Regrets, I’ve had a few

“No plan survives contact with the enemy” -Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Already, I am finding things that I did wrong on this trip, so I am going to capture them as I think of them.

Packing
My luggage is constrained by: length of trip; varying baggage limits across airlines; and the potential need to hump it all myself. Even so it can be hard to manage all of my bags at once.Thus far I have only used the new duffel in rolling mode and not used the backpack straps. I have stuff I haven’t used one yet, and some stuff i doubt I ever will.
I’m carrying sound some beach sandals that I don’t even know where I though I would need them. Even if there was somewhere they could might be useful, I could have have waited to buy something cheap on the spot and tossed them before moving on.
I have active noise cancelling headphones that I use on planes. They work well, but since I bought a business class around-the-world ticket, most airlines are supplying them anyway so I could have left these at home. In general they are bulky, so I should replace them with some in-ear noise cancelling earphone, as long as they come wiht a good case. My everyday earphones get beat up so bad they rarely last more than a few months.

Planning
By turns I am suffering from too much and too little planning. I finely honed my air travel plans to line up with tours, but I still missed some obvious things. For example, I actually knew someone from Melbourne form before I planned the trip, but I somehow let the plans slip so the one place I no longer end up in is Melbourne.
Also, the places where I’m on my own I feel really behind. I picked up some days tours in Adelaide with the help of the concierge desk, but they’re not that great. I have better choices in London, I have only one day in Sydney, but I have the potential to blow it in Zurich. I’m there many days but I’m on my own in a non-English speaking city.

On the other hand, I made the point to some of my other tour-goers from Japan that if I continued to plan I would still be planning to this day and I would have never left.

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