Our planned itinerary is fluid by design.  Much of the joy of extended travel is being able to stay longer somewhere amazing, take a detour that we discover on the road, change our plans to accommodate advice from fellow travelers, and adjust as we tick experiences off our bucket list and add new dreams to it.

Some flights are booked before we go and others will be reserved on the road.  But planning our itinerary began with pillars.  The experiences or places that were most essential to us and then the rest can fall into place between those pillars.  The pillars for us at the beginning of the conversation were:

• S. America because we skipped it in our first round the world trip in 2002 (before kids).
• Iguazu Falls because Heidi went in college and thought it was phenomenal, and doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
• Greece – Liam is fascinated with Greek Mythology.  This is his pillar.
• Africa – Shia loves wildlife and having plentiful wildlife encounters is her priority.  Sounds like it is time for her to meet Africa!
• Bulgaria – Heidi served in the Peace Corps there from 1996-1998 and it is high time to go back, and we want to show it to the kids.
• Turkey – Chad and Heidi’s favorite getaway near Bulgaria.  Loads of amazing sights that the kids will love.
• India or China – Countries that are shaping the world our kids will grow up to live in.  They should experience  at least one of these.
• Myanmar – The time is right.  From our last RTW adventure we discovered that countries relatively new to tourism were awesome, people are friendly and authentic, and there are no tourist traps. It is ready for us to visit, and we are ready to check it out!
• Indonesia – Our favorite travel experience is to see animals living free in their unique wild habitats.  Seeing chimpanzee and gorilla in 2002 left us ready to meet the orangutan in its natural home.

From that origin our rough itinerary was born:

Uruguay – Argentina – Brazil

Namibia, then evaluate African bucket list – keep exploring if we still need to fill it.

Turkey – Greece – Bulgaria

India – Sri Lanka

Thailand – Myanmar – Laos – Indonesia

***UPDATE***

The final itinerary is as shown on the map.  Due to unrest in Turkey we made the hard decision to shift that region to a future trip and added in Australia.  Also, due to the kids terrific lack of interest in historic temples we regretfully passed on Myanmar.   And based on feedback from fellow travelers we cut out Laos.  As expected we loved the freedom to change it up as we went.  Although we did reserve accommodation in advance most of the time, much more than we expected.  I would guess that is part technology and part travelling with kids.  It was nice comfort to have that next decision made, but it did restrict some of our flexibility.  And when it was all said and done, the kids were very glad they went, but eager to get home.  Chad and Heidi were very glad we went, eager to visit home, and could easily hit the road again. Must be time to start saving up again for RTW #3!