Our Route

Update March 2025

The final piece of the puzzle is in place.  We'll be spending our final month in Panama.  This was not on either Francesca or my must see list initially, but the more we looked into it, the more we thought it would be a really good place to end the trip. There will be mountains, and beaches and good food and wild animals and history (Panama Canal).  Not to mention we got a really awesome place for free as part of the People Like Us house exchange group that we belong to.   We plan to be back home in Sonoma County by the end of June, a little over one year after we left. 

Update January 2025

We have mostly finalized our itinerary for the remainder of our journey with the exception of the last month.  From The Philippines we'll be heading to Taiwan, then Vietnam, Bali, Nepal, Peru and Ecuador.  We plan to be back in San Francisco by the end of June. 

June 2024

We are still formulating our itinerary, but there are several factors that will influence where we go.

• Timing - we want to avoid the high /tourist season to avoid the crowds and higher prices.  We also want to avoid the low season which often brings with it rains, monsoons, etc.  We'll be chasing the shoulder seasons.

• Geographic Arbitrage - we are targeting places with a lower cost of living thank California so we can stretch our dollars further.

• No backtracking - we prefer to not revisit a place we've already been before (which means Argentina would be out), although we may not stick to that.

• No Fly List - obviously we don't want to travel to any place that is on the US travel advisory list - at least not any place that is a category 3 or 4. 

That said, we do have a couple of leading candidates for our first few stops.  We are leaning towards Crete as our first stop followed by Mostar, Bosnia.  Then we plan to be in Chang Mai in November for the Lantern Festival followed by the Philippines for Christmas with Francesca's family.  Then likely to Latin America - possibly Peru.  After that...who knows?  There is something kind of exciting about not having it all planned out.  The freedom to stay longer in a place that we are really enjoying or move on if we're not.