So you’ve saved and budgeted for your trip and now it’s finally time to plan your itinerary. Six months of travel time stretches out before you like a magic carpet. So many opportunities to explore exotic locales! So much time to explore all those places on your bucket list!
Ahh, your bucket list… How many boxes will you be able to check? You have six months. Why not do the Inca Trail, explore Patagonia, go shark diving in South Africa, eat dumplings in China, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, go to a full moon party in Thailand and find yourself at an Indian ashram? Hell, you should probably throw in an Italian cooking class and a camel riding in Morocco for good measure. It all sounds great. Until, of course, you hit the brick wall of reality.
Travel can be hard, frustrating and draining. You start to think about that into your second day into a thirty-hour bus ride in Nepal where the space between the seats was apparently designed to be perfect for two-year-olds and there’s a box of meat rotting in the back. Or when you arrive in your fourth Tanzanian town and every single local is trying to cheat you for forty times the proper cost of accommodation. Or maybe when you get violently sick in the middle of the wilderness with no hospital (or road) for days. These are the times when you start to appreciate two magic words: less and longer.
Less really is more. Don’t stack your itinerary. It’s far better to spend two months than two weeks in any given country on your list. And in that country it’s far better to spend two weeks rather than two days in any given city or destination.
By doubling down on particular places you kill two birds with one stone. First, because you’re in one place for a long time you’ll find that perfect beach bungalow owned by the local mayor’s family and get invited to a massive wedding party where you make friends for life. If you were only there for two days you’d probably be at that guesthouse with decent but outdated reviews from Lonely Planet that now has a cockroach infestation.
Second, you minimize your exposure to the bane of all travelers: logistics. You don’t spend half of your time in country on a local bus. You don’t discover that your fourteenth taxi driver rifled through your bags. You don’t loose you luggage on an avoidable regional airline flight. You've taken six months off, use that time wisely: with less and longer you'll interact more with locals, enhance the quality of your experience and maintain very healthy levels of personal relaxation.
Basically, you’ve taken the work out of the travel. By staying longer in each place you actually get a feel for the local life there instead of blazing through in a series of photoflashes. As you get ready to plan your trip, doing a country a month would be a good rule of thumb. You may not check as many boxes but you’ll learn a lot more about yourself, a lot more about the country you’re visiting and a lot more about the true meaning of fun!
Co-posted on www.eliotpeper.com
Ahh, your bucket list… How many boxes will you be able to check? You have six months. Why not do the Inca Trail, explore Patagonia, go shark diving in South Africa, eat dumplings in China, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, go to a full moon party in Thailand and find yourself at an Indian ashram? Hell, you should probably throw in an Italian cooking class and a camel riding in Morocco for good measure. It all sounds great. Until, of course, you hit the brick wall of reality.
 |
| Inside a hellish bus for a heinous ride through Nepal |
Less really is more. Don’t stack your itinerary. It’s far better to spend two months than two weeks in any given country on your list. And in that country it’s far better to spend two weeks rather than two days in any given city or destination.
By doubling down on particular places you kill two birds with one stone. First, because you’re in one place for a long time you’ll find that perfect beach bungalow owned by the local mayor’s family and get invited to a massive wedding party where you make friends for life. If you were only there for two days you’d probably be at that guesthouse with decent but outdated reviews from Lonely Planet that now has a cockroach infestation.
Second, you minimize your exposure to the bane of all travelers: logistics. You don’t spend half of your time in country on a local bus. You don’t discover that your fourteenth taxi driver rifled through your bags. You don’t loose you luggage on an avoidable regional airline flight. You've taken six months off, use that time wisely: with less and longer you'll interact more with locals, enhance the quality of your experience and maintain very healthy levels of personal relaxation.
Basically, you’ve taken the work out of the travel. By staying longer in each place you actually get a feel for the local life there instead of blazing through in a series of photoflashes. As you get ready to plan your trip, doing a country a month would be a good rule of thumb. You may not check as many boxes but you’ll learn a lot more about yourself, a lot more about the country you’re visiting and a lot more about the true meaning of fun!
Co-posted on www.eliotpeper.com
and now I have the phone on the 
and 
and 
.
.
and 
.
for the cold.
. Eliot bought woolen ones in Nepal and they weren't as useful.
.
have worked really well so far. In addition to their more traditional applications, these are great to hide behind on crowded public buses.
since our trip is so active... 
. We preferred this over an iPad since we knew we'd be writing quite a bit and I have to say, having a laptop has been great!
for each computer. Note, make sure you get a 
, Drea's computer literally got crushed in the backpack during the Nepal trek...
is really cheap and ultra light. 
, the risk of having something nicer stolen (happened 3 times to Drea in Philippines, Spain and Colombia) scared us away from something nicer like an SLR.
. Paperwhite is really nice and the batteries last for weeks! This is significantly--no-- ridiculously better to packing bulky, heavy books. We have a library of over 11,000 books that weighs nothing. 
for each kindle. You can read while you float!
.
for the camera- one will do, 32 gigs is a ridiculous amount of space.
LED headlamps. 
for him).
. It's tiny and it works! It's like 4 ounces of goodness and lasts for ever.
. The liquid stuff spills way too easy and will ruin everything.
. Whatever toiletries you can get in a solid form, do it! It's easier for carry-ons. 
from Sea to Summit. 
(great little pods for your toothbrush!). Drea lost hers on a plane and misses it terribly. 
. These are little strips of soap that have come in very handy.
. We love this and have used it extensively!
wide mouth so you can 
. 
plus extra moleskin for blisters. They took away our medical scissors at Kathmandu airport :(.
with a small carabiner. 
from Sea to Summit and one non-waterproof 
each (different sizes to match your needs). Although the ultralight model is very light, it's not as sturdy as the light ones and some of our sunscreens poked holes through. These are great for packing: we use one for electronics, a small one for toiletries and another for other stuff. We use the non-waterproof packing cube for clothes and that's it! It makes packing SO easy.
. This backpack has been crucial and is super light and fits in a lot of stuff including both of our laptops and fleeces all at once.