before you get all worked up, i am not trying to tell you something you don’t already know…when i refer to planning for two i’m simply admitting that planning a trip for two people, despite the similarities of planning for one, is very different.

plans have changed recently…with visa issues and rising costs my boyfriend and i decided to go south instead of north. now that classes and assignments are done and i’m left with only one more exam, i have time to get myself all excited about the south island.

immediately i started doing something i rarely do, beyond an abstraction, for myself when i travel… i strated planning. i’m not talking the general things like – “hey, tikal is close to flores,” like i did when i was in guatemala, or trusting that my friend lizzie would pull it all together like she did so amazingly in southern africa…i mean i pulled out a book, maps, bus/train schedules, and websites to see what there was to do and how we could do it.

funny thing about planning…it can get away from you. all of a sudden what you want to do multiplies and the time you have seems to shrink. funny thing about planning for two, all of a sudden it isn’t just about what gets you all worked up and excited, but what gets the other person excited to.

in a lot of ways i want this trip to go well. i’m a somewhat seasoned traveller and i love it…i love the unknowns i know i’ll encounter, the food, the people, the things that i’ll probably never see again, and the random things that become my favorite stories later on…but my boyfriend hasn’t travelled much. this is kind of his virgin tour.

i want him to love it.

and in a way that is too much pressure for both of us. i want to know what he’d like to see and he’s not sure. i know what i like but i’m trying not to impose what i want to do at the expense of how he’d like to see the south island.

combine that with a budget and distinct time window and this scheduling thing has gotten iteresting. do we fly part way to save time? do we try to cut days at the expense of not really relaxing? do we see less things even though we’ll be there?

and it is making for some interesting conversations. and currently it is still a little bit of theory becuase we haven’t bought tickets yet (tuesday that should change) but it is coming together slowing.

i can see the uncertainty in his furrowed eyebrows and he can see my restrained excitment in the way i talk about franz josef glacier. but it is all coming together i think. stay tuned and i’ll let you know how this latest adventure advances.

 

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