You might imagine that having our winter whereabouts firmly charted from November straight through to mid-March would be enough to satisfy any reasonable appetite for logistics. Most sensible people would settle back, look at a four-and-a-half-month deployment on the calendar, and let the dust settle.
Naturally, we do not operate that way. There are always multiple irons in the fire, and today we turned our attention in earnest to our annual June venture for 2027. Good planning starts early. We should be able to hit a whole lot of new while passing by a bit of what has been seen before.
Unlike this year, where we committed a solid, immersive month entirely within the contours of Morocco, June 2027 is shaping up as a split geographic study. In a bit of practical irony, we have already nailed down our return flights long before booking our departure. Several weeks of the journey are firmly anchored to a specific maritime line, while an equal stretch of time remains delightfully unsettled, open to rail lines, terrestrial whims, and spontaneous stitching.
Fitting those pieces together is where half the pleasure lives. To say that researching and plotting a trip rivals the joy of actually being there might border on mild hyperbole, but only just. Travel, for me, has always been fundamentally educational. It is an active exercise in observing how other societies spend their time, conduct their daily lives, and allocate their resources. It pulls one entirely outside the narrow confines of personal habit.
Mastering the terrain beforehand, learning the history, and solving the structural puzzle provides an intellectual satisfaction that luggage alone cannot offer. Yet logistics are a living thing; while the foundation is laid at a desk, the most rewarding connective tissue is often forged on the fly, mid-journey, when local ground truth takes over.
There is also an undeniable urgency that creeps into the exercise as the years advance. Ticking off genuine bucket-list locales takes on a sharper, more deliberate importance when you recognize the calendar isn't infinite. None of us are hanging about forever. The impetus to see what remains unseen becomes more pressing, but the pursuit remains just as sweet.