Planning the trip

As I have planned this trip, I have utilized many travel blogs, forums, travel websites, and guide books. I would like to share the highlights of how I've hacked together a itinerary. In my rough draft stage, I knew I wanted a destination that was a good bang for the buck. I was willing to save up the funds, but wanted to find a place where I could splurge with what I had. I found G Adventures, an adventure travel company with a great website to browse tours throughout the world. Their detailed itineraries make a great rough draft. Nomad List was also a good reference for how expensive different regions of the world are for tourists.

For finding flights I used Hipmunk, the great thing about this site is that they sort flights based on "agony". Agony is based upon all factors such as layover time, the time of departure and arrival and price. When I found the flight I wanted I went directly to the airline's website to book it. Direct flights to the country are only flown by United and Air India -- So United it was.

There are so many great travel blogs covering every corner of India, but my favorite has been Hippie in Heels. It's written by a nurse from Ohio who left her job to travel. She solo backpacked though India and ended up moving to Goa, one of my destinations. She has some great stories and very good guides for all over the world. I would recommend reading her This is India series of posts, she gives you good insight on everyday life in India.  

Since India is 10.5 hours ahead of us (on the east coast, 13.5 for you, David), I was concerned about jet lag. I was referred to Stop Jet Lag. For $35 they create a custom plan for transitioning your body through the time zones. I have to say I thought it sounded stupid but have been very impressed. They tell you everything from the size of your meals, to exposure of bright light, intake of caffeine, and, of course, sleep schedule. I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works.

One of the many tips from Stop Jet Lag was to use noise cancelling headphones for the long flights. This started my research on headphones. While I am not a big fan of Bose, most reviews of other brands state that they work well but just aren't as great as Bose. But, there was no way I was going to spend $300 on a pair of Bose headphones that I will most likely not use after my trip. I read the reviews of Bose's current model the "QuietComfort 25". Many reviews said that the new model is about the same as the previous QuietComfort 15's in terms of noise cancellation. So I headed over to ebay. After a few days of loosing bids (in the final 5 seconds), I won a great set for $140. I have to say that they are very impressive on mechanical noise cancellation.

My final tip for this planning post: if you are a tourist in India, you must have enough passport photos to give two to each place you stay, as well as a few extra for other things such as getting a sim card for your phone. Apparently, the Indian government keeps track of tourists. Each hotelier keeps one of your photos and the other is sent to the local police station. While it sounds like a pain, I think it makes a lot of since. To make sure I had enough photos, I took a picture of myself (thanks, Jim) and Photoshopped it to a 2x2 to create a standard 4x6 picture with multiple me's. I put it on a thumb drive and had my local pharmacy print 4 sheets. After cutting them out, I now have 24 passport pictures for less than $3.

The countdown is currently at 37 days! I hope you enjoyed my tips.