Every time I told somebody about our family gap year, their first question always had to do with our trip around the world itinerary. The route is a HUGE factor in the planning stages of an around the world trip, as it affects budget, required vaccinations, visas, etc. It’a also the most fun part of planning (in my opinion anyways!!).
There’s no right or wrong itinerary, and it’s completely okay to know that it’ll likely morph and change as the year progresses. It’s best to come up with an outline, rather than a specific itinerary. Of course there may be certain things you want to or have to do at a certain time. That’s okay! Write those ones down and work the rest of the trip around it. Everyone’s RTW trip itinerary is going to look different, and they should.
When we initially started talking about our trip, we came up with country criteria; no English and no Western countries. We had a number of reasons for this. Ultimately, they’re the least expensive, allowing us to stretch our dollar the furthest (especially since our Canadian dollar was worth so little!), and it exposed us to cultures very different from our own.
The other, possibly most important reason, is that we wanted to chase the summer! I figured if I was leaving Northern Canada for a year I wanted to leave the snow behind too. There are some great winter activities, that we love and fully embrace when we’re at home, but if we were on the road I only wanted to pack for one season.
Over the three years leading up to the trip our route plan morphed drastically! We added, changed, removed countries and added some more. Initially I had about 30 countries on the list, then I cut it down to 20, and then we ended up at 31 (it should’ve been 32 but political unrest in Nicaragua forced us to skip it…sad face!). Ultimately, we wanted to be flexible and be able to go wherever the wind decided to take us! That would’ve been the idea, but we had a number of people joining us for parts of the year, so we did have a few destinations where we had to be in a specific place at a specific time.
An Overview Of Our Trip:
Timing: July 2017 – August 2018
Days on the Road: 382
Kilometers Traveled: 120,500km (3 X around the world!)
Countries Visited: 31 (plus 2 more that we weren’t stamped into)
So…here’s our initial around the world trip itinerary!
July 22 – Grande Prairie -> Vancouver -> Guangzhou, China.
July 27 – Guangzhou, China –> Tashkent, Uzbekistan
August – Uzbekistan & Kyrgyzstan
September – China (I’ll be leaving Randy and the girls in Beijing while I spend a few days in Las Vegas from Sept 9-14 for a meeting!)
October 6 – My mom flies into Kathmandu!!
October – Nepal, Bhutan & Bali.
November – Bali & Myanmar
December – Thailand & Laos
January – Vietnam
February – Egypt & Israel
March – Jordan & Ethiopia
April – Kenya & Mexico
April 22-29 – I have another meeting in Mexico, this time the whole family is coming!!
May – Overland through Central America (Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica & Panama)
June – Central America & Ecuador
July – Peru & Bolivia
Initially Randy was worried I was trying to cram too much in, and I was worried that if I stayed still for too long I’d get bored!!
Our Actual Around The World Trip Itinerary
Some aspects of our itinerary remained nearly identical to the initial outline, whereas others changed completely (like skipping out on East Africa and spending 5 weeks in India instead!). The changes are bold, and the teal colour links to blog posts about each country or city!
July 22 – Grande Prairie -> Vancouver -> Guangzhou, China.
July 27 – Guangzhou, China –> Tashkent, Uzbekistan
August – Uzbekistan & Kyrgyzstan
September – China (I’ll be leaving Randy and the girls in Beijing while I spend a few days in Las Vegas from Sept 9-14 for a meeting!), then to Kathmandu September 26.
October 6 – My mom flies into Kathmandu!!
October – Nepal, Bhutan & Bali Koh Lipe, Thailand.
November – Bali & Myanmar
December – Thailand & Laos Indonesia (Raja Ampat Liveaboard Diveboat and Bali for Christmas)
February – Egypt & Israel Laos, Thailand (briefly) & India
March – Jordan & Ethiopia India & Jordan
April – Kenya Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt & Mexico
April 22-29 – I have another meeting in Mexico, this time the whole family is coming!!
May – Overland through Central America: Belize, Honduras, Guatemala
June – Nicaragua (too much political unrest) Costa Rica, Panama, Canada (for my cousin’s wedding) & Ecuador
July – Peru & Bolivia
There are so many different ways you can go around the world!! It’s a big place after all!! If you’re interested, you might want to check out another family’s rtw itinerary, to get an idea of just how different itineraries can be!
