{"id":714,"date":"2016-03-15T16:28:46","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T03:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=714"},"modified":"2016-03-16T11:18:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T22:18:03","slug":"its-kind-of-a-plan-its-the-bit-that-requires-pre-booking-and-passports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=714","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s kind of a plan. It&#8217;s the bit that requires pre-booking and passports"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_715\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-715\" style=\"width: 2053px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/route-planning.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-715\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-715 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/route-planning.png\" alt=\"Auckland to London via Dubai, then London to Chicago, then Chicago to London via Iceland \" width=\"2053\" height=\"1145\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/route-planning.png 2053w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/route-planning-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/route-planning-768x428.png 768w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/route-planning-1024x571.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2053px) 100vw, 2053px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-715\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Auckland to London via Dubai, then London to Chicago, then Chicago to London via Iceland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Time for an update.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve been working on travel plans, which is, I suspect, another way of saying that I&#8217;ve been procrastinating and not actually\u00a0<strong>booking<\/strong> anything, as is the custom among my people.<\/p>\n<p>Booked some flights\u00a0<strong>and<\/strong> a hotel yesterday, so I think it&#8217;s past time that I announced what the hell the plan, if it can be said to be one, actually is. I&#8217;ve put a map up there, from the nice folks at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.greatcirclemapper.net\/\">www.greatcirclemapper.net<\/a>, mostly because I wanted one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Tried to do it in PowerPoint, which annoyed me, GIMP, which annoyed me in different ways, and MS Paint, which &#8230; had a certain &#8220;We&#8217;ll Put This On The Refrigerator, Little Billy&#8221; charm to it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the plan;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>March 31st &#8211; Move into the spare room at House Needs-A-Name<\/strong><br \/>\nI aim to be packed up, my stuff reduced to what can feasibly fit into a backpack\u00a0<em>(and maybe a daypack too, we&#8217;ll see how that goes)<\/em> by the end of this month.<br \/>\nThat means that the storage unit will be downsized\u00a0<em>(doing that on Thursday)<\/em>; the furniture sold, donated, or abandoned in the woods to fend for itself; and personal stuff either stored, trashed, or given away.<br \/>\nAdministrative things would be nice to sort out in that timeframe too, but I have a little bit more wiggle room there, thanks to, &#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>April &amp; May &#8211; Sort out remaining stuff, then go see the South Island<\/strong><br \/>\nThe only bit of the South Island I&#8217;ve seen is Christchurch, and, well, they&#8217;ve redecorated since then.<br \/>\nThe plan is to have no plan, and to travel based on &#8220;Where Do I Want To Go Next&#8221;, with a side order of &#8220;Can I Find A Backpacker Hostel With Space For Me&#8221;.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m looking at this as part tourism &amp; part dry-run of backpack &amp; hostel travel; If it turns out that I&#8217;m carrying to much, or the wrong stuff, or I just really really hate it, better to know while I&#8217;m still in New Zealand and can alter the plan.<br \/>\nAssuming I don&#8217;t throw in the microfibre tramping towel, these travels would lead to, &#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>June 2nd &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/ac2016.cons.nz\/\">Au Contraire 2016<\/a>, the NZ National Science Fiction &amp; Fantasy Convention, in Wellington<\/strong><br \/>\nThe convention runs from the 3rd to the 5th, but I&#8217;m getting there the day before.<br \/>\nWell, I have a hotel booking for the day before, so I certainly\u00a0<em>intend<\/em> to get there the day before, and stay a day or so afterwards, so as to catch up with Wellington folks before &#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>June 7th &#8211; Fly back to Auckland<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>I&#8217;m beginning to worry that these lead-on things are getting old, or at least annoying.<br \/>\n<\/em>Back in Auckland, for a last chance to sort out &amp; fine tune anything which needs it, see the parents, see the Auckland folks, probably do some laundry, pick up some foreign money, and then head for the airport, because &#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>June 13th &#8211; Fly to Dubai, arriving on the 14th<\/strong><br \/>\nEmirates turned out to be a pretty cheap option, and they have that ridiculous 17+ hour direct flight from Auckland to Dubai. I&#8217;ll miss out on the delightful experience of people arguing with Australian Customs Officers over duty free booze &amp; bottle sizes\u00a0<em>(the limits are different over there)<\/em>, and I made sure to book an aisle seat.