Planning the Adventure of a Life-Time

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Helen Molloy
L’art d’être tantôt très audacieux et tantôt très prudent est l’art de réussir.

The art of being both bold and prudent is the art of success.

Napoléon Bonaparte

If Lewis wanted to have an enjoyable trip then he needed to be both adventurous and careful. Or as one of Lewis’ best friends, had often told him, “Fail to prepare; prepare to fail!” With this thought in mind, Lewis had a lot of planning and preparation to do before his big journey.

Firstly, the most important thing of all, he needed to work out how much money he had to pay for his journey. He was going to have to budget carefully if he was to fulfil his dream of travelling to lots of different countries.

Lewis calculates his budget

Luckily for Lewis, as we know he is one very lucky lion, he was travelling with his friend, Helen, who had managed to save money from working hard in her job. Helen had always told Lewis that it was important to “work hard and play hard”. Without working hard, you couldn’t then go on to enjoy the fun things in life like being able to afford to pay for things, for example nice holidays. Lewis felt extremely lucky to have a friend like Helen to accompany him on his journey!

To help accumulate some extra funds, Lewis helped Helen in a decluttering exercise. He woke up early one Sunday morning and helped Helen fill up her car: they were off to a carboot sale! They displayed their items on a fold-out table and hoped for some customers. January probably wasn’t a good time of year for to try to sell things as it was so cold that some of their goods even started to frost over as they lay there. There weren’t too many cutomers but luckily for Lewis it did mean that he was able to sell a pair of gloves to a lady who had forgotten hers!  Can you spot Lewis as he tries to sell things in his carboot sale?

Lewis selling his goods at a carboot sale

Have you ever done a carboot sale before?

Lewis knew that his adventure wouldn’t be like going on a posh holiday where he’d get to stay in a fancy hotel and eat meals in extravagant restaurants. He would be travelling on a shoestring! Have you heard of that strange expression before? It means that he had a “limited budget or a small amount of money” so he’d be doing things as cheaply as possible. Lewis was going to have to be very careful about how he spent his money. Therefore, he would be staying in basic accommodation such as youth hostels and he would be buying his food in supermarkets and preparing it himself. Lewis didn’t really mind this as he thought it might be more fun anyway, especially if he had to share a bedroom or dormitory with lots of different people in the hostels; people who were travelling from lots of different countries like Lewis himself. Lewis wondered how many different people he might meet on his travels and made a mental note to himself that he would try to keep a record of all of the different nationalities of people that he met en route.

So, the first thing that Lewis did after he dreamed his big dream was that he knew he would have to do some serious research. He started off by studying the world atlas…

Lewis carefully researches the countries he would like to visit

and then bought a guide book called “A Rough Guide to: First Time Around the World – A Trip Planner for the Ultimate Journey.”

Lewis laps up all the information in his guide book

This book was crammed full of good advice and information for people who wanted to embark on their own global journeys. Lewis couldn’t believe it when he read that the world population is over 6.5 billion or that there are over six thousand languages spoken! Oh how he was going to have fun meeting so many different people and trying to learn so many different languages!

Lewis then consulted with some of his well-travelled friends who also had stories of adventures and tips for what to do and things to avoid in some of the countries he was going to visit. He then continued his research on the internet where he was able to read about other people adventures on travel blogs.

The next thing that Lewis did was made a list of all of the things that he wanted to do or see on his journey. He knew realistically that he could never see every corner of the globe so he made a note of the most important places he wanted to go to, e.g. Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to see the famous Mardi Gras Carnival and The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. (You can see Lewis’ full list of where he would really like to visit on the home page).

After he’d done this, he had to go to the travel agents who could help him to book his flights and travel insurance.

He spent a lot of time talking to a lovely travel agent, Caroline, who did her best to see if she could arrange Lewis’ perfect round-the-world trip which would involve lots of different flights. His whole journey would take exactly a year! He would leave on 14th February 2012 (Valentine’s Day!) and fly back home to the UK on 13th February 2013. He discovered that unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be able to visit “everywhere” on this particular journey as it would simply cost too much money. Lewis was a little bit disappointed as he would have loved to have travelled to Japan, China, Russia and many countries in Africa and Europe as well but Lewis had to be realistic and work within his budget. When he thought about it, he didn’t really mind that he wouldn’t be able to go everywhere this time. Lewis was already thinking that there would be other opportunities throughout his life to go off travelling. After all, he was only a “little” lion and he had his whole life ahead of him. Who knows what other adventures lay ahead of him in the future…? And maybe he would continue to have “itchy feet!” That’s another strange expression. Do you know what it means? It means someone who has a constant thirst for adventure and travel; in other words someone who always loves travelling and who wants to leave and visit lots of different places.

Once the ticket had been bought, there was one more thing that Lewis needed to sort out: something that he wasn’t looking forward to but it was a necessary evil! He had to go and speak to a lovely nurse called Sally who advised him about the vaccinations he would need before his trip. He would need the following injections to protect him from picking up a deadly disease when he was away: i) Hepatitis A and Typhoid Fever, ii) Diptheria, Tetanus and Polio, iii) Rabies, iv) Hepatitis B and v) Yellow Fever. The injections made his arm sore for a few days but the nurse told him not to worry as this was a good sign that the body was fighting the infection.

Lewis wants to avoid being bitten by pesky mosquitoes

He then also had to take special anti-malarial tablets. Some mosquitos carry a deadly disease called Malaria and by taking these tablets it would reduce his risk of him contracting this disease. Sally also advised Lewis to take an insect-repellent spray which contained a special ingredient called Deet. Lewis hoped that he wouldn’t get bitten too many times when travelling abroad as from past experience he knew the mosquitos generally seemed to love him and have a party whenever he was in town! (One time when Lewis had visited Venice in Italy, he was bitten so many times that it looked like he had chickenpox!) He even bought some very special clothing which had insect-repellent sewn into the fabric: a pair of convertible trousers and shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. Lewis thought that the scientists who had had invented this had come up with a really clever idea!

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