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| Narrow road along an area of tucked away homes and farms. |
By the time we left Minnesota in 2012, we had bookings for the upcoming two years. At this time, we’re booked our for 589 days which is one year, seven months and 10 days from today.
Is there a reason we haven’t stuck to our goal of staying booked two years in advance? Are we uncertain as to how we’ll spend those “missing” five months from our itinerary?
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| An intentional fire at the mill not far from us. |
Not necessarily. Once we leave from the booked three-month stint at the fabulous Costa Rica villa (click here to see) on October 31, 2017 (our five-year travel anniversary) we’ve decided to leave Central America to head to South America where we hope to spend 18 to 24 months.
While in South America, there are many points of interest we’d like to see, but one stands out the most; a cruise to Antarctica. Whether we book this in the later part of 2017 or 2018 is up for grabs at this point.
None of the cruises in December, January, and February for either of these particular years have been posted yet. We have a specific cruise line, we’d like to choose from and will share details once they’re available.
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| Paddock fences at the nearby farm |
There are several price ranges for Antarctica cruises on relatively small ships with under 200 passengers, one for as short as 10 days at a much lower price and the more expensive option for 15 or 16 days.
The vast difference in cost for these two options is the less expensive “cruising by” some of the most interesting islands or actually getting on Zodiac boats from the ship to the islands to get “up close and personal” with the wildlife.
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| A place to stop and enjoy the views. |
Our regular readers can easily surmise, the “up close and personal” option is our only choice. “Cruising by” would be torture for us. Taking photos from a mile away is not something that appeals to either of us.
By far, this option will be the most expensive of any of our plans to date. We’re preparing for this eventuality in attempting to book affordable locations in the interim which we’ve been able to accomplish so far and hope to continue into the future.
With that in mind, we still have a gap in our schedule we failed to address in our last few posts…how we’ll spend the two weeks between getting off the ship after the Alaskan cruise on May 26, 2017, to June 8, 2017, when we plan to arrive in Minnesota to visit family, later heading to Nevada to visit more family members.
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| Gate to a long driveway to another farm. |
We picked June 8th in hopes of the grandchildren being out of school for the summer holiday. With a plan to rent a caravan/RV during our stay in Minnesota and with the high daily rate of doing so, we decided not to arrive any earlier than this date, hoping to find a less costly way of spending the two-week gap along the way.
After carefully reviewing the outrageous costs of staying in a hotel or vacation home in Minnesota, arriving two weeks earlier than planned would severely cut into the budget, especially when we’d be dining out for all meals and renting a car.
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| The rolling hills and mountain views are lovely even on a cloud covered day. |
With an RV we can prepare our meals (especially considering our way of eating) not leaving it up to family members to cook for us or putting us up for the extended stay, get around town easily and have a place to sleep, all in one. It makes the most sense to us both financially and practically.
Arriving in Seattle after the Alaskan cruise, heading across the northern part of the US to Minnesota, leaves us many options. In the next several months, we’ll reserve the RV in Minnesota and figure out how we’ll spend the two-week gap.
Planning beyond the time in Costa Rica, after we’ll have left the US is totally predicated at this point on the cruise we choose to Antarctica which hopefully soon we’ll be able to pin down. That’s our entire motivation for waiting to book other locations.
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| Many farmhouses have ocean views. |
This booking process can be complicated and time-consuming. The thought of “not having a place to live” for a period of time could be frightening and unsettling for some.
For us, after all this time, its simply one more item on our “to do” list over which neither of us stresses or worries. There’s always a solution, one way or another.
May your day bring you solutions and peace of mind.
Photo from one year ago today, March 21, 2015:
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| This photo, taking from our lanai in Kauai after a night of rain, displayed this waterfall on the mountains. What a beautiful sight! For more details on this date one year ago, please click here. |