Plotting the USA tour with pencils and beer

Hannah and Lisa share their wisdom

No turning back now!

After two and a half hours with Alix down at STA Travel, we are now the proud owners of two round the world flight tickets!

On Friday 17 August 2012 we shall leave Heathrow bound for Tokyo. After Japan we then make our own way to China, possibly on a ferry, to spend the next five months or so crossing China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia, all the way to Singapore. Once we've indulged in Singapore airport's luxurious facilities, we make a short(ish) hop to Australia! Not a country on our original wish list but a cheaper alternative to Hawaii for beaches, surfing and English speaking locals. From Sydney we cross the mighty Pacific to Los Angeles. The next few months will see us zig-zag our way across the United States to pick up our last flight from New York to London in August 2013.

So there it is, one small but expensive tick on the to-do list. Next up, Visas, vaccinations and hostels.

It doesn't quite feel real and I'm slightly disappointed that we won't get a wedge of paper flight tickets to fan ourselves with - instead we shall pine over long strings of emails and reservation numbers in excited anticipation.

Seven months and ten days to go...Too early to start packing?

Lists, lists, and lists of lists.

With the arrival of 2012, a new layer of excitement has settled over us.  "Next year" has become "this year" and "next August" has become "this August" - The countdown to our twelve month trip around the world has begun.

Travel guides, brochures, maps and a variety of notepads are dotted around the flat, and a dozen or so internet explorer tabs are filling the computer screen before me.  90 pence per night hostels, 60 pence per pint beer, hidden jungle temples, tropical beaches, turquoise seas and thousands upon thousands of miles to cross by air, land and sea.

At this stage it's all rather overwhelming to be honest.  We have started a to-do list, a to-buy list and a what-we-need-to-know list.  The prospect of completely deconstructing one's life and starting a new one is something you don't do everyday.  At a basic level, moving our lives from a spacious two bedroom flat in North London to nothing but a couple of rucksacks is enough to cause levels of digestive disruption I wouldn't have expected  until we'd reached the food markets of Beijing. 

So, we have an appointment with STA Travel on 7 January.  We will arrive armed with notebooks and Visa cards and hope to leave having purchased a bundle of flight tickets and excursion coupons.  The next step will be to save our cash like Billy-oh and find some lovely people to live in our flat and allow us to pay the mortgage company while sipping those 60 pence beers on that tropical beach with that turquoise sea lapping at our tanned toes. 

As Christmas ends and the dark damp London winter envelops us, we are compelled further to make everything happen but I cannot escape the distance that needs covering before we even get to Heathrow.