Ben reveals his approach to planning a round the World adventure
Having never before left mainland Britain, deciding how to go about planning a round the World trip has been quite the challenge.
Few people who travel the world will do so from scratch and the majority I am sure will have been abroad at least once and therefore be familiar with many of the things which to me are completely alien...
...For me however, I have only ever made it as far as the Isle of Arran, a small remote island just off the west coast of Scotland. So I have never been on a plane, never used my passport and have no real perception of what life is like outside of the UK. So how then do you go about planning a round the world trip with so little knowledge or experience to go on?
It will be no surprise to those who know me well I initially attempted to organise this trip like I have done my life for the past few years with a wide array of lists with the aim of arriving at an almost day by day itinerary.
But it wasn't long before it became apparent just how unworkable this approach would be. Even if I did manage to follow a set itinerary it would have been way too limiting with me closing doors on opportunities before they had even arisen. After all, part of this "revolution" is supposed to be about shaking off my old ways, spending less time focusing on the future and more time spent enjoying the here and now.
Eventually an approach seemed to develop which ultimately I'm really happy with as whilst it maintains a high level of flexibility it still provides a strong basis from which this journey can grow. So what I plan to do is...
- Plot on to my World map the places I want to go and the activities I want to do;
- Join up the dots to develop a logical route;
- Divide the route into manageable bite size journeys;
- Scope out each stage including where I'd like to go, the route I'd ideally like to take, the potential duration of travel and also establish what options are open to me with regard to work and volunteering; and finally
- Develop the first stage of the plan, leaving all other stages in their skeleton form until they become more relevant
And there we have it - a simple and logical approach to managing my journey around the World.