Where do you start?

Preparations
South America
North America
Asia
Africa
Europe
Returning home

Why go?
Where do you start?
Weather
What are we taking?
The send-off
Quirky places

Ok, let's go! Erm... what next?

Based on our experience, depends on whether you're male or female.

Stefan took the typical male approach and dived headlong straight in. There's a great travel book store on Long Acre in London, Stanford's, and we're now the proud owners of (it feels) half of their stock. For Stef, this was Aladdin's Cave and Utopia combined and he's spent many an hour browsing and buying useful(?) bits and pieces.

Ness took a more female stance and looked at the practicalities. We early on had lists of things we had to do - country based research, letting our house, things to pack, jabs to get, finances to save and paperwork to sort. Unfortunately, neither of us score highly as Belbin completer/finishers so slow progress has been made ticking off the items on the list!!

With 3 months to go we've covered off most of the key tasks. Out tickets are booked and we're committed to go so what we don't complete before we go we'll work around on our way.

Our top tips for planning would have to be

Be adventurous - don't stick to the typical backpacker route and focus on the places that are more difficult to visit if you have limited time
Be realistic about what you can do - it can take longer to travel around than we're used to in Europe and plans often get changed
Pack, repack and repack ditching about 50% of what you thought you'd need at each iteration (great advice from Jenny Finch which backs up our earlier travel experiences!)
Be prepared to change your plans - its part of the fun and is the way you really get to see those hidden gems
Do your research before you go but (especially for you men) don't overdo it - you want to see the world first hand and not by comparing it to everything you've seen in books before you go. We've mixed and matched travel references combining the backpacker info packed Lonely Planet books with the more typical tourist focused Insight Guides. Both have useful info, the challenge is hitting the right combination.
And for those of us born and bred in the UK, learn a spattering of the language where you're going - its a great way to open doors and to get a few laughs along the way

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