Preparation: Planning the Route

This video shows the route we plan on taking; Steve is using the Microsoft Silverlight control to map our path:

We've picked this path to include towns that we believe have the characteristics we are looking of in our next home. In my next post I'll describe what some of those characteristics are. We fill in between these key stops with towns that are at an easy day's drive and which we think may have some potential as well. We add in a family visit and some scenic destinations like Yosemite, and we have a walkabout.

We have estimated the bare minimum amount of time required to cover this path with two day stops in the target destinations, and the total time required is 21 days. Since we have approximately 4 weeks for the trip, that leaves 7 days of 'slack' time. The real flexibility in our walkabout is to allocate these seven days to any place that really connects with us. By knowing our slack time we can manage our schedule without planning everything out - once we've used up our seven extra days, we have to pretty much head home as directly as possible.

We're committed to making reservations no more than one day in advance, except for places with limited hotel availability such as National Parks. We'll give our friends and family an estimated time when we'll arrive and keep them updated as we progress. We really want to maintain our flexibility as much as possible, keeping to the spirit of a 'walkabout'.