It might look all relaxed and glamorous, this Round-the-World trip planning, but let me tell you – it isn’t!

Mark and I have one million things to do before we leave. Literally. One million. We wrote a To Do List the other night (at my insistence – he’s not quite as fond of making lists as I am!) and it was almost overwhelming how much there is to be done by the beginning of September. Turns out leaving real life for 9 months requires rather a lot of foreplanning…

Like what? I hear you ask.
Well.
There’s the trip planning, to begin with. Deciding on countries, deciding on cities, deciding on dates and modes of transport, costing everything out and making really tough decisions about what we’ll see this time, and what we’ll regrettably have to save until next time.

Then there’s the life planning. Selling the car, renting the flat, clearing the flat out of all our worldly goods, finding somewhere to keep those worldly goods we’re not quite ready to let go of, and ensuring that things like insurance and monthly payments are taken care of. And did I mention visas?

And THEN there’s all the day to day stuff. Somehow, between sending out and following up on sponsorship proposals, doing publicity, getting the word out about the trip and making sure that we are as prepped as we can be, Mark and I seem to have new full-time jobs!

And did I mention that we need to become much more video and web-savvy before we leave?

Now that I’ve garnered a little sympathy, though, I must be honest – we are loving every second of this stage. We’re crazy busy, it’s true, and in front of our computers waaaay too much (it’s 7pm and we’re both still hard at work) but it is such a JOY to know that what we are planning is going to turn into something that has a life of its own, and that in a few short months we are going to be having the adventure of our lives…

Till then? Time to get back to that List of One Million Things To Do.