Overall I think the itinerary was good for us. We saw SO many things it’s hard to completely wrap my head around it. I suffered from a small amount of travel tiredness at about the 8-month point. Thankfully, it was almost immediately followed by a week on the beach in Mexico, and then another week on the beach in Belize! This little bit of R&R completely rejuvenated me, and I was careful to slow down a tiny bit afterwards in an attempt to minimize the potential of it happening again. I think the political unrest in Nicaragua was the best thing that could’ve happened to me. It allowed us to travel a bit slower through Guatemala and El Salvador, and skip the many (many) hour bus ride from San Salvador to Managua and then onto San Jose, Costa Rica. Everything happens for a reason!
Planning a Trip Around the World is SO much fun! The itinerary can be overwhelming to plan, but just know that plans can change and be ready to just roll with it. A year seems like a long time, but the world is a BIG place. The most common problem with traveling a lot is the realization that there’s more to see than you could’ve ever imagined. I think it’s a good problem to have!
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Looks like quite the route! Lots of amazing things to see. I know for myself I would need to schedule in down days where I wouldn’t be travelling or really sightseeing – just get laundry done and collect thoughts and energy but the way I travel isn’t necessarily how you travel. I’m really looking forward to reading along as you go!
I’m hopeful we’ll be able to come up with a good balance of travel, exploring and down-time! We barely took any downtime when we were in Africa this past fall and it was so exhausting. Plus, we’re going to need to spend at least a little bit of time doing school work with the girls! That might be the thing that finally forces the down-time to happen!
You might want to consider the fact that in July it will be winter in South America. I visited Peru in July (Cusco) and the shade makes a HUGE difference. Quite warm in the sun, chilly in the shade! As long as you pack some light long-sleeve shirts and a light jacket you’ll be fine but don’t be expecting to wear shorts in Peru in July unless you’re in Iquitos!
What will you be doing in Kenya? I visited Tanzania in March and LOVED it. The people are so friendly and Ngorongoro Crater is one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. But there are separate visa fees to get into Kenya and Tanzania so I didn’t hop over to Kenya since they are very similar. I know in Tanzania you can rent a place for about $100 for a month. It’s incredibly cheap to live there. Most do speak English but you can learn Swahili. Your kids will probably enjoy learning that Hakuna Matata really does mean “no worries” and “dada” actually means “sister” and not “dad” in Swahili!
Ideally we wouldn’t be in South America in our summer…but it ended up being the place that “had to give” a bit! We’ll have a bit of warm clothes packed for trekking in Nepal in October, I just need to remember to not give them away in the middle of the trip when I get sick of lugging them around! Thanks for the tip!!
I visited Tanzania more than a decade ago, and would LOVE to go back at some point. The people were so lovely. The big pull for Kenya is Giraffe Manor and Masai Mara (something different than the Serengeti, although almost the same!), plus Ethiopia is really the reason I want to go to East Africa this trip…and Kenya is right next door so by default a bit easier than Tanzania. To be honest, I don’t actually know if they speak Swahili in Kenya! I’ll have to look it up! Randy would love to go to Tanzania, so we’ll see, it might happen! (He’s not going to be happy with me for adding more potential countries to the list!)
Looks like an amazing itinerary! Let me know when you’re going to Israel and I can make lots of suggestions.
That would be fantastic!! Randy is part of the Big Brother/Big Sister’s program and his “little brother” and family are going to meet us in Israel (how cool hey!!)…and they’re actually coming for dinner tomorrow night to talk it over. I will send any questions your way!! (And I’m open to any and all suggestions!!)
Hi! Just found your website as we’re thinking about doing something very similar. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences (and in CAD, amazing!!! We’re from Calgary :)) Quick question, we’re hoping to do some family volunteering during our trip and I was wondering if you had come across blogs, sites and/or had recommendations for a trustworthy organization? Thanks in advance!
One of the best websites I found for family volunteering is Work Away. We did a volunteer experience with a WorkAway in Nepal and it was fantastic. You have to pay a small annual subscription to have contact people about the volunteer opportunities, but you can search what’s available before joining. My favourite part is that it gives the ability to filter experiences based on “family” appropriate! As with everything you need to judge each experience yourself as I don’t think they’re all vetted but may will at least have reviews you can read, and it’s a great place to start the search.