The De Jager Family’s RTW Adventure

This will be our home for 28 days of our stay in the USA.  We’ll travel approx. 4000 miles in this baby - the beds had better be comfortable… (we got this booked for US$135 per day including taxes, insurance, comfort kits and unlimited mileage.  I am absolutely delighted!)

Well my Wife’s enthusiasm, courage and drive has finally paid off,  she has drawn me out of the well called ‘home renovating’ and into the world of travel, I finally got down to the business of planning the first leg of our trip, or at least the first draft.
 Cramming the USA into 4 weeks; this will have to be the title of my first book and a bestseller at that if we can pull it off. New York to LA the long way around, would also work. We have hired a Mobile home probably modest by American standards but 31ft of Motor home across the Smokey Mountain pass without any barriers and on the wrong side of the road by my standards is rather large.
 The first draft of the route plan is as follows, please keep in mind that I have spent precisely 2 hours behind the wheel of my ‘Lonely planet guide book’ so I see myself as quite the professional, but any comments and guidance would be considered at this stage, or at least till draft 2 comes out. The idea is to head out of New York and drive South, taking in Washington DC, onto Paramount King’s Domain where we will let the kids run riot for a couple of days. Then we are going to take just a fraction less time than the mighty North took to defeat the South in heading through Civil War country and then the race is on to the Blue Ridge parkway and one of the nearby Parks. We are going to tiptoe quietly through West Virginia avoiding any re-enactments of ‘Deliverance’ and head towards Tennessee where we will pay homage to the King.
 And that is as far as my late night candle burning has gotten me; somehow I still want to see Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco and end up in LA with enough time to take in Warner studios and Disney Land. My feelings on this matter is, that to achieve all this in the timescales we have we will have to trade the Motor home in and hire a Pontiac firebird….but all that later.
  If anyone out there has anything they wish to add please feel free, I would love to have any comments and ideas as to this plan and any additional sites and sounds that we should take in along this route.
 Kind regards and travel safe
The Dad

After months of agonising we have finally decided that we are going around the world with our two little boys.  Our oldest son is 4 years old and our youngest is just 18 months old.
We’ve bitten the bullet and spent £4600 on four RTW tickets.  We leave the UK on 8th May 06.  I can’t quite believe it’s booked.
We are now faced with the task of investigating our itinerary in detail.  At this stage all we really know is that we’ll be going to the USA, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, China, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand and that we’ll be gone for around 6 months.
Holy Cow - we are actually going to do this!!!!!

There is just more to do than I can get to grips with… holy cow (again).

Ok - if I think things through, I have done quite a bit:

1- School - Our eldest son is in his reception year at school.  I’ve let them know we are going - it’s a start.  Now all I have to do is teach myself to be a teacher to a small and sometimes stroppy 4 year old.  Ha!

2 -House.  This is quite something, considering it’s only half built at present.  Our renovations have taken just a wee bit longer than anticipated.  I think it’ll only have been finished for about a month when we go.  That was a piece of planning genius (worrying seeing that I am a Project Manager)?

3 - Pets.  This is my biggest worry, that my two beloved cats will need to go into a cattery for six months, I am looking at the best one in town this week.

4 - Packing - pass!

5 - First Aid - have spoken to the paediatrician and got this bit sorted.  As for the rest, pass (again).

6 - Considering I haven’t been in my job a year, I don’t think they are going to take took kindly to my resignation.  I will be covering this delightful task next week.

So all in all, some progress.