The Plan B Adventure

One week ’til Bon Voyage and things are a little hectic. Nothing like some last minute franticness to get us ready for the Indian train depot or the streets of Ho Chi Minh. If you are wondering what we’re talking about let me summarize:

– Tuesday – Jeff has root canal for recently (around Xmas) cracked tooth. Still is aching and two more dentist visits still left
– Thursday – No passports. Sent to Uzbek embassy before New Year’s and still not back. Not the smartest move but we needed the Visa prior to arrival. Can’t get a hold of anyone!!!! AAAAHHH!
– Last 28 days – Nonstop down pouring of Chicago-like rain in Seattle. Driving everywhere to obtain last minute items is seriously getting on our nerves. If you are one of the people we told that Seattle is great, the rain always burns off by 2PM, we apologize. We were wrong. It is miserable here yet might help us acclimate to the rainy season in SE Asia.

What are we doing to calm our nerves (besides Jeff grinding his teeth) ???? We are having a great time hanging out with friends and family whom we haven’t been able to spend this type of time with since 2000. We are attempting to connect with our Chicago friends and chat with them which offers some semblence of normalcy to which we have been use to for the past five years. But the most exciting was our guest appearance to the K-1 and 2nd graders at McAuliffe Elementary. We had a captive audience of 20-30 youngsters who blistered us with Dateline NBC-like questions (and stories) for over a half hour. Remember when you were six and all you wanted to do was tell big people everything you knew……..here are a few of the highlights of their comments (pics to post later)….

– Why did you decide to travel around the world? (Great question)
– Once when we were in British Columbia I saw a ghost in my hotel room (Good story, thank you)
– How much is it going to cost? (Good Question) (Student guesses: $400, $600, $1,245.21….hilarious)
– My dad has the same pants as you (Thanks)
– (My question to the kids) How many of your speak a foreign language? Everyone raised their hands!!! Very funny!

So I’m sure you all are wondering how the packing and planning is going. Well, everything has been purchased and I expect to provide a snapshot of our pack contents in the next few days. It’s amazing how it all adds up. The planning is done and we are ready to get on the road and see what the world brings……….once our passports show up!!!

When do you leave? What is your first destination? Which way do you go? These are a few of the questions that Jeff and I have heard everytime we mention our adventure. So…….how do you determine these answers and what your priorities are for seeing the ENTIRE world? A little overwhelming when you have to get serious and really let yourself think about it……

We have done research on the web, asked around, and talked with experts (thanks Russ) to begin pulling together our preliminary itinerary. We have about 8 months to see as much of the world as we can. We’ve determined that New Zealand, Australia, and Western Europe will be visited on future trips. Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, S. America, and C. America will be our focus (pretty big focus, we know). Our objectives are to see many of the famous sights you’ve all heard of (Angkor Wat, the Silk Road, Machu Picchu) as well as creating an individual experience of our own in those remote, unknown areas we are going to love sharing stories about.

As most of you know I (Becca) appreciate things being very organized and love spreadsheets. We took each continent and put them into Excel and listed every country in each region. From there we began eliminating countries that were unsafe to visit and others that offer a similar cultural experience to those which we preferred to visit. What an amazing list!!!! Don’t worry you’ll see it soon.

We contacted a couple of travel agents to help us with our RTW ticket before finding Airtreks.com. We read on several blogs that Airtreks offers great service and expertise in the area of RTW travel. It is important to Jeff and I to work with an individual/agency that shares in our excitement for this trip of a lifetime and whom will be a point of contact for us while on our adventure. And then we finally met…….Deborah!!! She is so excited about our plans and has an entire desk of travel experts to coordinate with in order to help us plan our trip. Stay tuned as we work through all the details and come up with OUR WORLD TOUR………

Okay so we've got a framework for the countries we are going to visit. This allows us to get started on our much-needed immunizations. As we discovered we are fortunate to still live in a city like Chicago where Northwestern ... [Continue reading this entry]