PlanetRovers – The Route

The Route

Before we did anything, we had to figure out where we wanted to go. We each had certain places that we have always wanted to see, so we made a list of those first. Then, we got a map and just started looking at the most logical way to “connect the dots”.

Deciding which direction to travel was not quite as daunting as it could have been. Traveling the world for a year, it is nearly impossible to avoid bad weather (monsoons, wet seasons, cold temperatures). We tried to take this into consideration when mapping the route.

We did consider traveling eastward. However, for our time frame, that would have put us in many places at inopportune times of the year. The summer will be ending in Europe (which was good), and we would have been in places like Greece and Turkey closer to the winter. Continuing farther east, we would have been in India during part of the wet season and in Nepal in March. Thailand and Malaysia would have been extremely hot and humid, and we would have finished the trip in Australia and New Zealand during the middle of their winter season.

By leaving in the height of the U.S. summer and traveling west into the southern hemisphere, we’ll move into the sun – spring and summer will be beginning in Tonga, New Zealand and Australia when we arrive. We will be in Southeast Asia partially in during the wet season but it won’t be as hot. It will be the dead of winter in Nepal, so this will likely be the coldest weather we encounter. Temperatures in India, Egypt, Israel and Turkey will be mild. We will arrive in the Greek Islands in the early spring (before the tourists) and will be able to enjoy most of the summer in Europe.

Another advantage to traveling west – the jetlag isn’t as bad. It’s easier to adjust to waking up later than it is to going to bed earlier.