That's it in a nutshell. The longer version is that "the itch" started seriously creeping back in for me early this spring. I didn't know where or when, but I knew that deep down inside I was feeling the need to take a major trip. It's kind of funny how I used to think that if I could "just take one more trip", that would help quell my insatiable desire to travel. Now I realize that the more I do it, the more I want to do it and I can only go so long at a stretch before the nagging feeling creeps in again.
While doing some temporary work at the census early this year, I became friends with Sarah. She was planning her own major trip for this fall and when I mentioned I also was planning to be overseas late in the year, we started talking about maybe being able to meet up at some point here or there. Sounded innocuous enough. Well, long story short, after lots of lunches and lots and lots of coffee at Square One in downtown Lancaster, it morphed into official Round The World tickets and a whole lot of planning (read: more coffee at Square One... I'm pretty sure we're somehow legally entitled to a portion of their profits by now). We'll be traveling together a lot but there will be times we'll go our separate ways so it took a lot of figuring to get it all lined up just so.
It was a cool process, to see the planning through from beginning to end (even though I hate (hate!) planning). We learned a lot about how the RTW tickets work and how to best maximize them. The ticket comes with 16 "segments" and when we first started the planning I was using just 11 of mine. Since you pay a flat fee, there was no way I was going to "waste" even one of my segments! More planning, more coffee, more refinements, more phone calls to the RTW ticket agents (I think I know them all by first name now... I may even be the godmother to one of their children at this point) but, in the end, I was able to use all 16 of my segments. Frankly, she and I are considering trademarking our individual itineraries as we're pretty convinced a better plan does not exist. Seriously, if anyone is ever considering it and would like some help, I would be very happy to share what I've learned with you.
So, Sarah will be traveling for five months and I'll be traveling for four. Let the journey begin.... !
