From Portfolio to a Working Itinerary

Forming an itinerary for long travel can be one of the most challenging aspects of the trip. Don’t expect to sit down and get it done in a day. And don’t expect that once it is done that it’s done for good. There are a tremendous number of factors that may influence your ultimate decisions. Keep an open mind and stay flexible.

Today we’re going to start wrangling all of the information that you’ve been saving in your World Portfolio into broad categories. Breaking it into pieces will help further organize and prioritize your destinations.

If you took a look at Our World Portfolio, you’ll see that Tim used the easiest method to break down our list: divide by continent. It’s a natural system to turn to and has the advantage of grouping close geographic locations together which tends to be a money saver.

It’s not the only way, however. Our Family Gap Year list started with the continent categories and then got further broken down. We had a family goal: to hike to Everest Base Camp. To achieve it, we needed practice hiking at high altitude, hiking long distances, and hiking multi-day treks. Going back to our continent list, the easiest place to design an itinerary around a single activity was South America.

Here are some other ways to organize your portfolio into manageable pieces: