How (and Why) I Made Sabbatical Itinerary Changes Mid-Trip

Less than two months into my sabbatical, my itinerary went through a major plot twist. Making adjustments as you go is part of long-term travel. Having Admin Days built into your schedule is a huge help, but I know you might still be nervous about how last-minute changes work. Here’s how (and why) I made some huge sabbatical itinerary changes in the middle of my summer along the Mediterranean.

Why abandon my original sabbatical itinerary?

A keystone of my original sabbatical itinerary was renting an apartment in Istanbul for the month of October. The metaphorical gateway to the east, Turkey’s largest city seemed a perfect place to close the European chapter of my trip. And it was so important to me to have a place I could slow down after spending a few months on the road.

Many of my family and friends couldn’t believe I even had Turkey on my itinerary. In 2016, the threat of terrorism was high on people’s minds. But the State Department only warned against travel in certain areas of the country, far from Istanbul. I think there’s a clear line between caution and paranoia. I wasn’t about to rule out an entire country months in advance. I told myself I’d keep a close eye on the news and make a decision in August.

Then, of course, August rolled around and the State Department wasn’t just advising tourists to rethink their travel plans. They began recommending families of government officials leave the country. Two attacks on the airport and an attempted military coup in Istanbul had everyone on high alert.

I want to be very clear, I am NOT suggesting that Istanbul or Turkey are unsafe destinations. Nor am I trying to discourage you from including them on your own sabbatical itinerary. I weighed the risks at a specific moment in time and decided it was best to redirect my plans.

So it was settled: I needed to pivot to Plan B. I knew I was making the right call when I got a full refund from Airbnb within two minutes. They wouldn’t have coughed up the cash so readily if things weren’t serious.

I knew going into my sabbatical that I might need to re-route at some point. But there’s a big difference between that hypothetical and the reality of having to make last-minute travel plans while you’re on the road.

 

So how do you make last-minute sabbatical itinerary changes?

I’m very lucky to be a traveler in the 21st century. Having the internet at my disposal made planning last-minute travel about as painless as it can be. Really, the most difficult thing is making decisions on short notice.

So here was my thought process in rearranging my itinerary.

First order of business was cancelling my reservation with Airbnb. Normally, long-term reservations are not refundable, so I had to call customer service. The safety concerns at the time in Istanbul qualified as an extenuating circumstance, so I did get my money back. Had I gone through the typical online cancellation process, that wouldn’t have been the case.

Once I had my money returned, I had two options: Should I pick a different city in which to spend the month of October? Or should I completely rearrange the remaining two and a half months of my European travels?

The former choice seemed like a simpler solution. But I had a lot of trouble thinking of a place where I would want to spend a full month.

I toyed with the idea of staying in Athens longer than I originally planned. But that could mean going over my allowed time in the Schengen Area. The same problem prevented me from going to cities like Berlin, Vienna, or Prague.

Settling down for such a long time in a place like Bulgaria or Romania – countries I knew very little about – seemed like too big a risk.

Then I remembered how many times in the past few weeks I had mentioned wanting to go back to England. I loved my study abroad program in Bath and there was still so much in UK I hadn’t seen. I didn’t include it in my original sabbatical itinerary because of how expensive it is, but then Brexit took an immediate a toll on the economy.

The Backpacker Index went from listing London at $100 a night on the strictest budget to just over $80 a night, about the same daily cost as Reykjavik, where I began my sabbatical.

I couldn’t think of anywhere else in Europe I’d rather settle down for a full month.

As an added bonus, it would be easy for me to get a flight from London to Delhi in November.

Destination selected, the next step of my sabbatical itinerary change was tackling the logistics of my stay.

I first searched Airbnb for properties in Bath, where my college program was based, but there weren’t any close enough to my ideal budget of $500. The same was true of Edinburgh, but I found a shared apartment just outside London at less than $700 for the month. It was more than I had planned on spending, but under last-minute circumstances I determined it was my best option.

Booking that rental for October also meant I could keep my August and September itineraries relatively unchanged.

Once I had the reservation, I went to book an overnight ferry from Italy to Croatia, as I had  planned. It was then that I came to a not-so-shocking conclusion: Croatian is hard. Even with an assist from Google Translate, I had a really difficult time navigating that website. So I went through another round of last-minute sabbatical itinerary changes.

Adapting plans on the fly

It’s naturally important to be flexible when you’re making last-minute travel plans, but having preferred vendors can be a huge help on the convenience front.

As much as I love using Rome2Rio to plot out overland travel, after a few weeks on the road, I knew Flixbus would have inexpensive, comfortable buses throughout the continent. So for this part of planning, I started booking directly on their site.

(Note: I was only partially right about this. I was able to book on Flixbus, but it turns out in Croatia, they outsource to other operators.)

When I was first sketching out my Mediterranean summer, I had toyed with the idea of visiting Ljubljana, Slovenia. With a direct ferry to Croatia now off the table, I could return to that multi-day bus route.

I traveled back up the length of Italy and crossed into Ljubljana before coming down the Dalmatian Coast.

Having stopped briefly in Rome and Florence on this trip, I thought I’d check out routes from Salerno to Milan. Found one, booked one. I also booked a stop in Venice before my bus to Ljubljana.

I consulted my original itinerary to keep the timing on track. I wanted to be in Greece by my birthday on September 10.

The old plan was to take three days to get from the Amalfi Coast to the Bay of Kotor. I’d spend five days in Montenegro before crossing into Croatia. There I’d spend five nights each in Dubrovnik and Split.

The new plan used two of those early travel days on Milan and Venice. That left 16 days for the four cities on my list: three from the old itinerary plus Ljubljana.

To keep from losing too much time this early, I booked just three nights at a hostel in Slovenia. Rome2Rio showed me a bus ride from Ljubljana to Split would be a solid 8 to 9 hours, so I thought I’d break that up with a night in Zagreb, the Croatian capital. Finding a newly opened hostel in an atomic bunker sealed the deal.

Those arrangements made booking four nights each in the remaining cities on my itinerary a simple solution. For the sake of ease, I booked accommodations only through Hostelworld. I sort results by price and look for places that have at least a 7/10 in all categories. I read reviews very thoroughly and pay special attention to those written by women in their 20s.

My refreshed Balkan itinerary

• Take an overnight bus to Milan and another bus to Venice
• One night in Venice
• Take a bus to Slovenia
• Three nights in Ljubljana
• Take a bus to Croatia
• One night in Zagreb
• Take a bus to the Dalmatian coast
• Four nights in Split
• Another short bus ride down the coast
• Four nights in Dubrovnik
• Take a bus or ferry to Montenegro (not booked in advance)
• Four nights in Kotor
• Bus to Bosnia and Herzegovina
• A couple nights each in Mostar and Sarajevo
• Bus to Serbia
• Three nights in Belgrade
• Short flight to Greece
• Two weeks in Athens
• Ferry to Santorini for a week
• Fly to Heathrow
• Month in London