DownTheRoad.org
The continuous bicycle touring story since 2002
no plans to stop

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My Around the World Bicycle Touring Travel Plan and Map.

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

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