Itinerary
Click above on "Humanitarian World Tour" to see our completed and detailed itinerary.
Some long-term travelers leave with a real road map under their elbow, while others don’t plan anything, except a plane ticket to their first country of destination... This choice is truly individual. While it is true that the first option allows to optimize time and avoid unpleasant surprises, the second leaves room for the unexpected, the encounters and the present. We were initially against defining one before leaving for fear of being inflexible and missing out on the experiences we were destined to live. However, certain logistical aspects of our trip (budget, security, climate, humanitarian missions, etc.) naturally pushed us towards the path of organization. And it must be said, we quickly realized over time that a minimum of preparations was more suited to our personalities. The key is to trust oneself, to adapt to realities once there, to stay positive and not to be afraid to continually redirect the journey.
We were therefore one of those travelers with a list of countries defined before leaving, without knowing exactly what to expect. And believe us, when the Covid19 pandemic struck out, we were very happy not to know more about the countries we were going to have to forget. We had no choice but to mourn what we envisioned and redesign what we could do. We thus had to give up eight countries that we were lucky enough to replace with five others, two of which turned out to be real favorites of our tour around the world.
In this article, we'll answer the following two questions:
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How to define an itinerary before leaving?
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How did we adapt our itinerary, especially with Covid?
How to define an itinerary before leaving?
Initial itinerary
Defining our itinerary was the first step in our preparation process. Not easy when every corner of the world was reaching out to us (and is still reaching out now)! We had to face the truth and make a first selection. The humanitarian aspect of our project and our budget led us to focus on the southern hemisphere. Asia? Africa? South America? And why not all 3?
Thus was born without too much difficulty a first list of countries that we wanted to discover. 30 in total, easy! Well... Looking more closely, we quickly realized that if we wanted to fully enjoy the trip, that is to say in total immersion with the locals, it was better to allow a month in each country, at least. A 2-year project, 1 month per country, the calculation was quickly done: we had to give up at least 6 countries. Rather than eliminating them with a coin toss, we told ourselves that the choice would be made naturally and reasonably based on several important criteria that would also help us determine the countries’ order: the pace of travel, the security, the climate, and the visas and volunteering possibilities.
The pace of travel
Criterion decisive of our project: travelling serenely and not in haste. Exit the too remote or too large countries, we have favored those with easy access to avoid wasting too much time in transport. Too bad for Brazil, Mongolia, Cuba and Costa Rica, but it will be for next time ...
The security
Crucial element in the choice of our itinerary and never to be ignored: the security. Political unrest and instability (conflicts), health crises (Ebola, Zika), environmental issues (pollution), no risk has been overlooked. The information from the French, Canadian and American foreign ministries was of great help.
Each country has been individually analyzed. If Southeast Asia and South America did not particularly worry us because they are very popular with backpackers, Africa scared us more. This is how we unfortunately decided to eliminate Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique and Madagascar.
In the end, we therefore selected 20 countries, namely:
SOUTHEAST ASIA
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Indonesia
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Thailand
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Burma
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Sri Lanka
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Laos
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Cambodia
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Philippines
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Vietnam
AFRICA
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Tanzania
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Zambia
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Zimbabwe
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Botswana
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Namibia
Country
CountryCountry
SOUTH AMERICA
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Uruguay
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Argentina
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Chile
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Bolivia
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Peru
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Ecuador
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ColombiaCountry
But this security step did not end at the planning stage. For more information about health and security on a world tour, click HERE.
The climate
Without a doubt, one of the most important factors of the planification of our itinerary: the climate. Our goal was to avoid monsoons and typhoons as much as possible. Using several weather websites, we collected the information in seasonality tables allowing us to determine the order of countries to visit. You understood, we were heading GREEN!
The visas & possibilities of volunteering
If these two elements did not play a big role in the selection of countries (although we still had a small preference for free visas), they were on the other hand decisive in the duration planned for each stage and the choice whether or not to volunteer there.
We wanted to make the most of the trip duration offered by visas (usually 1 to 3 months), without going through the often long and expensive extension of paperwork.
Countries with the possibility of staying for a long time (such as Tanzania, Namibia and Argentina), or those with the smallest territories when the visa is limited (such as Sri Lanka or Cambodia), have therefore been favored for our humanitarian missions during the planification phase.
The number of offers per country on the HelpX volunteering platform then allowed us to target even more precisely the regions where it was more common and therefore easier to carry out our volunteering experiences.
How did we adapt our itinerary, especially with the Covid?
