Six weeks to go!
We can hardly believe it that there are only six weeks left before we start our journey for our major trip this year. I wanted to give background and a window into how this trip, our longest at 39 days, is now 42 days away. How in the world did I get here?
dream
The moment Amber said “yes” to the idea of going to Australia, that required financial planning. This trip has been a dream of ours for years. To turn the dream into reality we had to make a plan to save for this trip. Now the biggest constraint regarding finances is that I came from a household where comments similar to “you never know if the person living in the biggest house, with the new car has enough money for lunch“, or the obvious “if you can’t afford it, you don’t buy it.” would be said easily, often and regularly. I was never given a formal lesson on household budgeting, but the concept of living within yours means holds true to us today. So to make this trip happen we’d have to save. And we did! Now with funds in the piggybank the dream has transitioned into the idea of “what are we going to do once we leave the airport?“
what about work?!
Yes, both of us work and are employed full-time, however vacation, whether for a one, two, or five weeks should be handled in a similar manner as I did for this trip. Discuss the timing with the company, and present ideas and approaches for any deadlines that cannot be completed before or after vacation. Now planning vacation during key deadline or deliverables in your role is never recommended. To me, vacation is time to recharge, that provides the energy to tackle whatever deadlines or projects may arise at work.
idea to doodle
First up, was what are we going to do while in Australia? Hiding out in the outback? Nope. Swimming with sharks and jellyfish? No again. To compliment the many sources online, personal input (both of us have work colleagues who have studied, lived or visited Australia) has helped to guide the plan. That and I spent 3 months in Australia back in 2006. Recalling the places I got to visit on weekends, and input from others we started to put together a list of things to see at particular places. Very quickly we realized a few attractions solidified specific places to visit.
From there I then doodled. Australia is a very large country, and backtracking via car or plane can consume a lot of time. Even in a five week trip I didn’t want to require us to travel the same route, if possible. After many doodles one day I was very proud of one and sent it to Amber:
I do not remember the exact words of the reply, however using an abbreviation with the letters w, t, and, f summarized her response. Once I explained that in the doodle “each letter represents a specific city or region, red lines are flights, and blue lines”… now here is when she practiced eye rolling as if it was going to be an Olympic event for 2020. After a few more attempts, and feeding her a few cups of tea did she then warm-up to my explanation and replied “Okay. Sounds good.” We have a PLAN!
Doodle to spreadsheet
Lists are our best friends both at work and at home. For me almost everything I do ends up in a spreadsheet. Now, it is not glamorous, but it’s functional and combines the ability to keep track of our budget and also confirms that we are renting a car from the same airport we land at during the trip.
I’ve adopted colour coding to make it faster to identify what parts of the trip haven’t been booked or confirmed.
is there time for fun?
YES! Think of the spreadsheet as the guardrail for our trip. We know where we will start and end each day, and we know when our flights will depart, to make sure we don’t miss them. What we do during the day is up for us to choose. It could be from the list we drew up earlier, or whatever interests us during that day.
now what?
Here is my challenge to you the reader. What other elements of planning for a trip would you like to know about?