In my to-do list post I had the casual bullet of Complete our itinerary, written with the nonchalance of a person who had not entirely processed the fortitude required to plan 365 days of unknown and novel experiences. But we’re deep in it now.

We’ve been spending ~1-2 hours a day focusing on a region or country from our rough draft itinerary. I’ve found it quite difficult to discuss these places in the abstract. At about the 90 minute mark of our meeting I feel my blood sugar plummet and I become incapable of processing any more information or making any decisions. It’s like “Should we visit Nuwara Eliya or Trincomalee?! These are words that meant nothing to me a mere 40 minutes ago, and now I need to decide between them?” Every seemingly small decision requires research and then leads to more decisions. One unexpected thing that has helped is YouTube. I’ve been doing morning walks or jogs on our treadmill and watching travel vlogs while catching a vibe from a stranger and their GoPro.

With 3 weeks of these bite sized planning sessions under our belt, we have a pretty solidified itinerary. Despite it still being quite ambitious—36 countries!— we’ve edited down our first draft. We’ve cut Ethiopia (safety concerns), Madagascar/Burundi/Uganda (too difficult), Mauritius (too much beach?), Saudi Arabia (too hot), the “Stans” (too out of the way), and Fiji (too expensive). We’ve extended our time in China and India to a month each, and it still feels like we’ll only scratch the surface of each. And we’ve tried to build in pockets of rest time, especially in English-speaking cities.

Here’s where we’re at:

• UK — 4 weeks
• France — <1 week
• Tunisia — 1 week
• Spain / Portugal — 1 week
• Germany — <1 week
• Lithuania / Latvia / Estonia — 1.5 weeks
• Romania — <1 week
• Turkey — 2.5 weeks
• Kenya — <1 week
• Tanzania — 1.5 weeks
• Mozambique — 1 week
• South Africa — 2.5 weeks
• UAE — <1 week
• Oman — 1 week
• Sri Lanka — 1.5 weeks
• India — 4 weeks
• Bhutan — 1 week
• China — 4 weeks
• South Korea — <1 week
• Japan — 3 weeks
• Vietnam — 1 week
• Cambodia — <1 week
• Malaysia — <1 week
• Philippines — 1 week
• Indonesia — 2 weeks
• Australia — 4 weeks
• New Zealand — 2 weeks
• Chile — 2 weeks
• Argentina — 1 week
• Bolivia — 1 week
• Peru — 1 week
• Brasil — 1 week
• Ecuador — 1 week

Nick and I have fallen into our unspoken planning roles. He is the optimist and I am the realist. He has a bucket list and I have a spreadsheet. We meet somewhere in the middle. Checks and balances.

Speaking of spreadsheets, this is a good moment to for me to brag about mine. Inspired by one that was shared with me (thank you Nicky DePaul!), I have put together this sheet to document where we’ll be and how much we expect to spend for each of our 365 days, separated by category.

From here, I have pivot tables that calculate how many days we’ll be in each country, how much we’ll spend in each country, and what the daily average goal should be. We’ll duplicate this and use it to track actual spend against the estimate as we travel. Soooo yeah… I guess you could say I know how to have a good time.

Now that we see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the itinerary, we will start booking the first leg(s), and booking anything else that is needed way ahead of time (like a tour operator in Bhutan).

As we get clearer and clearer on both itinerary and budget, I can feel my anxiety transforming into excitement. After so many years of discussing this as a pipe dream, it’s starting to feel real.