After our amazing honeymoon in St. Lucia, all we could think about was the next time we could travel, so we picked up where we left off with the Epic Adventure planning. I had another bucket list item of visiting Africa and was doing anything I could to research how we could possibly do that. At the time it really wasn’t even close to a reality, but was fun to research and think about. We were researching volunteer organizations and unfortunately found that they cost money to volunteer. We were looking at stuff all over the world because we were quite intrigued by this distant possibility of going really big on our trip. One day we stumbled upon Madagascar and a marine conservation volunteer program. Kara and I both love the ocean and wildlife, with all of the endemic species Madagascar has it seemed to be the perfect place to see creatures rarely seen off the island, as well as the perfect place for an Epic Adventure. Looking at this trip logically we realized that the cost of a Europe trip was going to be exponentially more than the Africa or Thailand portions. We made a decision to hold off on Europe. It will likely always be there for use to visit later in life when we may think differently about Africa or Thailand.

We spent several months researching airfares and RTW (Round the World) tickets. After many hours of research we were hit by the anchor of reality and acknowledged that we did not have the time to budget all the funds for a wild year long trip. We looked for ways to save and how we could maximize our time abroad. We were on the search to get the most bang for our buck!