Our Year Long Trip

How we are Dreaming, Planning and Going to Travel Europe

How it all began –

It started as a thought and a fleeting one at that.  But it kept creeping back into my mind and soon became an idea, one that I was sure Mario would never go for.  Then that idea popped out as a question, posed more as a rhetorical one.  And then the thought that became an idea, the idea that became an idea that became a question now had an answer. “Why would you think that I wouldn’t like to do something like that? I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t do something like that!” he said as we drove the highway from Salmon Arm back to the cabin in Sicamous.

It was the week of Mother’s Day and we had planned a few days at the cabin to get away from everything and that weekend became one full of research, conversations and what-if’s, how’s and why not’s!  Instantly we had started taking notes, looking at the calendar and going to RV and Trailer lots to see what we would need.  We were a family of 4 and never thought that in a year from then we would be expecting family member #5!  Soon all of our dates, plans and research came to a grinding halt – the reality of having another baby 5 years after the first two put a whole new spin on these big plans!  We couldn’t take a baby on the road, what would we do in a small space with a newborn – were we nuts?

Then, after the fog cleared and we were sleeping more than 3 hours at a time we realized that indeed we could still plan our trip, we would just have to delay it a little, as in a couple of years.  Our intended departure date of March 2012 changed in an instant to March 2014!  Two years of planning ahead of us.  Was that going to be enough?

 
We decided one night after all three girls were soundly asleep that if we didn’t start to plan now, we may never do it.  We may be like all those other people who dream about doing something like this but that is as far as it ever goes.  We were determined not to be ‘those’ people, so we forged ahead and began planning – for the five of us!

Let the Planning Begin!

We took to the Internet to see how many other people there were like us or if we had completely lost it!  To our surprise there were many others who wanted to shed the chains of materialism and ‘keeping up with the Jones’ and took to the open road.  First word – RELIEF!  We weren’t crazy after all!  First question – Where and what do we do now?  How do we plan, where do we start?

We came up with an outline of sorts to organize our thoughts, our plans, our numerous lists, brochures, maps, and everything and anything in between.  We are travelling in an RV that we are purchasing, renovating and shipping over to Europe on a boat so our planning includes a section on all of that.

Now our plans differ from just this outline since our plan is to move to Croatia once our travels are complete.  We have added a section at the end that includes those plans, but more on that later.

 
What follows is what we came up with and we included all of the necessary information we used for research; websites, books, RV purchasing and renovating, you name it we’ve included it.  It won’t work for everyone but it worked for us and we think it is a great place for everyone to start.

Stay tuned ...