I started doing trip research in the spring of '02, as soon as I got word that my sabbatical had been approved…. but I didn't devote a lot of time to it until the school year was over and I had the time. When summer vacation began I began researching and planning the trip almost full-time. It soon became apparent to me that I might be researching and planning up until minute I left for the airport - sometime in early September.

Actually, I would also spend much time throughout the trip, planning and researching the next destinations.

The first thing I did to plan my trip was to buy several travel guides. I looked at the Rough Guides, Let's Go guides and the Lonely Planet guides. The Rough Guides seemed to have less low-budget references - hostels, restaurants, etc.. The Let's Go guides seemd to be targeted at the twenty something party crowd. The Lonely Planet guides seemed to have more of a focus on actually seeing local attractions and and also had a lot of resources for budget minded travels. I choose Lonely Planet guides.

I bought:
Europe on a Shoestring
Southeast Asia on a Shoestring
Trekking in Nepal
Tramping in New Zealand
New Zealand

I read through these books real quick in the spring and never really had time to sit down and plan destination cities and sights from them until I was actually on the road. I took my Europe on Shoestring book to Europe and hoped to buy a copy of Southeast Asia on a Shoestring in Nepal or Bangkok, when I got there. I xeroxed pages detailing my planned trek in the Himalayas and also the hostel and hotel pages for a couple cities and towns in Japan and China, from guides that I had checked out of the library.

I also started doing a lot of research on the internet, creating Netscape bookmark folders for: Transportation, Gear, Accommodation, Information (destinations), Logistics (Visas, Passport, etc.), Health

Initially, I hadn't thought about scuba diving at all, though it is also something I have always wanted to do. When I read, in the Thailand section of Southeast Asia on a Shoestring , about the great scuba diving around several of the islands I planned to visit, I changed my mind and started looking into taking classes in the bay area before I left. Luckily, when I went to the dentist to do some pre-trip preventative maintenance, I mentioned scuba diving when I was talking about my upcoming trip to the dentist as we were waiting for the Novocain to take affect. The dental assistant told me about this great dive shop (Scuba Junction) on one of the islands I had planned to go to, which had a very good instructors and programs. I happened to have already found their website in my online research and had bookmarked it. She also convinced me that diving, and especially training, in the warm waters of Thailand would not only be cheaper, but much more comfortable than getting certified in SF. As it turned out, the time I spent underwater in Thailand was the second highest point of my trip.