To plan or not to plan?

When we left New Zealand the only part of our trip that was planned was our first weeks workawaying in the south of Iran. We didn’t (and still don’t) know exactly when we will come home. We knew that at the end of June we’d be in Sardinia, in July we wanted to be in France to watch some of the tour de France and we’d be away roughly a year, but otherwise everything was open.

It has been great to have flexibility to change our plans as we’ve travelled and heard about good places to visit. For example we thought probably we would go to Turkey after Iran then move toward Greece and westward to Italy. There were warnings and dodgy going-ons in the East of Turkey, both near the border of Syria in the South and with the Kurds in the Northeast… so going over land from Iran wasn’t looking that safe. Then there were bombings in Ankara and Istanbul and threats that next time tourist hotspots would be the target. Turkey was losing its appeal quite quickly.

We heard good things about Georgia from other travellers in Iran so I wrote to a few workaway places there but after a few weeks none had replied. Then we looked at going to Armenia instead as it was easy to cross the border from Iran in the north. I wrote to a workaway place there and got a positive reply very quickly so Armenia it was to be! Once in Armenia another volunteer there told us it was much cheaper to fly out of Georgia than Armenia so we planned a couple of weeks in Armenia then 10 days in Georgia, getting a cheap flight from there to Poland, our next destination.

We loved our workaway stint with ARK Armenia and our travels after that, mostly taking in monasteries in incredibly scenic spots and day trips from Yerevan, the country’s cool capital.

Noravank Monastery, Armenia.

Georgia was also incredible – the mountains just blew us away… and these countries weren’t even on our destination radar when we left NZ!! So while I am quite an organiser, (hmm.. understatement…. I actually love organising and planning too), it was so great we hadn’t planned every detail or even the big picture when we left!

Svaneti, Georgia

Long term travel is quite different from your 2 or 3 week holiday which of course makes sense to plan before you leave home. If you are considering long term travel here are my thoughts…

DON’T PLAN too much:

1. It is good to be flexible to respond to suggestions and recommendations from other travellers and hosts, also travel warnings, natural disasters or availability of cheap flights etc.
2. Sometimes you meet people who you might like to travel with but if you’ve already planned everything then you can’t make the most of opportunities that pop up. A German couple at the hotel we stayed in, in Yazd (Iran) had found out about an overnight desert tour taking in a few places we wanted to see before ending the next day in Esfahan, which was where we wanted to head next. The tour was cheaper if there were 4 people booked for the car so they asked if we wanted to join them. It suited us perfectly and we had a great trip and Reiner and Teresa who were just lovely. They were from Dresden and invited us to visit them so now we have them and Dresden on our people and places to visit list later this year. I was so pleased we hadn’t already planned our accommodation or travel to Esfahan so we could go with them on this tour.
   

   Camel riding with Teresa and Reiner on our desert tour, Iran.

3. You want to see how you feel. If you’ve booked an action packed July back in February, then after a few months of travelling all you feel like doing in July is staying in one place for a while house sitting for example, you can’t change your mind if the flights, trains, museum visits and accommodation are already booked.
4. If you haven’t travelled long term before then you might not know what suits you best, e.g. how long you can last being a ‘tourist’ seeing sights or how long you can couchsurf before you are desperate for your own space. Better to have loose plans that can adapt as you go along, to fit with your preferences. We have discovered that for us one week in a place workawaying or volunteering in some way is ideal. Also after couch surfing for around a week, we need a hotel or b&b – our own space for a few nights. We can do intense tourist days (managed 2 consecutive full on tourist days in Rome) but ultimately we prefer slower days with one or two highlights (e.g. one museum) and the rest of the day to do work/ trip planning, reading, cooking, talking with hosts, some exercise etc. We both love exploring places by bike – whether its mountain biking all over Gozo in Malta or cruising along beside canals in Amsterdam so we try and factor biking in where we can. We also always book a place for a minimum of 2 nights and if we have been moving around quite a bit in different locations then we plan at least 5 nights in one place (either booking accommodation or a workaway stint).
5. Accommodation wise out of the high season – it is not necessary to book much in advance. We have found that some hosts on air bnb reduce their prices a few days before if their place is not rented, in a bid to keep it from being empty. We have scored some brilliant places for cheap because of not planning too far ahead.

DO PLAN:

1. Do plan for your ‘must do’s’: If you want to go to a specific sport event or concert, get tickets, flights and accommodation sorted and plan everything else around this (closer to the time). We wanted to be in the Pyranees for the Tour de France stages that went through there in July so booked our accommodation and flights to get there in early April. We didn’t plan our onward travel destination until the week before though.
2. Do plan if you are meeting others on your travels. We were lucky enough to be invited to join our friends on their boat in Sardinia. The dates were up to us as they would be there for a few months.  We set June dates for this before we left NZ so they knew when to expect us and could plan other visitors around this. My parents were planning to be in Europe at this time too so they arranged to meet us there. Was such a wonderful part of our trip- I’m pleased we’d set dates for this early so it worked out.
   

   With friends, my parents and the best pizza ever, Sardinia.

3. Do plan your ‘must sees’ once you are in a place. We wanted to see the Louvre in Paris so we made sure it was open (would have been a bugger turning up on a Tuesday to discover it closed), bought tickets online to avoid the queues, downloaded a treasure hunt app to guide us around the place (was a hint from a trip advisor reviewer) and read up on some highlights online which I noted down so as not to miss them. The Louvre is so huge and overwhelming, we would have missed some sections and highlights had I not spent half an hour online researching and making my list.
   

   The Louvre, Paris

4. Do read up a little on the city you are in so when you go for your random city walk you know what to look out for. I would spend anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour doing this. Your host or tourist office staff can cut this step out entirely by pointing out where to go and circling a few recommendations on a map.  Alternatively, find an app that has a treasure hunt walk around the major sights- can provide some fun and direction if you are worried random wandering won’t cut it. (Good in big cities like Paris, unneccesary in small centres like Bremen).

If  you are a planner like me it is hard to be completely flexible and plan as you go so having a few points in the calendar that are locked in can help structure your trip as you plan around these.

As I draft this post it is July 24th. We have our next 4 nights with friends in Holland and then have 5 nights or so which we haven’t planned yet- not sure yet what country we will be in or how we’ll get there- I like the idea of trying hitchhiking, perhaps to somewhere in Germany… before we head to friends in Denmark. But we will see. [July 31: we took a bus to Bremen then Hamburg, it poured with rain both days we travelled so it was good we weren’t hitchhiking!]

It is hard to always keep on top of planning… there are endless decisions to be made, especially when you are trying not to spend too much. I can spend a long time looking at different transport options and destinations trying to get the cheapest deal, then there’s air bnb or couchsurfing or hostels to look at for accommodation. It is far more time consuming than I thought. And as Antony is working during our trip all the planning is up to me, not that I mind, actually I love being the one in charge of organising everything… no surprises there if you know me! 😉