Planning The Tour: Part I

Welcome to my World Tour! For the reader's sake I will divide this update into at least 2 parts. I don't know about anyone else, but when I see a lengthy article online, almost regardless of the topic I decline to read it. But then I again there's a good chance I have ADD, which isn't even a real disorder anymore.

In these first few installments, I'm going to summarize everything travel-related that got me to the point I'm at now. I really wish I had been doing this all along, since I've essentially been "planning", more or less, since June. I've had many changes of heart and mind along the way, and documenting them probably would have saved me from repeating some mistakes. There were multiple times where I ruled out a country or program for some reason or other, only to forget several days or weeks later why I made this decision, causing me to go through the whole stressful process of reevaluating my options.

So what were some of these options? Back in January (I think) I discovered for myself the site www.bunac.com. BUNAC helps sponsor work abroad visas for current or recent students in several countries, including New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, and Canada, plus a few volunteer opportunities in South Africa, Cambodia, and Peru. But I'll get back to BUNAC later.

After a surprisingly helpful visit to the waste of space known as the WashU Career Center, I was given a stack of papers offering websites and organizations that contain various travel abroad or gap year ideas. I very slowly spent all of June and some of July tediously looking through these sites, making note of the ones which seemed to have promising options but not really delving deeper until I had narrowed down the list somewhat. That was my first mistake. Like always, I was afraid of missing the 'best' opportunity, so I didn't want to focus on any one program knowing I still had others at my disposal to look over. My reasoning, though not this explicit, was 'What if I fall in love with the first program I read about, when in reality it is the most expensive, least efficient, least worthwhile option?' So I narrowed down. Erroneously thinking I had made a significant dent in the process, I stopped paying attention for a little while after that.

When I got back into it, I had a few promising, intriguing options. That was a huge step on its own, because one of the biggest problems I faced in this whole process is that I wanted to go pretty much everywhere. The first question people will ask you when you say you want to travel, obviously, is 'where do you want to go?' Answering 'anywhere' does not help your cause.

Anyway, probably the most exciting option for me was a program titled Noah's Ark. It is offered through www.interexchange.org, a site with multiple work, volunteer, and internship opportunities abroad. Noah's Ark is one of several wildlife conservation programs listed on that site. It is held in Namibia, a small country neighboring South Africa. Basically you live in an animal shelter for a predetermined number of weeks, feeding and otherwise taking care of animals such as baboons and lions. The reason this program first caught my eye was the picture accompanying it, which shows a few smiling students sitting on a fallen tree petting several female lions. Holy schnikes. For a long time this program was my number one choice. Unfortunately, as with all of the programs I looked into, I did not read the details closely enough. After deciding that I wanted to do this, I discovered that the time between applying and departure was 2 months. I didn't want to sit around for that long (the irony being, of course, that had I signed up right then I would have departed in October sometime, which is when I'm leaving for New Zealand anyway). Later on I discovered that the cost of this program is discouragingly high, $1675 for 2 weeks, $2895 for 4 weeks, and forgetaboutit for 6 weeks. Before reading that, I figured I'd be there for several months.

The other options I strongly considered were the BUNAC programs in New Zealand and Britain. For awhile it did not occur to me that I could do both (because at that time I figured I would do one of those for several months and the Namibia stint for several more months). Many people may remember me asking them where I should go, Britain or New Zealand. This decision took up a lot of time, even though virtually everyone recommended New Zealand. Finally I thought, why not do all three!?!? It was perfect, I would go to New Zealand in the fall for several months during their spring/summer, go directly to Namibia for 2 weeks in January/February, then go directly to Britain for the next 3 months for their spring/summer. Program costs aside, the flight itinerary for this plan would have been an absolute nightmare, from both a financial and scheduling standpoint.

To be continued.......