A travel-planning-novice attempting to plan for semi-long term travel.

A few weeks ago, I was ecstatic to have made official airline reservations. I knew, I would leave SFO on March 18th, and would return on August 1st. That’s about all I knew. I realized, I really have very little experience in planning for this length of a trip. Immediately I thought about, where do I want to go? For how long? Do I need visas? How is transportation in the country? Should I book ahead, or just show up? What’s the weather going to be? And more, and more. With over 130 blank days I felt a bit overwhelmed on how I should tackle planning. It’s a bit of an awkward length of time. Not so short that I feel confident pre-planning everything, but not long enough to just wing it the whole time. I needed semi-structure. As a compulsive research-overplanner, the thought of “just showing up” causes a bit of panic. Not because I’m not flexible, but because I worry I’ll land, in say Bali, in July and every decent place to stay in Ubud is booked up. Or if I need to take a train from Yogyakarta to Surabaya, but all trains are full. What if I had only planned a bit in advance? Continue reading →