Our trip started off as a joke between two deamers, but, somewhere along the way, it materialized into reality. In three months, I will have my Ph.D in hand and will be jetting off to all corners of the world! I can't begin to describe how excited I am!
As I said to J, planning this trip has been the most stressful thing since planning our wedding. I have 8 months and (literally) the world to work with. Where to even begin? And so, we thought it would be appropriate to have a mission statement to channel our focus:
To see the world in ways you can't do in two weeks, with kids or in your 60s+.
Yes, yes. Very dorky, but it works. Since discovering the OneWorld RTW Fare three days ago, we have slightly revised our mission statement:
To see the world in ways you can't do in two weeks, with kids or in your 60s+ while fully maximizing and exploiting the value of the OneWorld RTW Fare.
Yes, yes. Very Asian, but how can we resist?
Overall, we plan to stay in a couple of cities for longer periods of time using it as a hub to explore surrounding areas. We'll probably rent a furnished apartment for 4-6 weeks in each stop and do side trips on weekends. J is planning to keep his job and work remotely 4 days per week. I will be bumming around doing absolutely NOTHING! Ok, so I have a few projects in mind, but I usually don't have the discipline to do things on my own.
One of our biggest fears for this trip is loneliness. We will have each other, but we will know almost no one else! I have some family and friends in Sydney and Beijing, but we know absolutely no one in Europe! We hope to make some good friends along the way, but, we're hoping our friends from the U.S. will join us at various legs of our trip!