THE INTRODUCTION TO THE INTRODUCTION

 In which plans are laid, consisting mainly of spreadsheets and an invincible confidence borne of profound yet unexamined ignorance

There is no shortage of complicated Things to be considered when planning an undertaking of this magnitude.  And each of those Things contains any number of smaller, yet somehow equally complicated Things embedded within it.  A sort of fractal Thing-array, if you will.  And each Thing, sub-Thing, and sub-sub-Thing* could lead to anything from mild inconvenience to complete and utter disaster if forgotten or badly addressed.

So I expect that this is all gonna work out just fine.

Because there are so many Things to introduce to you, the Introduction (in which we are about to find ourselves) will be broken up into several posts so as to preserve both the reader's attention span and my own typing tendons.  These posts will (presumably) fall into orderly formation as per their solemn orders:

Introduction I: Why The Grand Detour?

• Why retire now?
• Why leave Oregon?
• Why not just pick a place and go?

Introduction II: What Are We Looking For?

• Retirement criteria
• How we'll evaluate places
• The shortlist
• Language considerations

Introduction III: The Plan

• The itinerary
• Why slow travel
• Trains and ships
• How long we expect to travel

Introduction IV: The Money Question

• Retirement budget
• Travel budget
• Cost assumptions
• How we're paying for this

Introduction V: Practical Matters

• Healthcare
• Medications
• Passports
• Visas
• Mail
• Phones
• Banking
• Contingency plans

If there's an aspect of the trip planning you don't see here, feel free to suggest it in the comments.  We may well address it.  Or we may just twirl our evil mustaches** and cackle malignly while plotting your downfall... but you won't know unless you try!

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* It is, of course, turtles all the way down.

** Shannon has to rent one for these occasions.