<br \/>\nDid look at bulkhead &amp; exit row, but the few\u00a0unbooked seats were tagged as &#8220;if there&#8217;s a family with infants, we&#8217;ll probably move you&#8221;, so I went with middle-of-the-section side-block aisle.<br \/>\nBecause there&#8217;s no damn way I will be wanting to get back on, or even look at, a plane after 17+ hours in one, &#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>June 14th &amp; 15th &#8211; Dubai<\/strong><br \/>\nFound a hotel near a metro station &amp; not too far from things I might find interesting, and my plane gets in before 6am, so that gives me basically two days &amp; two nights in Dubai.<br \/>\nHilariously, it&#8217;ll be during Ramadan, to really maximise that culture shock.<br \/>\nWorst case, it&#8217;ll be devoid of life, explosively hot &amp; humid, everything will be closed, and I&#8217;ll spend my time in the hotel enjoying air-con, retreating to my room to eat &amp; drink during daylight hours, and annoying everyone with increasingly inane Facebook posts. And that doesn&#8217;t sound so bad.<br \/>\nBest case, Ramadan will be an extra layer on top of a place which is already trying to mix tradition with &#8230; modernity? conspicuous capitalism? &#8230; , and it&#8217;ll be filled to bursting with interesting things to ask dumb questions about.<br \/>\nPlus I&#8217;ll try to catch up with a friend\/coworker who&#8217;s based there, which will be fun.<\/li>\n<li><strong>June 16th &#8211; Fly to London<\/strong><br \/>\nWent with the window seat option here; It&#8217;s only an 8-hour flight, in daylight, and it&#8217;s mostly over land, so there&#8217;ll be something to look at.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Rest of June, plus July &#8211; Probably the UK, or more accurately, Great Britain<\/strong><br \/>\nWe&#8217;re back to <em>planning to have no plan<\/em> for this bit.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m going to book accommodation for the first few days, and hilariously enough, the hotel I stayed at for the London WorldCon compares favourably with a private room in a hostel, and with many of the AirBnB options. Probably because it&#8217;s in the Docklands, which isn&#8217;t a dealbreaker for me; The Underground holds few fears for me, and I found my Oyster Card from 2014 yesterday, so it&#8217;s a 2-3 train trip, which isn&#8217;t that big a deal.<br \/>\nBeyond that, ramblings as I feel like it, hopefully visiting a friend who lives in Essex, hopefully visiting another friend who might be rampaging around Edinburgh, and generally wallowing in tourism &amp; trying not to end up working in a pub which caters exclusively to New Zealanders &amp; Australians on their OE.<br \/>\n<em>In retrospect, joining the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LondonKiwis\">Kiwis In London<\/a> Facebook community\u00a0could be seen as being counterproductive on that particular point.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>July 30th, or possibly 31st &#8211; Fly to Chicago, then get to Indianapolis<\/strong><br \/>\nWhich date I leave on, and indeed arrive on, depends on the airline &amp; the route. IcelandAir do some cheap flights, but some of them involve at 17 hour layover at\u00a0Keflav\u00edk, which sounds like no sort of fun I&#8217;ve ever heard of.<br \/>\nAer Lingus, via Dublin, seem reasonable, though I&#8217;m still struggling to tell the difference between airlines which are low cost &amp; honest about it, and those which are low cost and will screw you every chance they get.<br \/>\nRegardless of the route, the plan is to be in Chicago on the 31st, so that I can get to Indianapolis for the 2nd of August, for Gen Con. There may be a road trip with some friends from Chicago, or it might turn out that another flight is a better idea, depending on how their plans\/jobs go.<br \/>\n<em>I did look at the train options, but the arrival times are &#8230; suboptimal. Midnight is an annoying time to arrive, &#8217;cause it&#8217;d feel like a waste to have a hotel room, and I don&#8217;t know that a hotel would be entirely keen on someone turning up at midnight, asking to store a bag, and then chillaxing\/sleeping in the lobby for 12-14 hours.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>August 2nd-9th &#8211; Gen Con and related events<\/strong><br \/>\nGen Con nominally runs from the 4th to the 7th, but Day Zero is the 3rd, and that&#8217;s still a pretty big part of the thing, as is the day after, on the 8th, when people pack up to go, and the whole thing is dismantled.<\/li>\n<li><strong>August, September, and some of October &#8211; Wombling About In The USA<\/strong><br \/>\nSame routine as with NZ &amp; the UK; Go see some things, stay in places as long as they interest me, then move on when they don&#8217;t. Ideally, visit some folks along the way, go to local conventions if the timing works out &amp; the event interests me, that sort of thing.<br \/>\nThe Visa Waiver Program allows for up to 90 days, which would take me out to the end of October, but I figure setting a limit of 80 days gives me some wiggle room for things not going according to plan, and it might make the Customs &amp; Border Protection folks happy to see that I&#8217;m not running out the clock to the last possible minute. I also plan to have my exit flight booked before I arrive, so that I can prove that I plan to leave, and to make it an easily-changed flight, in case I run out of money, energy, or interest in seeing another bloody scenic wonder.