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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 seven 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
happen.
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. This family has been very good to us and our web site is drawing a
substantial daily income from sales at our
Online Retail store, Paid
Advertising, and 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 years to 10 more years. As we travel we we work hard to add
content and pages to our web site. This causes traffic to grow and
hopefully the number of supporters in our online family.
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 the 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 and years because time had 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.
Completed
-North
& Central America
(3-30-02 to 4-17-03)
Arizona, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama
-South
America
(6-3-03 to Present)
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile
Current
-
China & SE Asia GO HERE FOR OUR CURRENT TRAVEL
STORIES AND PHOTOS
STARTING November 2004 (about 18 months)
In our Future
- Australia & New Zealand
(about 2 years)
- Africa Cape Town to Egypt
(about 18 months)
-Europe The grand tour
(at least 12 months but probably 2 years when we include former Soviet
States)
- Russia and Neighbors Overland from
Europe to China?
(who knows how long this will take but it will take a lot of time?)
- Alaska, Canada, and the USA
(A grand tour of our back yard)
Peru #1
Bolivia
NW Argentina
Chile
