Sunday, August 21, 2011

Planning Our Honeymoon

Now that the wedding festivities are officially over (the last event was the Half Moon Brewery party with Greg's extended family in Kokomo, IN on 06AUG), we can finally focus on figuring out where to go for our honeymoon. And since I know everyone reading this would be disappointed if we just went to a beach resort for one week, we are keeping the adventure going with a sort of continuation of our RTW trip!

As you might expect, based on where we DIDN'T travel in the previous nine months, Central & South America are at the top of our list. However, because we know that in order to do justice to all the wonderful places to visit in that part of the world we would need at least 6 months plus a lot more time to plan and acquire the necessary visas, we've decided to reserve that trip for a future RTW-style adventure which will hopefully take place within the next 5 years (but my goal is the year that we're both 40).

Greg & I both agree that, right now, we don't want to go anywhere that would require significant research or advance planning. We also want to keep the style of travel relatively easy (no 12 hour long death-defying bus rides through rural Laos, but hostels & couchsurfing are still okay). And, because of the time of year, we have to consider the possibility of inclement weather. Despite the immense number of places in the world we have yet to visit, it was actually pretty easy to narrow down our options and return to Europe.

Wanting to slow down a bit compared to the fast pace we were keeping for most of our RTW trip, we have chosen to start our honeymoon in Ireland. From Dublin, we will rent a car and spend the entire month of September making a circular loop of the whole island (including Northern Ireland). Once we return to Dublin we will fly to Vilnius, Lithuania and make our way by bus north through The Baltics (also visiting Riga, Latvia and Tallinn, Estonia). From Tallinn we will ferry to Helsinki, Finland then travel by bus, boat and train through Northern Europe (including Sweden, Norway & Denmark) for one month. Once we reach Copenhagen, Denmark in early November we must decide if we will continue on to the Balkans (Croatia, Slovenia, etc.) or fly back through the U.S. to swap our rain/cool weather gear for shorts & swimsuits then go live on a beach until early December.

We will return to Nashville so we can attend the Patterson Family Holiday Party on December 10th, then will spend the remaining couple of weeks before Christmas packing and preparing for our move to Portland, OR. We'll enjoy the holidays with our family & friends in Tennessee and Indiana then fly to the West Coast in January, 2012.

Of course, you can count on both of us to continue to share our journey with you via our blogs, photos, Facebook updates and Twitter!

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