136 Days

If you do the math, that's January 2nd, 2010 2011. If all goes according to plan, that's the day I'll head out (with only a single backpack in tow) on a little adventure. While I still have a lot to plan for and get ready before then, I've set a date to hopefully give me the motivation to finally follow through on it.

I don't really know why, but I'm always a bit hesitant to travel. Maybe it's all the time I've spent living out of suitcases in hotel rooms, or all the trips I went on that were work related (that usually involved 60 hour weeks, and then nights by myself in a hotel). Other than a few all inclusive trips, I've never really been anywhere with the purpose of exploring a new area, or possibly taking in the local culture for more than a few days.

Right now I'm leaning towards starting the trip with a few months in Buenos Aires. A typical visa is about 90 days there, so after that point in time I'd either renew or pack up the backpack and head somewhere new. Ultimately Europe would be pretty cool to visit (in fact, I have an image in my head of me working with the Eiffel Tower in the background), but the first leg of the trip I don't want to stray too far from home. South Africa is doable, as are other parts of Central America. But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself at this point.

I actually briefly thought about taking advantage of Jet Blue's all you can travel offer to do a bit of a trial run in September. But while the travel is affordable, most of the places I'd want to visit aren't. While I can work from cheap coffee shops in most places, accommodation in places like New York City are expensive, even on a shoe string budget. Plus, I have a lot of things I want to get done in the next six to eight weeks. I'm also hoping to do another strategizing trip with Dale at some point, and the current plan is to do another all inclusive resort, probably in October.

Next week I'm going to be on vacation, and will mostly be staying close to home. I'm going to do some thinking during that time off and try to figure out what needs to be done in the next 136 days to make it all happen. But, I'm definitely leaning towards leaving in January.