Preparation is Key

How much do you take around the world? Try one suitcase measuring 26 inches high, 15 inches wide and 10 inches deep. Add one back-pack and that’s it. Want to bring 5 pairs of shoes? Be my guest as long as it fits into the suitcase or you can cram them in your knapsack. Want to take along the kitchen sink? Go for it… but you’ll be tripping the world with just the clothes on your back!

I could add that you need to carry a years’ worth of pills like vitamin, calcium, fish pills, etc. but this is boring. More reality is the added necessity of sanity wipes when encountering some of the ugly toilet facilities (or lack thereof) when travelling around the world.

When you think about it, you’re carrying ‘a home away from home’ with you along a 39,000+ journey. We’re talking about carrying these belongings on airplanes, up and down subway stairs, riding with it (or sitting on it) for hours on a train or bus (or elephant)- or just wheeling it behind you in foreign streets until you reach your destination. You have to carry clothes in good weather, rainy weather, hot weather, cold weather. You have to pack for a lot of weather in a very little space for coats, tops and footwear. 

For a trip around the world, preparation is key and we’ve been in planning mode for the last several months. This is one reason why we’re travelling to countries in their nice, warm weather. We’ve planned to travel when there is summer in most of these 22 countries. The only bad part is that this will also involve rain but hopefully not monsoons. Take India for example- people who have been there in their summer say you can’t describe the heat of 44 degrees Celsius with no wind and 90 percent humidity other than visiting hell when it’s humid! So we’ve planned India after their summer and we’ve also planned not to visit places when it’s that hot. The tricky part is Asia where this also involves monsoons, hurricanes and tropical storms.

We'll see how it goes. As I am the definition of a true 'shopoholic', it's going to be interesting how I can NOT buy things along the way (although someone at work told me to carry a platinum American Express Card and you can ship everything back?).