Planning Long Term Travel – Itinerary
This article is a part of a series of articles on planning for long term family travel from Fitz5onthego. To start from the beginning click here.
Your Basic Itinerary
You have your budget, your exit plan, and a general idea of how you want to your travel style to look. Now for the fun part.
Destination Wish List
I like to start with a destination wish list – and a map. I think about the seasons and weather in each location, what I want our over all experience to be, living expenses, time changes and transportation.
When I wrote our list, I started with the months and seasons I wanted to be in a particular spot. I just got regular sheets of paper, wrote the months across the top, and I listed countries under the months when I wanted to visit. If there were particular events (like Carnival) – I listed those out too.
Planning Tools
A lot of travelers use an Excel sheet. If you start with Excel I recommend making it searchable by time of year as well. That way you can pick a month and bring up your preferred places. If you go the Excel route, you can also input budget info, transportation cost, time zone information, and time allowed in country. I would specifically notate if in a Schengen Country (more below).
How Long Can You Stay?
Most of the countries that we visited had a 90 day limit for the amount of time you could stay. Canada and Costa Rica were both 90 days. That was OK with us since on this trip we just planned for 4-6 weeks in each country.
Schengen Countries
For us, Europe was and still is super high on our wish list. Not just a part of it, all of it. I don’t want to just see the popular sites. I want to see off the beaten path and lesser traveled European gems. However, US citizens are only allowed to visit for 90 days out of 180. This was and still is a big bummer for us.
The problem with the 90 days is that almost all of Europe is in the same 90 day time frame. In my opinion ninety days is not enough time to spend in Europe especially if you travel month to month.
The group of countries that are grouped together in this 90 day window are called the Schengen Countries. They are: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The European area countries not in the Schengen (at this time- it changes) are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and the United Kingdom.
You can not be in Schengen areas more than 90 of the previous 180 days. If you want to stay in Europe longer you will need to jump out either to the UK, Ireland or another country not in the Schengen then jump back in when you’ve been out long enough. It is very difficult to get visa stays that are longer than 90 days.
Because of the 90 day limit, we chose to focus on Spain and Portugal this trip then we added a month in Copenhagen. For the larger part of our European trip we had 75 days in the Schengen. I want to add a few days in Iceland on the way home and I wanted to keep a buffer. Next time we may have more time for Norway, France, Eastern Europe (really high on my wish list) or the Mediterranean. Some of my high wish list places would be better in the Summer so I put those off until next time. Also some of my other high wish list places will be more fun when the kids are older. We’re going to come back.
Time Change
If you are working via internet on a 9-5 US job then you also want to make sure the time change is going to be OK. In Europe my husband works about 2-3pm to around 11-12 (midnight). We weren’t comfortable going much more east due to the time difference. For now, Asia is not much of an option for the same reason.
Getting There
At this stage I recommend taking a close look at transfers. Even though we fly often airport and travel days are stressful. If you can link your locations with smaller jumps you will likely have a better experience.
More Research – Safety
It may be a good idea at this time to check safety information for your locations. I would not be comfortable taking my kids to high Malaria area. If you have concerns, go ahead and mark those locations off now.
Planning Methods
You can plan your entire trip or just 2-3 months to start. Europe generally will need to be planned farther out (especially if you want to stay in more popular areas). Most other places you can wait. Some people plan just a few weeks ahead of time, others plan the entire year, and some show up at places day of and just go for it (this is not me). I like to have a basic idea of what we’re doing. We’ve been booking about 3 months. Our last month in Europe I have not booked yet and we’re still figuring out what we want to do with that time.
Support Groups and Places to Ask Questions
If you get stuck or overwhelmed then join the FaceBook pages for location independent families or the Worldschool group. Generally those pages are full of great ideas. Start by searching the group first then ask questions if you have them.
Other Website Resources
I also like this site (Nomad List) to help get ideas and compare different areas. I’ll also search TripAdvisor forums. Some times I find great info there, other times – not so much.
Just Get Started
There is no right way to plan or right way to travel. Everyone does it differently based on personalities, wish lists, travel style and resources. Just do what’s right for you.
For a break down of our Itinerary Click here.
We’re a family of 5 taking a gap year from normal life to travel. For blog posts, locations, and more information on how we did it and how you can to click here.
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