<br \/>\nSpeaking of exit flights, leaving from Chicago makes a kind of sense to me, as I know some folks in the general area. And in adjacent states. And states adjacent to those states. Which, with luck, lets me catch up with them before flying out to &#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Iceland!<\/strong><br \/>\nIcelandAir will not charge you any extra for a stopover of up to 7 days if your flight with them goes through\u00a0Keflav\u00edk, so I thought I&#8217;d take advantage of that. Should probably pick up a &#8220;How Not To Sound Like An Idiot In Icelandic&#8221; guide to kill time during the US portion of the trip; I know that most folks there speak English, but it&#8217;d be nice to be able to pronounce things, and read the signs.<br \/>\nAs for what to do there? It&#8217;s Iceland, I&#8217;m sure I can find something entertaining &amp; expensive. That thing where they give you a dry-suit and a snorkel, then point you at a Continental Rift, has a certain appeal.\u00a0<em>(There&#8217;s also a SCUBA option, but I am barred from that on medical grounds, so snorkel is the way to go)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>Back to London<\/strong><br \/>\nWell, it doesn&#8217;t\u00a0<em>have<\/em> to be London, but it&#8217;s an air-travel hub for a reason.<br \/>\nBy this point it&#8217;ll be towards the end of October, and I&#8217;ll have been traveling for &#8230;\u00a0<em>counts on fingers<\/em> &#8230; somewhere between six and seven months. That&#8217;s a long damn time, and it seems an excellent point to pause, take stock, and figure out what the next step is.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s certainly a fine time to stop outlining the Grand Plan; I have no idea what state I&#8217;ll be in by then, what my finances will look like, and whether I&#8217;ll want to continue wandering, find some short-term contract work, find a longer-term job, &#8230;, could be anything.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And that&#8217;s the plan, such as it is.<\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of unknowns here.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve never traveled without a detailed plan before; I don&#8217;t know if I\u00a0<strong>can<\/strong> do that, let alone whether I like it.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve not spent a lot of time in Backpacker Hostels, so that&#8217;s a new thing.<br \/>\nThe spine is an issue, but that&#8217;s what Travel Insurance with Medical Cover is for; That bit worries me the least.<\/p>\n<p>There are questions too.<br \/>\nWhat to see &amp; do in the UK, and in the USA?<br \/>\nIceland?<\/p>\n<p>And perhaps the most important question, what to call any Blog, Podcast, or YouTube channel, if I find myself wanting to do reports from the road?<br \/>\nI&#8217;d been thinking of <em>The Wandering Monster<\/em>, which was suggested by one of the FlatLords, but it turns out that there&#8217;s already a games publishing company who use that name, so it&#8217;s too close for comfort. It&#8217;s a pity, I&#8217;d thought about getting a dinosaur onesie and making that part of the theme.<br \/>\n<em>Wilderness Encounters<\/em>, while a solid gaming reference,\u00a0sounds like a dogging group who meet in a forest, and I think they&#8217;d be disappointed by the actual content.\u00a0<em>Wilderness Adventures<\/em> has the same problem, and, to be honest, I&#8217;m not that adventurous.<\/p>\n<p>If anyone has an idea, I&#8217;d love to hear it.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_716\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-716\" style=\"width: 1427px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/World_Map_Simple.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-716\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-716 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/World_Map_Simple.png\" alt=\"This is what it looks like when I say &quot;Fuck It&quot; and do the map by hand in MS Paint\" width=\"1427\" height=\"628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/World_Map_Simple.png 1427w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/World_Map_Simple-300x132.png 300w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/World_Map_Simple-768x338.png 768w, https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/World_Map_Simple-1024x451.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1427px) 100vw, 1427px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-716\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is what it looks like when I say &#8220;Fuck It&#8221; and do the map by hand in MS Paint<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time for an update. I&#8217;ve been working on travel plans, which is, I suspect, another way of saying that I&#8217;ve been procrastinating and not actually\u00a0booking anything, as is the custom among my people. Booked some flights\u00a0and a hotel yesterday, so I think it&#8217;s past time that I announced what the hell the plan, if it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-can-be-fun-to-run-away"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O6N9-bw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":722,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}