The Plan
It’s all well and good coming to a decision in a bar in Laos, it’s quite another to turn that decision into a world wide travel plan!
We all take different approaches to planning. John is a more laid back kinda guy; let’s just turn up to a country and wing it. I however, like to take a more structured approach. My plans are much more involved, they include colour coded lists and sexy sexy spreadsheets. Our styles of travel and planning would have to be combined if we were to plan our way round the world. To start with, we knew we had to save for a few years, in the meantime I could research and plan.
Streatham sunsets are still impressive!
So there we were, post holiday blues in a chilly November 2018 deciding on how to make our travel dreams a reality. We started off trying to work out an itinerary. The first idea we had was to start our trip on the Trans-Mongolian Railway, travelling through Russia, Mongolia and China. This plan lasted as long as it took us to Google the cost of the train, at which point we swiftly moved onto other things.
Next plan was a big trip starting in China. I made spreadsheets, I made cost breakdowns, I found hostels, I checked train times. All of this took shape in the form of a very impressive Excel document. Then we decided to look into how to get a visa for China. This is where the issues began. It seems that to even apply for a Chinese Tourist Visa (at least in pre-Covid times) it is a lot more difficult than just turning up to the country. Our Chinese Visa friends would like to know exactly what your plans are, from detailing all your accommodation to letting them know exactly when and where you would be exiting the country. This would not be an issue for a two week holiday, but when you’re seeking long-term travel, and the flexibility that goes along with it, getting a visa for China becomes a bit of an issue. With China being more complicated than anticipated we had to rethink.
Dejected, I slunk off. My dreams of Excel spreadsheets and ordered plans in tatters. Defeated, I slumped onto the sofa. John joined me with beers and we decided to comfort watch travel YouTubers and so began the tradition of “Travel Sunday”. For the next few years, our Sunday afternoons would be spent in the company of cheap Lidl beer and an ever increasing selection of travel YouTubers. First came The Budgeteers. Thanks to them we added Sri Lanka and India to our list of desired destinations. Karl Watson forcibly added the Philippines into our consideration. Shoestring Vagabond convinced us (despite all physical evidence) that trekking in Nepal was a must do. Paddy Doyle, Mark Weins and The Roaming Cook showed us that there was so much more to Thailand than we had seen on our previous trips. Kinging-It, well Kinging-It are all kinds of beautiful crazy and just reinforced the wanderlust and stoked the fire to get off our arses and discover this beautiful planet. I must also give a big shout out to the What the Pho podcast who provided constant entertainment and inspiration on my morning runs around Tooting Bec common.
A few months down the line and reinvigorated, planning took off once again. Around that time however, someone in Wuhan started coughing. Plans were abandoned, and the world got smaller. John's office moved from the outskirts of London to a dining room table in Streatham and travel seemed like a distant memory. The only travel we could do was the government approved exercise i.e. close to home and not for too long, thank you very much!
Our very cosy “home office”
The only upsides from a global pandemic were:
It was a lot easier to save money (less commuting and less opportunities to be distracted in pubs).
More research time; more countries and places were being read about/watched/seen on Instagram and being added to our lists.
Wanderlust paused is not wanderlust destroyed. The desire to travel was exponentially increasing with each month it was being denied.
During the lockdowns, my reading material changed. My escapism went from romantic chick lit to the Lonely Planet. Our travel guide collection started with just ‘South East Asia on a Shoestring’. From there we added a couple of Lonely Planet's (Thailand, India) and I swear they started to breed. Every time we looked round another country had been added to the collection and before too long we had a mighty library of guides stretching from Georgia to the Philippines. With YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and our books we were now experienced armchair travellers.
Armed with this new knowledge, I took to Google Maps, creating a list of “Places to Visit”. Asia suddenly resembled a pin cushion as a forest of locations were added to the “adventure list”.
Now all we had to do was wait until the world reopened and, when it did, it was finally time for:
We may have a slight addiction to map pins!
Thanks for reading
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
