Planning Session, the first bit

As with all our road trips, they are kicked off with a pub-based planning session. The venue for this one was The Yard in Cardiff – just 5 minutes away from Chris's place. I'd been carrying around a huge Atlas all day, as well as 1 pager summaries of more than 10 possible adventures. The plan for the meeting was to:

- Compare "mission statements" (very businesslike, but actually a good way to check we want the same thing from the trip)
- Check possible timings
- Determine whether anyone else was coming along
- Decide which adventure to take on

A pretty full agenda to get through in just 3.5 hours; but we romped through it with time to spare.
First we established that we both pretty much wanted the same thing from our next adventure. Basically taking on what seems like an impossible or unlikely challenge, traversing a continent in a very bog standard vehicle, making sure there's plenty of mountains, rivers and remote/scary places thrown in for good measure, but also a town or two so we can unwind with a few beers every few days.

Timings wise we settled on September or November this year, with hinderences and benefits of both. We decided to be led by our choice of adventure – basically to go at whatever time it will be hotter in the continent of choice.

In terms of who is involved in the trip, it is just Chris and I at the moment. Our travel-buddy Dave can't make this trip, which is a real shame – both trips I've done previously have been lit up by Dave's company, but he needs to sit this one out. That's the problem with work and restrictive annual leave entitlements – they're the enemy of epic road trip fans (although we have to concede that our employment funds the trips and our employers give us the time off needed, so we can't really grumble). We agreed to make our plans and then if anyone else ends up joining in then fine, but ther logistics are impossible enough as it is, without involving a third party.
So then we got on to the important business. The choice of adventure. That part definitely warrants its own post.