A trip that will take Chris and me half way around the world, through 3 countries, down several rivers and through a variety of mountain sides and rice fields requires a little pre-trip planning. It requires special attention especially if we want to accomplish this task in just over 3 weeks time.

We will fly from Minneapolis Airport through Tokyo, eventually touching down in Bangkok, Thailand – the gateway to South East Asia. Bangkok can either be the most welcoming and exciting cities on the planet to visit or it can be a nightmare of epic magnitude. It all depends on perspective and a person’s willingness to seek out a little adventure and live outside their comfort zone.

Bangkok, for me, is like a second home. I’ve come to love the city and respect it for what it is. It’s a great place to book flights, train tickets and get your bearings straight before heading out the surrounding areas. It’s also a city that lives up to all the stories and tales you can imagine.

Our packing list is very simple: Individual Items (each pack): 3 lightweight t-shirts 2 pairs of shorts 2 pairs of pants 1 button up shirt/polo shirt 1 long sleeve shirt 1 fleece 3 pairs of socks 4 pairs of underwear 1 swimsuit 1 pair of Chaco sandals 1 pair of running shoes 1 quick dry towel 2 inflatable pillows 1 sleep sack/sheet Various pictures from home Travel Journal (Moleskine Book) Guidebooks (Burma/Laos) Toiletries kit

I’ve been the planning agent for this trip. The original plan was to go to Thailand, chill out on the beach and see some of the sites. While this was an admirable plan, I thought this would also be a great opportunity to hit some of the more remote regions of SE Asia. Burma (Myanmar) and Laos were two countries that easily made their way to the top. As two of the poorest countries on the planet, they fit easily into our budget.

Our goal is to complete our trip for less than $2,000 a piece (including flight). We bought our plane tickets in early January on Northwest Airlines for $910.50 USD (MSP/BKK). We were lucky to be able to book bulkhead seats – with a little coaxing on the part of Chris to get his seat next to mine. We’ll be gone for around 22-24 days (flights taking away a significant amount of time). That leaves us with an amazing budget of about $90 a day to cover food, room, transportation and gifts. This is well beyond the $30 a day that we plan on spending. But the extra money will be bookmarked for picking up mementos along the way. Any pre-trip donations to pick up particular items will most certainly be welcome.

We purchased a few things before our trip that we won’t be able to pick up once we get there. Quality travel clothing and a good pack are both essential to independent lightweight travel. If we pack too much stuff, or carry the wrong items, we’ll be doomed from the start. Since we’ll have to move fast we can’t afford to be bogged down with too many items. For three weeks, everything we need will fit snugly in our rucksacks – about 25 pounds each. Traveling light in terms of clothing and accessories gives us the chance to pack our electronic items (camcorder, laptop and cameras) in much smaller and more secure packs.

We’ll have our pack ready at least a week before we leave. That gives us the chance to lay out all of our items (and have me remove half of them) and pack them slowly, making sure we don’t forget anything. It would be a shame to pack everything up and then forget to bring a single pair of shorts (as I did on my last trip to Singapore).

So as it stands, we’re simply counting down the days before we leave. Our plan is coming together and we should be able to see everything we want in a relatively short period of time. In the meantime, we’re getting the Web site set up so we can post images and stories from the road (boat, plane, train or back of elephant, as it may be).