Our Most Recent Around the World Bicycle
Touring Travel Plan and Map (as of March 2007)
can be Seen in Cindie's Video Interview Below.
THE GLOBAL
BICYCLE TOUR PLAN
(Written in August, 2004)
Our travel plans were bound to change.
I have always believed, from the very beginning, the best travel plan is
flexible. To keep our plans flexible we allow huge amounts of time for each
region and do not buy advance airline tickets. We prefer to have the time to
make things up as we go and buy airline flights as we need them. We could never
feel free if we had to constantly look at a calendar and stress about rushed
schedules or making flights.
Our original plan was formulated before
we left Arizona March 2002. It was difficult to arrive at that plan because I
had no experience with a bicycle tour of this multi year time frame. We stuck
to that plan for the first two years through Arizona, Mexico, Central America,
and most of South America. This was much longer than I expected and was only
possible because it was a flexible plan in itself. I have been asked "Why do
you plan several years in advance if you know that you are going to change
plans?" This is a good question and one that I often ask myself. My answer is
that I look at long term planning as a scenario of what could happen. I have
trouble thinking long term unless I can envision how the entire trip could
play out.
As our financial circumstances changed
so has our trip plans. Our trip is only limited by our funds in the bank. We
have no careers to return to or other commitments for the future. When we left
we had saved enough for seven years. During our second year our web site
started drawing unbelievable amounts of traffic. These are not just visitors to
our site to us but instead our online family. Our web site is drawing a
substantial daily income from sales of our:
Self Published Books
(MP3 Audio - PDF eBook - Commercially Printed)
Commission sales from our
Equipment Pages
Online Retail Stores
Pay Per Click
Advertising
Donations
Presently (August, 2004) this income covers roughly half of our daily travel
expenses and is growing. This doubles the amount of time we have left to travel
from 5 to 10 more years. As we travel we work hard to write additional
books and add content pages to our web site. This causes traffic to grow and hopefully
the number of supporters.
We are both optimistic that this ever
increasing income means that we will pass the break even point in a few years
and be able to ride our bikes for the rest of our lives. Our dream is coming
true. This is all thanks to wonderful people like yourself that enjoy what
our site has to offer and support our travels. We appreciate the opportunity we
have before us. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH!
Below is our new long term plan. I
have given up on predicting dates because time has become unimportant
to us and these things change anyway. The order I have listed below may change
as well but it is at least our plan as of today. Please visit our site often and
we will see how it unfolds.
www.downtheroad.org
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Completed
-North
& Central America (3-30-02 to 4-17-03) Arizona, Mexico, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.
-South
America (6-3-03 to 6-17-04) Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and
Chile.
-
China & Southeast Asia (11-
22, 04 to 9-15-06) Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Laos, Thailand again,
Malaysia, and Singapore.
- Australia (9-15-06 to
9-15-07) The states of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, Victoria again,
New South Wales, Queensland, and the Northern Territory.
-
New Zealand
( 9-15-07 - May 08)
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In our Future
- Alaska, Canada, and the USA
Visiting family and our own back yard
about 2 years
-Europe The grand tour
at least 12 months
- The Middle East Lets see what
all the fuss is about
about 9 months
- Africa Cape Town to Egypt
at least 2 years
- India We already know we like the food.
about 18 months
- Russia and Neighbors Overland
from Europe to China?
who knows how long this will take?
- Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
can we afford it?
about 1 year
- What else are we forgetting? |
Tim Travis
www.downtheroad.org
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