One thing I learned when planning for last year – don’t get too caught up in any particular idea, keep everything as open as possible. It cost me more money in airfare to not plan months in advance but aside from the mistake of paying rent on a condo I wasn’t living in, the flexibility in that schedule allowed me a much greater set of experiences.
After a fair bit of planning on thinking, I’m already seeing my 2011 completely change from how I imagined it two months ago. There’s still a month before anything really exciting starts other than preparation (paperwork, paperwork, paperwork), but as things are starting to come together I wanted to share my rough plans for 2011 as of right now:
End of January: Lease is up, all my stuff is in storage or gone. I’ll be crashing in a friend’s basement for a couple weeks while I put the finishing touches on my plans and paperwork.
End of February: Going to Park City, Utah to do some snowboarding with friends. Last year was my first time, hopefully I don’t dislocate my shoulder multiple times again this year…
March - April: It’s back to India, baby! When I left last year, I wasn’t keen on the idea of coming back. In a way, this has turned into incentive to go back, to overcome that distaste – the people there were so amazing, it’s only fair I try again.
This time I’ll be heading back with Rob & Will, who I met on the 2009 Mototaxi Junket. On that trip, we had talked about how cool it would be to combine a direct humanitarian impact with the rally concept; since Rob is a doctor who volunteers all over (he’s been to Haiti, Liberia, and Palestine recently) it made sense to try to set up a medical rally with clinics at various stopping points along the way.
It’s all coming together very last minute, but hopefully we can put together an awesome rally with ~5 medical volunteers paired up with locals for a truly unique experience. I’ll be along to photo, video, and document the rally and help out with my adventuring experience. We’ll be traveling between Mumbai and New Delhi, which is a section of India I haven’t seen yet!
May - September: Still on track for South America on a mototaxi in the middle of the year. I will have to head north first and loop down towards patagonia only slightly past the dead of winter, but that just means more fun in the snow (and possible freezing death). It’s far enough out now that aside from the paperwork I’m not planning in detail yet.
There is also a chance I may decide to go back to Thailand to do some training for a couple months or hit up Nepal again on the way back from India, which would mean the South America trip would get split up or shortened significantly. Hrm hrm. Tough decision here, I loved both places so much. I’ve also toyed with the idea of buying a rickshaw in India and driving it around Asia instead… we’ll see how things gel over the coming months.
October – December: Off to South Africa! Africa has been on my list for a long time but I just haven’t been able to make it happen. This year I was keen on China/Mongolia/Russia but it’s not sensible to do it in winter, so instead I’ll be heading over to participate in the 2011 Enduro Africa then wandering around on my own for awhile – whether by moto, trekking, or bussing will all depend on the state of my funds.
It will be exciting to leave only Australia and Antarctica left on my list of continents to drive around on… though I think I’ll need a bit of sponsorship to meet my dream of snowmobiling across Antarctica… heh.
That’s my 2011!
The biggest concern this time, obviously, is money. Last year I didn’t worry much about being excessively thrifty because I had more than enough, but this year I will be scraping by and may have to find some way to raise a bit of money on the road. All part of the adventure and I’m looking forward to it!
Just stick with me for a couple more months and I promise the interesting adventure postings will be back.
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