Our Round the World Trip
I’ve been talking about my upcoming travels on social media a lot lately, and have had quite a few people ask to know more about what I’ll actually be doing, and where I’ll be going.
And then I realised; I haven’t really talked about my round the world trip on my blog.
Sure, I’ve mentioned it in passing, (and pleaded for your advice
), but I’ve never actually written a post purely about what we’ll be doing when, and more importantly – why.
This isn’t just an excuse for me to ramble on about travelling (although it is one of my favourite things to do!). I also hope that for any of you who are planning a trip, it might give you some ideas, and give you someone to get excited with! And if you’re on the brink of taking that leap and booking your trip, I hope this pushes you in the right direction!
Where we’re going
My boyfriend Phil and I will be starting a trip round the world with a three month road-trip around the USA. We’ve have booked a one way flight to New York for December 8
th
. Booking that flight was one of the most exciting parts of planning the trip so far. When, with trembling fingers, we clicked “confirm” on the airline website we both just sat back and had a bit of a moment. It felt like the beginning of something. Which I guess it was – it was the beginning of everything. Planning has gone into overdrive since then.
Why one way? More on that later, but essentially our trip is open-ended. We didn’t want to limit ourselves with timelines and return dates.
After New York, our itinerary looks a bit like this:
·
Philadelphia, Boston and Washington (using Greyhound buses)
·
Fly to Houston, Texas to spend Christmas
·
Dallas
·
Colorado
·
Vegas
·
Yellowstone
·
California
·
Drive up the west coast
·
Amtrak Train from Seattle to Vancouver – March 2016
We’ve got working visas for Canada, so we can stay there for up to two years. After that, there’s plans in the works to do Australia and New Zealand before travelling back home over Asia. Phew.
Why we’re going
Phil and I both got to the point where we want a little bit more from life. Not that we feel we’re entitled to more, or that there’s anything particularly wrong with our lives, but we’re only 25 + 26. There’s so much more to life than sitting in an office and working – and we wanted to be part of it.
I don’t want to morph into some gigantic, dramatic cliché – but you do know we’re gonna die one day, right? That this is the only chance we’ve got? Every afternoon we spent clock-watching, wasting time until we could go home and go to bed and go through it all again, is one less afternoon we get. It’s just gone – you don’t get it back. It’s terrifying and no one ever talks about it.
To me, life isn’t something to be endured, hurried, or got through. It’s to be enjoyed, every delicious second of it. Some people genuinely love their work, and that’s great. But we were both doing things that didn’t enchant us, didn’t make us excited to get up in the morning. – and that’s just not good enough. I can’t accept it. We’re so lucky to have what we have, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting something different. (I recently
and I’m so much happier. The best part? I can take my work with me)
We really want to see things. To explore, to develop, to change. To make every day sparkle,
to have stories to tell.
It won’t all be sunshine and roses. And that’s ok. All the best stories have light and dark.
That’s the reason why we were keen not to put an end date on our trip. People always ask us, “so when are you coming back?” And when we tell them we don’t know, they look at us like we’re wearing pants on our heads. But why would we limit it? We have no idea what’s going to happen. We could be away for six months, we could be away for three years. I don’t know. And that’s what’s so exciting.
What’s more, I’m going to be blogging
everything
here on Bambi Jane. I’ll be sharing with you every journey, every mishap, every moment of joy, every hangover, every unexpected delight. I want to share information, tips, stories, to help you, inspire you, or even just entertain you.
There’s only four months to go until we leave. There’s a ton of emotional, logistic and practical things I want to write about, so I’ve got an update coming in the next week. What we’ve planned, what we have left to do – that kind of thing.
Are you ready? I can’t wait to take you on the journey!
I’d always love to hear about your travel plans, or your tips for any of the places we’re going. What’s the one piece of travelling advice you’d give?
