Several months ago I wrote an article about how we planned our around the world trip for 4 1/2 months. We called the trip Cosmos. This article provides some additional insight into the details of that planning exercise, along with many of the actual documents that were created.
During the journey we visited 12 countries on four continents while home schooling our girls, who were in 5th and 7th grades at the time. Taking a trip of this magnitude would be challenging enough, but the planning was just as, if not more, complex. There were all kinds of interrelated tasks that had to be completed before, during and after the trip to ensure it was safe and successful. Combining the education of our daughters into the trip made the planning even more challenging. We started out by treating the planning process as a project, allowing us to divide and conquer the to do list and trip task management.
Trip Charter and Overview
We first created a trip charter, which was reviewed with several people for feedback, including the school principal. Out of this came a one page scope summary of the trip that was easily communicated with others and modified as we moved into more detailed planning.
Detailed Planning Schedule
A schedule was created to incorporate all the various pre-departure activities, from setting the destinations and day-by-day itinerary to creating the budget and financial plan, to determining the logistics with the house (which we rented while we were gone), to formulating the education plan. Then, once we returned, we had many post-trip activities to complete as we settled back into our work and school routines. We actually kept a Microsoft Project schedule that was over 1,000 lines.
Visa Requirements and Day-by-Day Itineraries
Many documents were created to track the planning of the trip. Among the most important were the visa requirements, as we were visiting so many countries, and the detailed, day-by-day itineraries.
Education Plan and Meeting with the Principal and Teachers
The education plan was just as important as the trip itinerary. We began meeting with the school principal over a year before the actual trip and his help and support were instrumental in making this a success. We discussed the logistics of home schooling both the girls, subject by subject, including the trip education materials and test administration / communication with the teachers on the road while in such places as Zambia and India.
A couple of months before the journey we began meeting with the teachers as well. The result was a week-by-week education plan for each girl, that listed the lessons, dependent on where we were going to be, what we were going to see and how much time we had that week for schooling. For example, those weeks that we were in Africa on safari were the poorest for studying.
Overall the trip was a great experience. We had the time of our lives and the girls gained a world view that they carry with them today. They were both ahead in their lessons when we returned and, most importantly, we all came back safe. Careful attention to all the details and thorough planning were major factors in the overall success of this journey.