Planning an adventure of a lifetime takes time and research. What should I bring? What do I want to see and experience? How do I get a tourist visa? How do I stay on budget? With each country booked, brand new questions arise with the next destination; not all of which can be answered in a simple Google search. Travelers post all sorts of inquiries on various websites, and tools such as TripAdvisor can be extremely helpful to a certain extent. However, the number one most useful thing I've done in all of these weeks and weeks of planning was to reach out to someone who's been there.
This morning I grabbed a hot chocolate and pastry at Arizmendi Bakery in the sunset district with a friend.... side note: check this place out. Richest hot chocolate I've had in the city and all the pastries are to die for - they also make fresh pizza which I'll return to try other day!
Ok - back to this morning - I met my friend/former neighbor at this bakery to unload all of my burning questions onto him. Last year, he traveled Southeast Asia for seven months.... SEVEN months! Who better to answer what I need to know than someone who literally finished his trip less than a year ago. Of course, I'm not planning as long of a trip, so I won't get to wander all of his routes, but he has been my number one reference. What's the best way to travel in Vietnam? By bus. How about India? By train. How much time is enough in XYZ city? If I skip XYZ city, am I missing out? On and on and on I picked his brain.
Not to mention I would not have gotten this far in my planning without his write up about his trip. He jotted down extensive notes on each of the countries and cities: from the food to the hostels to the culture; lucky me that he shared it! I've been basing a lot of my choices on where to go based on his notes in combination with my own research.
People that travel love to share with you about their individual experiences and offer advice; listening to them may be one of the most reliable, useful tools. The more people you talk to about your upcoming adventure, the more you will find who are fountains of knowledge on one aspect or another. My roommate is extremely well traveled and his words of wisdom continually point me in the right direction while keeping me as stress free as possible. For example, he strongly suggested that I bring a Charles Schwab card for cash withdrawal while traveling. Something many novice backpackers, including myself, don't think about is that there are heavy ATM withdrawal fees overseas. Charles Schwab returns the fees to you at the end of the month, saving you $$$ that otherwise goes to the banks! Apparently some credit unions do this as well.
One last helpful resource has been Nomadic Matt's blog. He more or less touches on anything you may want to know about backpacking.
Enough rambling from me for one day! Happy Saturday!
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