as it would have been rushed, or taken up too much time, and very expensive. We'll save this for another time. The rest of South America was chosen by places that we really wanted to go experience and may never get another chance too. We're mostly chasing nature all the way from desert to glacier, mountain to valley, sky to sea. Plus a few major cities. We'll be in South America from 31 Oct to 21 Dec 2017.

continued in next blog...