The Plan!

Everyone has heard the saying, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.” However, when you are obsessed, as I am, with traveling the Panamerican highway in its entirety, some planning is required. So that’s our plan—to drive the Panamerican highway.

I know that spreadsheet and detail people are having palpitations right now, but here’s my take on planning; I want to have a general idea of what I want the journey to look like but leave loads of room for adventure. If we meet people or discover places we had never heard of, I like to have the freedom to be spontaneous, stay as long as we like or move on at the spur of the moment. To me, the joy of travel is being open to every part of the experience. To soak in the cultures and flavors of every place. To savor every minute, and every encounter. Plans have a way of making me rush to the “next thing” rather than being present in the moment. So many missed opportunities can occur if we are always looking to the next thing in the “plan.”

I’ll never forget one time while traveling in Egypt and doing a homestay with a local Muslim family in Cairo. The eldest son, Wessam, who was in his mid-thirties at the time, told us over breakfast that he was going to spend the day trying to find a painter to paint his office.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” was our simultaneous response.

The energy in the room became electric as he excitedly grabbed his car keys and we set off to buy supplies. We not only painted his office that day, but we also taught him a valuable skill, and had an unforgettable day with our friend. Well, his first faux pas when I instructed him to dip his paint brush in the bucket was to plunge it to the bottom, covering the brush, the handle and his hand, but he caught on quick enough. We even saw a social media post from a mutual friend, that he taught a “class” with his friends on the art of house painting.

It’s moments like this that keep me wanting to travel and experience life to its fullest. Had we caught the train we “planned” to catch, we would have missed it.

So, we will drive the Panamerican highway until we get to Ushuaia, then we will set off to explore South America and see what happens.