In the beginning, we thought we'd go to Australia, then New Zealand, then (the United States of) America & Canada... so we gave the project a name, and called it ANZAC. Back then (around two years ago) we thought we'd go for as long as it took, 15 or 16 months, figuring we'd stay in certain locations for weeks at a time, and getting individual flights from point to point as we needed them.
As the plan developed, and we brought our departure date forward a few months (and then a few more), going for more than a year was gradually ruled out on the grounds of cost and length of absence. It also became apparent it would make no sense to go that way round - we'd be in Australasia in their winter, and the US & Canada in theirs. Therefore we changed the direction so we'd start in the US & Canada, then head to Australia and New Zealand... but we're still calling it ANZAC.
A year still seemed like plenty of time, but there were so many places we wanted to visit - a mixture of places one of us had been to but the other hadn't, so we could show them around (like the national parks of Utah & Australia for me, and British Columbia for Kate) and places that were new to both of us (the Deep South, and all of New Zealand) - which made it hard to tell if we had enough time to see them all. To work out a route, rather than the various online trip-planning tools I tried (none of which were really designed to solve the problem we faced) we bought large maps of North America and Australasia and stuck sticky notes on all the places we wanted to go.
For the US & Canada, we agreed we could leave out New England and the north-east as we'd both visited them before, and the Mid-West as neither of us was inspired to go. So, just the Appalachians, the Great Lakes, the South, the Rockies (US & Canadian) and the entire west coast left... with a side trip to Montserrat in the Caribbean, (to stay in the house Kate lived in as a young girl, now a guest house), a stay at the Wyoming ranch Kate visited a few years ago, and to ride on the Trans Canadian Railroad.
A long looping route gradually took shape that managed to fit everything in... but at the cost of crossing the majority of the continent multiple times. Reluctantly we dropped the Great Lakes and the Canadian train journey to make it a little more manageable.
We faced a similar problem with Australia and New Zealand, but with Australia's delights largely mapped out on a ring on or near the coastline, the question there became a case of which way to circumnavigate, and where to start to best suit the weather (e.g. avoiding the worst of the heat, or the risk of cyclones). New Zealand we decided to leave unstructured, as it is small enough for meandering to be a valid approach!
I then went even lower-tech - kernels of popcorn maize were counted out to represent the days in our schedule, and I distributed them carefully across the map to represent how much time we would have in each place. It turned out to be a very useful technique, as it was easy to adjust the itinerary and see where we needed to tweak the route or the schedule. It did have the downside that you couldn't move the map or save the arrangement for later! Perhaps I should write an app for that when I get back...
Regardless, it also showed that we were going to be on the move a lot - there was no chance of meandering idly and stopping off for a few days or weeks wherever we fancied. It would take years just to cover the US that way. We were aware from previous trips and from advice online that you have to have breaks or you get burnt out, so we pencilled in various 'weeks off' where we would stay in one place and relax. Continuously unpacking and repacking every night does wear thin after a while.
Method of travel is another tricky one. For flights it was obvious we'd
get a Round The World ticket - we are going on a standard RTW route and
for a year (or a little less) so it made perfect sense. We'd both used
Greyhound buses before, and they have many merits, but for exploring
national parks and poking around off the beaten track they were
useless. The US being the land of the car meant we were almost
certainly going to need to have one of our own for large chunks - though
broken up into sections rather than one massive roadtrip. This is
still in negotiation but it's going to be a major cost... we're also
going to be getting buses here and there, and we are riding one section
of long-distance railroad across Texas. For Australia and/or NZ we're
expecting to use a campervan for at least some of it, mixed with
organised tours, buses and another epic train journey from Adelaide to Perth.
Once we had a provisional itinerary settled I began constructing a spreadsheet to keep track of everything - where we would visit, where we would be staying, what method of travel we would use, and so on. Certain dates began to get pinned down (the Montserrat trip, the ranch stay) and once they were locked in, the rest started to slot in to place between them. I'm still attempting to leave enough flexibility between pinned dates that we don't feel like we're hemmed in... but if you don't make any arrangements then you end up with all the hotel rooms in town booked and the park permits already granted when you get there, so it's a fine balance. I'm still not sure if I have over-organised it, and we're going to be trying to pack too much in, or if I need to keep booking things and setting dates in stone so that we don't miss out. It's a hell of a #firstworldproblem, I think you'll agree...
