244 days and counting down...

As I write this, 11th May, there are 244 days until our planned departure date! My heart just skipped a beat… this adventure of a lifetime is taking shape.

We’ve had a busy time since we posted the last blog. We had a fabulous holiday skiing in Livigno and St.John has been to London for an extended work trip. School routine is back in swing after a few weeks of public holidays – phew! Time for a quick update.

Charlotte is beginning to talk and engage more about the trip too which is great! She is a planning her You Tube channel where she will document her year. Her birthday list now includes a request for a camera tripod! I’m quite excited that she wants to do this and she is looking to find tweenie vloggers that she can learn the tricks of being a successful vlogger from.

I’ve been at a few get togethers recently and word is out on street (well in our wider friends and acquaintance circles at any rate!) about our sabbatical year. The responses are varied, most people are envious that we’ve taken the leap. Reminding me again and again just how lucky we are to be embarking on this adventure. The one question I’ve been asked most often do you know where you are going? Answer, a lot of places so it’s never a short response!

Here are some numbers from our planned itinerary that I got once I’d entered our travel route and dates on Travellerspoint.

Once I figure out how, I will add another page to our website that will have a link to our route on Travellerspoint as well as our itinerary as it currently is so you can go and have a look if you are interested.

What else have we been up on the planning front? St.John has been working on the budgeting and more research on the places we are going. I’ve been doing quite a lot of work focused on accommodation & best areas to stay to maximise our time in our various stops, in line with the agreed budget of course!

It is incredible how the internet has made the world so small and at a click of a button can see the prices for 2018 and pictures of apartments in my budget range, and save the ones I like the look of so that we can make bookings closer to the time. AirBnB is amazing, even in the tiny mountain villages near Machu Picchu where we will stay for a few days have listings on AirBnB!

The one bit that is confounding us a bit, is how best to deal with the travel between places where we will be doing long-haul flights. We’ve got some travel agents looking at the feasibility of a Round-the-World ticket. There are so many rules are about the direction you fly, not crossing your own path, maximum sectors and maximum mileage it’s head spinning! I am sure we find a solution that works for our planned itinerary as well as the all-important ‘B’ word – budget, it’s just not a quick process seemingly if you want to veer off the ‘usual’ routes that people buy.

Then, of course there are logistics of our life here like renting out our house, cars, speaking to our staff at home about what the plans are for next year regarding their employment and putting our SA lives in a holding pattern for a year. Not always fun stuff like research on cities however very necessary – the more we do now the less rushing around later in the year.

The admin side is far outweighed by the excitement, the Bungey family adventure is rolling. Just yesterday I looked at pictures of the island in Greece we are planning to spend two weeks on in late August…heavenly!

244 days and counting down! Best I get ticking off tasks allocated to me. Easy when you’re using this this nifty app called Wunderlist St.John and I use for shared lists, you can add tasks, allocate a responsible person. Tasks can even add to your calendar, not to mention that is syncs properly across devices! I love it!

That is it for now- off to check that list again!

Picture Credit: Copyright: <a href='https://www.123rf.com/profile_choreograph'>choreograph / 123RF Stock Photo</a>