step three: plan trip itinerary (for real)

jay mentioned in a previous post that he had purchased a map. the map is massive. its of the whole world. we've mounted it to cardboard and it now has a place of prominence in our living room. 

we poked pins into each and every place we could think that we would want to go. ever. in our entire lives. well, the whole map was covered from top to bottom with pins...ok...that's an exaggeration...neither of us wanted to go to antarctica that badly. so how do we whittle down the destinations into a realistic itinerary? we procrastinate!!

since we sold the house we have done little to further our plans. its scary how easy it is to become complacent. i guess i wrote my letter of resignation, i postdated the cancellation of our house insurance, i set up an appointment with the real estate lawyer AND we have our physicals next week. the list of things to get done is in my head and i really, really need to get it onto paper. even jay said to me after a long, stressful day at work 'i didn't realize how much work this was all going to be'... mr. fast and loose, eh?

so here is a fast and loose itinerary that we are currently contemplating, currently looking for rtw tix vs. one way tix for and currently avoiding making decisions about:

fly winnipeg to toronto

fly toronto to new york

spend 4 days in new york city

fly new york to london

spend 4-6 weeks in uk

fly or train to paris

spend 6-8 months in western & eastern europe

including france, spain, morocco, italy, germany, netherlands, czech republic, austria, croatia, hungary, estonia, latvia, lithuania, st. petersburg?, turkey, egypt, greece...

fly athens to dubai (altho' we've had a hard time finding a flight for this leg)

spend 3-4 days in dubai

fly dubai to delhi

spend ? in india

fly delhi to kathmandu & then back to delhi (unless other flights available)

spend ? in nepal

fly delhi to bangkok

spend ? in thailand, laos, vietnam, cambodia

fly bangkok to singapore

spend a few days in singapore...bali?

fly singapore to hong kong

spend 5 days in hong kong

fly hong kong to tokyo

spend 5-10 days in japan...pusan? seoul?

fly to papua new guinea, australia and new zealand? OR just

fly tokyo to los angeles or san francisco

spend a week or 2 in california

fly california to vancouver

spend 2 weeks visiting in b.c.

fly vancouver to home

keep going to south america? money? energy? road trip?

as i was writing this list and referring back to the map i went back and added more countries. this is going to be hard to narrow down...or do we have to? do we just leave and hope that the plan will fall into place as we go?

my head is spinning...

corina