Tuesday 24 June 2014

Travel Itinerary - take 2

I had a plan. Well, at least I thought I had a plan...  I was going to go to Ireland and see my family (cousins, and aunts, and uncles, Oh My!) and then fly to Lisbon, Portugal and head to the Algarves for a break before I went north to Porto and into Spain. 

So what changed? Well, I decided to go on a tour of Morocco (10,000 minutes of Morocco to be precise). This tour happens right during the time I was planning on being in the north of Spain and heading east to the Basque region. I had to make another decision and reverse my route. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to Morocco even though I am traveling alone. I've wanted to go to Morocco for years but I didn't know when or how. Well, the "when" is now, and the "how" became clear with a simple web search on Morocco. I figured that traveling with a tour would ensure that my petite femme self would be safe. 

My current itinerary looks something like this:

  • August 5: depart Vancouver with C to drive to my birthmother's farm in Alberta
  • August 8 - 12: enjoy life on the farm for a few days and play with my four year old nephew
  • August 13: fly from Calgary to London, England
  • August 14 - 17: spend time in London with my other pen-pal Gavin. Go to the Victoria & Albert Museum, perhaps squeeze in some yarn shopping
  • August 17: fly to Cork, Ireland and spend the next two weeks with family
  • August 30 (pending flight): fly from Dublin to Oporto, Portugal.
  • August 30 - sometime at the end of September (how's that for fluid plans?!) travel around Portugal to my heart's content. Especially get some R&R in while hanging out in the Algarves:

Oh hi, beautiful place!
  • October ? - 10: travel into SW Spain, including Seville.
  • October 11: fly from Malaga, Spain to Casablanca (italicized because wow, I'm going to this famous place! Perhaps I'll dress a bit like Ingrid Bergman....)
  • October 12-20: In Morocco (see tour link above for actual details). I definitely want to go to a hammam and get the heck scrubbed out of my skin with sea salt etc.
  • October 20: Fly back to Malaga and continue towards Grenada, Spain
  • October ? - November 8: travel up the eastern coast of Spain and stop in a Valencia, Barcelona, and to the Bay of Roses to see where Salvador Dali worked on his surrealist masterpieces (can you feel my excitement?)
  • November 9: Fly back to Canada from Madrid.
I think its a pretty awesome itinerary with lots of flexibility (with the exception of the Moroccan adventure that is already booked, of course). Getting excited!

Friday 20 June 2014

Travel Takes Planning (and how)

I've been thinking about traveling a long time. Years in fact. I was thinking of traveling about 5 years ago after spending a couple weeks in Thailand. I thought, "I simply must do more of this." Granted, it wasn't the first time I had done some traveling around a foreign country, but it was when the travel bug really bit me. 

And then, life threw me some curve-balls. I had three different car accidents within less than a year and a half. The third accident was the most traumatic as I was hit by a car while on my bicycle at a very busy intersection in Vancouver. These accidents knocked me down for a long time. Its now been 3 years since my bicycle accident and I'm still having pain and mobility issues on bad days. On good days, you wouldn't even know that I live with chronic pain. But its there, and its changed the way I do almost everything in life (cook, clean, sleep, work, etc). However, one positive thing that came out of this mess was that I received some funds for my injuries and future care. I invested this money, received a decent chunk back on my tax return, and decided - now is the time for traveling.

Once I had made up my mind that I wanted to travel, it was a matter of picking a destination. I have a list about 30 deep of countries that I want to visit. However, I knew that it was high time to visit my cousin and long-term penpal (hows 20+ years for long-term?!) Eibhlis in Ireland. It seemed that Europe was to be my destination - but where to go? I had already worked in Belgium and Austria, and seen most of France, and southern Germany as well. Where I haven't really gone is Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, etc. I decided that I could afford to take 3 months off from work, and that I needed to focus my upcoming destinations. The result?
Spain & Portugal with a side-trip to Morocco
Oh, the possibilities!

I've had my leave approved at work, and I've made some flight plans. I still have a lot to do: find a sublet for my apartment, book some more flights, buy a Spain rail pass, buy lugguge, pack up my apartment etc. I'm really trying hard not to muppet flail at all the things left to do, but some days I do feel completely overwhelmed. My plan of attack to keep my sanity intact is to chip away a little bit each day at the list of DOOM. Wish me luck!