Plans

I leave in about three weeks for my next big adventure: six weeks in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. I’ve received my final documents from Overseas Adventure Travel, so I can now share all the details of my trip.

I’m taking two back-to-back OAT tours. The first is Egypt and the Eternal Nile; the second is Israel: The Holy Land and Timeless Cultures. This tour includes an optional pre-trip extension to Jordan and a post-trip extension to Palestine.

I like to say that if I’m not currently traveling, I’m busy planning my next trip(s).

In this case, I have three upcoming trips in the next thirteen months, and possibly will squeeze in one or two more.

Here’s a preview.

My next trip is a five-week adventure in Scotland. I’ll be traveling independently, mostly by train, and looking forward to enjoying great scenery, hiking, and relaxation.

My trip is scheduled for late April and all of May. This is the hottest time in my corner of Mexico, so I was eager to find somewhere cooler to get away. I think Scotland will offer cool temperatures. It will probably rain; I hope not too much.

My first adventure of 2023, a visit to Panama and Colombia, is just over a week away.

I had planned to visit Colombia as part of my trip to Machu Picchu and the Galápagos last year. Overseas Adventure Travel had an optional post-trip extension to Colombia for that tour, and I signed up for it. But they canceled the extension. So I started looking for an opportunity to visit Colombia on my own. And now it’s about to happen!

With just nine days until I leave, I’ve settled on my final itinerary.

An itinerary is a constantly moving target. Things can happen, change is often necessary, and flexibility is absolutely essential.

Since I posted my original itinerary, things have happened, change has been necessary, and flexibility has come in handy. Some of the changes were based on decisions I made, and others were the result of things that were outside my control. And I added a number of activities to fill in some of the empty spaces.

At the end of my last post I was in Akhaltsikhe, Georgia, and heading to Armenia. Here’s my plan for my four days there.

When last you heard from me, I was leaving Tbilisi, Georgia, on Day 26 of my trip to Turkey and the Caucasus. So I will pick it up there.

As I mentioned in Part One, I made some changes to my itinerary. I have decided to cut Batumi, the Black Sea resort city I was planning to visit. Read on to learn more about why. 

I left off on Day 20 of my upcoming five-week adventure to Turkey and the Caucasus. I was traveling across the border from Azerbaijan to Georgia, so I’ll pick it up from there. 

I’m spending a total of eleven nights in Georgia, and that’s a lot to cover. So this post is about the first five days. I’ll do a part two soon.

My trip to Turkey and the Caucasus includes five nights in Azerbaijan: four in Baku, the capital city, and one in the mountain town of Sheki, in the northwest of the country. The basic itinerary is set, but I have a lot of day-tour options I still need to decide on.

I am using the same day numbering here as I used in my last posts. I arrive in Azerbaijan on Day 15 of my trip, so I’ll start from there.

The Caucasus — Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia — have never been on my radar, much less on my bucket list.

So why am I going?