I am fortunate enough to work for a company that sees the value in a sabbatical program for its employees of 5 years. A sabbatical is not only likely to result in a decrease in stress and increase in psychological well-being for the employee, but also allows the company to stress-test their organization (Harvard Business Review). Win-win, as they say.

To the 4 paid weeks off provided by the program I added 2 weeks of standard PTO for a total of 6 paid weeks off of work. Incredible. The last time I had this much time off work or school was in the Fall of 1998, when I thought I was building a network marketing business but I was really just blowing through 3 months of savings and establishing that I am not an entrepreneur.

Given that I finally figured out how to make travel a part of one’s life, I never considered doing anything other than seeing new countries with the extended time off.

And with that much time off, I wanted to go far.

I’ve been to Europe a couple times now and will continue to explore those countries for the rest of my life. I’ve been south to various beaches when one week off of work meant traveling no more than one or two time zones away.

I’ve never been Down Under or to Asia and those are good places to travel from the United States when one has a lot of time to spend there.

Hence:

• April 25 to May 8: New Zealand (North Island)
• May 9: travel from NZ through Australia with a 8.5-hour layover in Sydney
• May 10 to 17: Bali, Indonesia
• May 18 to 30: Japan

OH MY GOD. Look at that itinerary. I can’t even believe I get to do this.

While I am excited, what I feel more is total overwhelm. It took many, many hours of planning to book my flights, ground transportation, and accommodations.

Those have been complete for two weeks now, and here are some of the other things I’ve been working through before and since:

This site

I’d like to keep a travel log that extends beyond social media posts. I don’t know whether I’ll actually take the time to write here, but I did some updating with that in mind. Meaning, I revised the About page, published a very old draft, and am writing this post.

I wanted to choose a new theme and update the look but I just can’t with that. I got lost in the options and said ‘fuck it’. You’ll do just fine, Twenty Eleven theme.

Health

Last summer, I injured my lumbar back by… sitting too long. Yep, that is totally a thing.

I saw my trusty physical therapist, Kevin Schmidt at Pedal PT, until I was no longer in daily pain. I was anxious to be done with the appointments; unfortunately, I didn’t know I wasn’t ready to quit. I remained vulnerable to re-injury and went back in February.

After 2 sessions per week for 2 months, and armed with the proactive and reactive exercises to do, I am in much better condition for travel. Not superb, though.

I have good days and bad days, and I worry that long plane-sitting and bus rides and tons of walking and dragging bags around will impede my ability to see and do things.

Travel fuckery

I’m flying four different airlines, one of which I’d never heard of; I’m staying in 13 Airbnbs and 1 ryokan; I have scheduled legs on a hop-on, hop-off bus line in New Zealand; I’ve hired drivers in Bali; I have a Japan Rail Pass to ride the shinkansen (bullet trains); I attached an Electronic Travel Authority to my passport so I can leave the airport in Sydney and explore during my layover….

There is a lot of room here for things to go wrong.

I’m making an effort not to rehearse for disaster and to instead take things as they come. Better yet, to notice and give thanks when things are going right.

Schedule

I didn’t know how else to get around New Zealand than the aforementioned bus (no thank you, car on the other side of the road), which has a set route with flexible timing: I was able to choose when to board each of the legs. However, because I didn’t want to leave availability to chance for either the bus legs or accommodations, I had to choose how many nights in each place before I know how I feel about those places, and there is so much to see and do on the island that even with almost two weeks there, I’m staying mostly 1 or 2 nights in each place.

I worry that I’ve done this wrong. That I’ll feel rushed through my experiences. That I’ll spend my time in one place preparing to get to the next place.

A member of my family reminded me to make sure I take some down days to just sit in a cafe and people-watch.

I am writing this reminder to self now to live in the moment while on this trip.

Packing light

Errr… never done it.

In 2010, I bought a 3-piece spinner set of luggage and have used the middle size, 25″, on every trip I’ve ever taken since, even short work trips (about which my colleagues rightfully teased me).

Even if I thought I could swing to the other extreme and be a backpacker, my back isn’t about that.

So I will be carrying a light backpack and the small size of the luggage set, a 21″ carry-on, which even with packing cubes will probably be pretty stuffed.

I worry about packing too much and yet not enough at the same time. I worry about the roller being heavy while I walk it from the bus stop to the Airbnb and still not having enough fresh clothing before I get to the next place I can do laundry.

I have no idea how any of this works.

Only one way to find out 😄