Our Travel Plans Now Through the Start of 2018!

Yes we admit, we’ve been slacking on the blog and social media lately. I’ve been back in school for a bit, and we’ve both been working crazy hours trying to prepare financially for some big travel plans coming up! We have multiple smaller trips planned, and then some extended time on the road coming up later in the year. So without further ado – here’s a look at our travel plans through the beginning of 2018.

Next week, we return to Thalita’s homeland – Oooooo Brasil! We fly out of MCO on Azul Airlines, which I’ve been wanting to try for a few years now. They have a couple non-stops from Orlando into Brazil, making the trip down to her hometown of Goiânia pretty easy, with only one stop in Sao Paulo/Campinas. Being new to the airport lounge scene, haha, we’re looking forward to checking out the Azul lounge in the Campinas Airport en route, yes!

We’re heading to Brazil to visit our family, with the star of the show being Thalita’s grandma. We’ll be celebrating her 90th birthday while there. She has somewhere in the several hundreds of descendants and relatives, so you know this will be a BIG party! Com cachaça e churrasco!

We plan to spend our couple weeks mostly in Goiânia – enjoying time with family, seeing our Brazilian 311 Familia – Ronaldo e Fabiola, and possibly a side trip or two outside the city.

After our time in Brazil, we have a little post vacation vacation, a few days on the beach in Clearwater, FL for our friend Melissa’s birthday. One of our favorite things about Florida…a great mini-vacation is just footsteps away.

After that, it’s back to work for a few weeks. And then, a visit to quite possibly our most anticipated country ever……CUBA! We are so excited for this! We weren’t really planning this one to happen so soon, but we’re glad it did. We were drinking wine (as many good stories start) with our friends one night on our recent trip to Chile, and our buddy Laurence was sharing some of the stories he had from a recent trip there. Well, that lead me to just casually looking at what flights would cost. So after finding a potential open spot in our schedule, and only $155/ticket later, we had our flights booked! That’s right, only $155 each, for a nonstop round trip on Jetblue, Orlando to Havana. Wow, we couldn’t pass that up. We’ll only have a week in Cuba, but we’re going to make it an amazing week! We’re still in the planning stages, so if you have any ideas for us, send us a message or leave a comment below, and let us know!

After what I’m sure will be an amazing time in Cuba, we have one week back home working, then in July we head out to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to volunteer as part of the medical team for the Carter Work Project with Habitat for Humanity. President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been leading these massive volunteer builds for over 30 years with Habitat. These trips are some of our absolute favorites. Us, along with some other wonderful nurses, doctors, and medics, get to be the medical support for the home building volunteers. We’ve done this from India to Haiti, and Dallas to Memphis. It’s an incredibly rewarding experience.

Decent housing for all is something we can all agree with. And it’s amazing to see people from all over the world, and from all walks of life, come together and improve the lives of others.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Carter Work Project, click HERE.

After our time in Canada, we’ll be back in Florida for a couple more months, working hard to save more money, but also having a little fun. We’re getting a big group of friends together again for 3 days of camping in August at Fort DeSoto Park near St. Pete, Florida. This is one of our favorite places in Florida with great beaches, waterside camping, and so much to do.

I know you’re saying, “wtf, camping in August, in Florida?!” Yes we are! But we’re doing it with Hitch Top Tent again! They’ve built these awesome elevated tents with AC, and they’ll set up camp for you. So all you have to do is bring ice, drinks, and food. Our setup for 16 people includes enough tents for all, some bicycles, kayaks, paddle boards, and a fire pit and chairs. This is the way to camp in Florida! We had such a fun time last year, and can’t wait to do it again! Check out Hitch Top Tent – they’re based out of Palmetto, near the Tampa Bay area, and can set you up with camping in multiple campgrounds and parks in the area.

Just before we hit the road for an extended period of time, we’re taking a few days to hit up a reggae music festival in South Carolina. It’s the Surrounded by the Sound Festival and it looks amazing. Three days of camping and great music. We got those VIP tickets too! It’s headlined by one of our absolute favorite bands Passafire. We can’t wait!

So up next comes our BIG trip, with some extended time on the road…..or rail. In September we are leaving for something I’ve been wanting to do since I was a kid. All aboard the Trans-Siberian railway! We’re planning to spend a little over 3 months making our way from Helsinki, Finland via rail (mostly) to China. We plan to go through St. Petersburg, to Moscow, then east into Siberia. We hope to make a detour down into Kazakhstan and possibly Kyrgyzstan. Then back into Russia, and on to Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, and home to 1/5 of the world’s fresh water. After this, we turn south and head into Mongolia. Yes we realize it’s going to be cold AF. Our thin Florida blood will need to learn to adapt. From Mongolia the plan is to head south into China. We’ll get to meet our friend Melissa in Beijing for a few days, and have a visit to The Great Wall of China. It’ll be my second time on the Wall, last time it was 99 degrees F, so I’m hoping for snow this time. We’ll travel around China for a bit, and the plan is to fly out of wherever has the cheapest flight into LAX in time for Christmas.

We’re coming back to the States for Christmas and we get to spend it with family in California! We’re super excited about this!

After Christmas, we’re going to hop a flight back to Florida in time to spend New Year’s in Key West! This used to be a yearly tradition for us, but we’ve fallen away from it. This year, we’re bringing it back! It’s a really fun time to be down there! If you don’t have plans yet, book a place, and hang out with us!

Last on the list of travel plans…..

After we rock out in Key West for New Year’s, we plan to come back and work for 6 weeks at home, and build up the cash reserves a bit more.

But then in February 2018, we head to Thailand! Surprisingly enough, we have never been! A gazillion backpackers have passed through, and it’s crazy that we haven’t traveled there yet. It’s been high on my list since my days learning Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing) as a kid. But now, we’re finally going! We’ll be starting the trip on another Habitat for Humanity build with some of our best friends!

After the build, we plan to explore Thailand for a while and then spread out somewhere else into SE Asia. We are hoping to spend the rest of that year on the road, but we’re not sure where. That’s exciting to think about! Where do you think we should go in 2018? Tell us in the comments below!