I’m going around the world in March (and parts of February and April) and I’m trying to detail the whole ordeal. Here’s what I’ve got thus far:

Who, Where, When…and Why? How? Eye of the Storm Choosing what to do (Part 1) Immunizations Dry Run to Rome

For those of you who don’t know, my friend, Mike Turner, and I are heading around the world February 28 through April 3. Here’s our full schedule:

New Zealand and Australia: February 28 - March 9 Seoul, South Korea: March 9–10 Kathmandu, Nepal and Bhutan: March 10–14 Tehran, Iran: March 16–19 Madagascar: March 20–25 Paris: March 25–27 Buenos Aires, Argentina: March 28 - April 2

I really want to take the time to detail the ins and outs of this trip; not only the actual traveling, but also the planning. I’m doing this mainly because I really enjoy writing about this kind of stuff, but secondarily I hope it helps people think with more specificity about these things. I’ve scoured blogs and Twitter feeds for broad information to help me specifically plan my trip. Similarly, I hope that you can take these broad strokes and plan your trip. It doesn’t have to be around the world, it doesn’t even have to be outside the country, but do something somewhere that you’re not used to.

So why this trip, why this itinerary and why right now? To be honest, why we chose this itinerary is intrinsically linked to the how, so I’ll get into that in later posts. Right now I want to focus on the other two.

Choosing to do the trip right now is more circumstance than actual planning. The original plan was to do it during November 2013 (so I’d be on it right now), but with work/life schedules, the amount of time it takes to earn points, and getting award availability for flights to each stop , March 2014 made more sense. I know “circumstances said so” is rarely a good answer, but for traveling, I found sometimes it’s the only answer.

When planning a trip, there’s always reasons as to when you’re planning it. Trips in college/high school were planned during summer months because that’s when you were free. Honeymoons are planned after weddings; Spring Break trips are planned during Spring Break; long weekend trips are planned on long weekends. Because of the way society works and the way the vast majority of us have structured our lives, we’ll always be planning trips, not when we want to, but because circumstances say so. I don’t mean that as depressing; it’s the tradeoff we make to have other things in our lives. I mean, what’s the alternative? Never get married because your wedding may be the same weekend as a good flight to the Maldives?

I want to wrap up with why we’re doing a Round-the-World trip. I’ve explained my ideology for travel and this kind of trip fits in perfectly with those ideas. Why this trip? Cost. Cost in money, cost in points, cost in time. It’s less costly to spend four days in Bhutan via an eight-hour flight from Seoul than two days there and two days back from the U.S.  It’s not possible to book a flight from the United States to Iran, but when you’re coming from Russia, it’s just another stopover. Why spend thousands of dollars (or hundreds of thousands of points) to fly to Madagascar from DC when you can go direct from Paris? Cost isn’t the most profound answer, but profundity doesn’t get you into first class.

It’s funny, but the who, where, when, and why may be the least interesting aspects of this whole thing. Taking the trip will obviously be the best part, but I’m really excited to share about the hows and the preparation. Stay tuned. There’s quite a bit more to come.