Completed final itinerary
As expected, we had to constantly adapt our itinerary as we traveled. Indeed, having only defined before leaving a list of countries and an approximate duration of one month per destination, we did not know exactly how long to stay in each country. Before leaving for each new one, we prepared a general roadmap with the help of tourist guides and online blogs. In countries where we only did tourism, we relied solely on these materials to determine our dates of stay, while when we wanted to carry out a humanitarian mission, we adapted our itinerary accordingly to spend more time there. Whatever people say, EVERYTHING is ALWAYS flexible!
Obviously, it remains much more complicated in times of pandemic ...
We were following our route pretty much as planned when in January 2020, in the Philippines, we started to observe the first European turmoil around "Covid". Not feeling any more concerned, we continued the trip for more than a month without being really worried.
It was not until March 2020, while in Laos, that President Emmanuel Macron suddenly announced the closure of French borders and the imminent suspension of all international flights. The next day we were on one of the last planes to Europe. If you want to read more about the crazy story of our return and our readaptation in France, click HERE.
And if we thought we would be back for a while, this world tour “break” still lasted more than 6 months. 6 months during which it was difficult to come to terms with giving up a part of the trip. It was obvious that Asia was not going to reopen anytime soon, and after several weeks of acceptance, we ended up forgetting Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in order to be able to plan and work on the rest of our projects.
Luckily, Africa was much less affected. More specifically Tanzania, a country initially planned after Asia. As it had never closed its borders before, that was our hope! Being able to leave for our tour again, despite the reluctance of many people regarding our second departure...
How to travel during Covid? Isn't that too stressful? Are we well welcomed? Is it dangerous? Aren't we afraid of getting stuck? To get sick? Questions/Answers available HERE.
Whatever may be said, this premature return did us good, because it allowed us to reorient the adventure and above all, to realize that everything was now a BONUS. Could the trip be able to continue as planned? For how long? We didn't know, but from the moment we arrived in Africa, we were determined to enjoy the beauty of every moment. Deep down we knew we were better off here than anywhere else in the world.
Without any further expectations, we stayed positive and became much more flexible. More open, we continued to believe in our project, so much that Zambia and Namibia reopened a few weeks later. A sketch of our new route was drawn: Tanzania, followed by Zambia and Namibia, and by land border please! The only things missing were Zimbabwe and Botswana, to which we ended up saying goodbye after some extensive research (similar landscapes and time consuming). But that was not a big deal, because being alone in the world at normally crowded sites was enough to calm all the frustration.
However, it is still important to mention that traveling during a pandemic necessarily involves new logistical points to consider. Starting with the closing of many land borders, which makes the plane the essential means of transportation. Here again, flexibility remains the key word… With a limited budget, estimated departure and arrival dates need to be modified according to advantageous air offers while leaving enough room to adapt the trip at the last minute depending on health risks.
We were about to end our Namibian adventure when the delta variant appeared in the neighboring South Africa! We suddenly decided to cut our humanitarian mission short and leave the country, fearing that Namibia in turn would appear on the list of blacklisted destinations. Direction… Mexico!
Excluded from our initial itinerary, Mexico was nevertheless naturally added following our analysis by country of the covid restrictions: open borders, absence of quarantine and PCR test… And most importantly, it was also an ideal gateway to get to Latin America (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay). In no time at all, we went from the African continent to the American continent. Once the country was well visited, Marie launched the idea of Guatemala, “right next door”, whose land borders were still open. That was our 11th country.
This parenthesis over, we returned to our basic itinerary with Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia before being faced with the strict closure of Chile and Argentina. We were only a few kilometers away... What to do?
We then made the bet to go to Paraguay, where very economical flights to Europe were teasing us. We decided to go to Istanbul (Turkey), Marie's favorite city. This covid… it will not have succeeded in stopping us! And it’s not Jordan, the 18th and final country of our world tour that will say the opposite. Between its green classification by France and an Amman/Milan flight ticket at 15 €, it was impossible to miss a second deserted wonder of the world.
This demonstrates the need to always be flexible and open our minds to the “impossible”. Oftentimes, fear traps us and prevents us from getting started. Staying positive, believing in ourselves and adapting to the vagaries of life have been the secrets of a successful itinerary and world tour despite a pandemic.
SOUTHEST ASIA
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Indonesia
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Thailand
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Burma
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Sri Lanka
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The Philippines
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Laos
AFRICA
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Tanzania
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Zambia
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Namibia
LATIN AMERICA
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Mexico
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Guatemala
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Colombia
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Ecuador
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Peru
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Bolivia
MIDDLE EAST
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Turkey
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Jordan
Final completed itinerary