Our favorite parts about this open-ended travel journey so far are the reactions, conversations and questions we hear from the people we tell. Nearly everyone we talk to asks us why we decided to do this, how we managed to get it all figured out and what our plans are, so I think it's a good idea to address all that now.  Hopefully this will expose the method behind our madness.  There were a lot of decisions, preparation and researching that went into this trip and while I could write a wordy novel on all the "Wappos" (bizarre coincidences that can only be explained by the possibility that you've living on an ancient Indian burial ground) that led us to where we are now,  for the sake of attention spans everywhere, I will break it down into two sections: The How and The What (for The Why see the About Us section!).  I'll start with The How. 

1. How we decided to go anywhere at all. 

It all started here. We had to officially, consciously and seriously decide to go.  It sounds simple, but this is a lot harder than one may think and is the single most important part of the process.  We could have wanted, hoped and dreamed of open-ended travel  across the wine regions of the world forever, and dreams are great, but if we were serious about the idea, then we needed to make a conscious decision to do it. It wasn't until this was done, that our trip became a reality. Big Moment (sigh).

2. How we decided to go to Argentina.

Having finally made the decision to pack it all up and become Vagabonds, the next step was  to figure just where and when to start our journey.  We made a list of every place we wanted to visit in general and then a separate list of the wine regions we were excited about.  We selected the countries that were on both lists and organized them based on how far our limited dollars would stretch in each place. After that, we checked into what vineyards, wineries and  people we knew in each region, any potential work opportunities, what languages were spoken, general safety, and the proximity to other areas of interest.  By doing this we created a pre-qualified list of wine-producing countries we wanted to explore and a very loose itinerary for our trip. We finally came to the conclusion that we wanted to start in the up-and-coming, Dollar friendly wine regions of Argentina and South America, and then move into the quintessential Old World chateaus of Europe. 

3. How we decided when to set off.

This is when it got real; setting our official departure date sealed the whole deal and was when our dream finally broke from the ether and into reality.  We made sure to give ourselves at least a year to save and plan, but other than that we knew we wanted to start our travels when it was warm. After researching weather conditions in Argentina, we decided that January 2011 was perfect for our time frame and Arizona blood!

Check out  "The How Part 2: How We Found the Money to Vagabond"