But I do something similar — I plan holidays!

Exam period is coming up — that means it’s time to procrastinate, which means I’ll be making more holiday plans…

Pick a place, any place. Preferrably somewhere far far away, ideally one with lots of temperature extremes and unfamiliar surroundings. For example, Vladivostok.

Now that you have a destination, do some research. Find out what the climate is like, the culture, language, local customs, dress. Then think about what you would need to take with you to survive indefinitely. Look at some maps, imagine what it would be like to travel there. What you would do in a crisis situation, would you know where things are?

Think about limitations in the size of baggage that you can carry, whether you want to stay at hotels, hostels or even rent a place. Find out about the labour market. Find out about the kind of vaccinations you will have to take before you go there. Check the DFAT website for information of safety and terrorism, the bigger the treat the more exciting.

Think about all the things you will need to take and all the space you DON’T have to pack it. Plan your options with regard to what you can and can’t wash. How quickly your laundry turnaround will be. Have contingency plans, what if you can’t get to a power point? what if there’s no running water for a while? Calculate how long you can survive ‘out of the pack’ as it were.

Consider the weight of your baggage. Calculate practicality to expense ratios. Will you need some luxury items? Plan your trip. Plan for things going wrong and how you will deal with them. Calculate response times to different emergencies.

Now, write all this stuff down and put it away some place safe. Theoretically, if I said to you tomorrow “Joan, we must go to Vladivostok on Friday, I don’t know how long for”. You would know exactly what to do.

This way, if such an emergency were to come up, you would be prepared while everyone else is panicking and busy thinking about all that stuff that you’d already thought about. Hopefully, by then, your camera will be fixed but not yet obsolete so you can take many photos of your wonderful adventure.