Travel Research Can Cause ADD

Posted By Talon Windwalker in General Travel | 5 comments

I’m sure you’ve seen that fun little thing:  I’m not ADD, I’m Look Squirrel!  That’s how research has been for me lately.  Been reading up on just the Africa portion of next year’s RTW adventure, and my itinerary could have had something like 1000 changes.  Still could.  Thumbing through Lonely Planet’s book on Africa looking for the page for Ethiopia’s section and discovered their entry on Djibouti.  I think to myself, sitting on the darkened airplace, little reading light shining on my book from above while passersby bump into my shoulder.  You can tell those aisles were made for people the width of a toothpick.  Look squirrel!  Sorry.  Getting back to my story, so I think to myself Now that’s a fun name!  I’ve heard it before, knew it was in Africa, and that pretty much summed up my knowledge of Djibouti.  Actually, I can’t 100% for sure say I knew it was in Africa before.  I *might* have thought it was in the Middle East.  Maybe.  First note?  “It’s expensive.”  Almost stopped reading right there.  Why?  No, my inner miser wasn’t speaking.  If you’re involved with my finances, you know I don’t have an inner miser.  Unfortunately.  Well, maybe sometimes.  I do like a good bargain.  There I go again.  So anyway, I kept reading.  I’m stuck on a plane, after all, and still have 2 hrs of flight time.  What other pressing issue do I have?  Then I saw the most dangerous thing!  To my budget.  You can snorkel with whale sharks. For some reason that time of the year they come into pretty shallow water.  Snorkeling with whale sharks?  You mean one day my son could be telling his children about that one time he snorkeled with whale sharks?  OK, working Djibouti into the mix.

Found the section about Madagascar.  Now one would think that looking at the size of the island that one would recognize a few days there probably won’t do it justice.  Suggested daily budget?  $15-30.  Ummm, since I’d probably spend around $1000 a month living in Thailand (estimate given me by a family there). . . oh why not stay a month in Madagascar?  I mean we’re already there, right?  Oh, and they have a flight from Madagascar to Bangkok.  Now that’s mighty convenient!  So maybe we start up in northern Africa and work our way south before heading to SE Asia.

M. M. M. Morocco?  Yeah, I’ve always wanted to go there.  Thought they were on the euro.  They’re not.  Daily budget reasonable.  Oh crap.  This trip isn’t evolving, it’s growing like a family of rabbits.  Or hamsters.  Did you know hamsters reach sexual maturity EXTREMELY rapidly?  It’s crazy.  Made some decent money in high school with that little . . . discovery at home.  What was I talking about?

You know, India is right in the flight path . . . Might be easier to just go ahead and stop there for a while before heading to Thailand.  Then again since I’ll have this nice budget thanks to that surprise tax credit, maybe we should do Antartica since it’s so expensive.  Tigger wants to experience S. America anyway.  We could do Argentina & Antartica.  Then I’d only have Australia left before I could say I’ve been to all 7 continents.  I wonder if Australia is in the flight path!  We could do S. America, Antartica, Australia, go to Africa, hit India and then collapse in Thailand.  Hmmmm.  Luckily for me, my budget, and quite possibly Tigger’s sanity, no one goes to Antartica in October.

If I told Tigger about all this his head might very well explode.  Although he was pretty excited about snorkeling with whale sharks.  Who wouldn’t be?  Did I mention how doing all this research can Look! Moose!