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New Toy

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

On a lot of the travel forums and message boards there are debates about whether to take a laptop or not on this type of extended trip. I know there are internet cafes just about everywhere, but I still feel like there are times when you just want to hang out in your hotel room and surf. The other key concerns people express about traveling with a laptop is the extra weight and potential for loss/theft/damage.

We found a cute little PC that addresses most of those worries. Our new Acer Aspire One is just 2.2 lbs and cost about $399 (so if anything happens to it, we’re not out huge $s). The keyboard is about 90% size, so while it’s not quite as comfortable as a “normal” PC, it’s much better than most of the mini PCs out there. It runs Windows, which means we can take along Skype, iTunes, and our camera software. We bought it now to start getting it up set up before we hit the road.

Aside from online bill paying and blogging, there’s the most critical reason we’re taking it… We can update our fantasy football lineups from anywhere in the world!  League members, be warned.

Along with this post, we’re also adding something new to the blog. There is now a “Gear List” along with the other permanent pages at the top right (below the Itinerary and FAQs). It’s not final, but we’ll be adding to it as we make final decisions about what goes and what stays.

  pc-compare.JPG

Posted in Gear, Planning, Travel | 2 Comments »

Zoom!

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

blue-angels3.JPG

 While our trip preparations are still progressing, we took some time out last weekend for a little getaway to Seattle.  We got to meet our adorable new nephew for the first time, as well as do a few other new things in the area.

Seafair was happening when we were there, so what better place to be than on the water?  Thanks to our brother-in-law, we spent a day on Lake Washington and got to see the Blue Angels performing right above our heads.    After that, it was down town to take in a Mariners game – our first time since the new stadium was built.

We also did a little wine tasting at the Columbia winery and took a tour of the Boeing plant.  The facility is amazing and huge!  The 787s are coming along nicely and I can’t wait to fly in one someday.  Supposedly the composites from which they are made will allow the cabin to be pressurized more comfortably, as well as having a higer level of humidity in the air.  Ahhhh.  Wish they were already in the skies for that long segment to Sydney that’s coming up. 

Finally, we couldn’t be in Seattle without visiting the mothership.  I’m talking about the REI flagship store.  It’s a RTW-trip-planner’s paradise with multiple floors of every possible type of gear.  We spent quite a few hours and quite a few dollars there.  I think we’re nearly done with our packing list – it’s shockingly small.  We made a lot of progess stocking up on lightweight, quick drying, wrinkle-free clothes that hopefully won’t make us look too much like we’re on a permanent safari.  I’ll be posting a gear list here in the near future for those of you who have asked. 

Posted in Planning, Travel | No Comments »

Doing Shots

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Normally this phrase associated with us would have conjured up visions of last call and tequila.  This week it had a different meaning – immunizations!

The trip planning seems to be in a lull right now.  Not everything can be as exciting as buying a one way plane ticket.  However, there are still a lot of things to tackle, even if they are not quite glamorous.  We’ve spent some time reading up on what shots are recommended for travelers.  There is a ton of information and opinions on the web about what you need.  Most of it seems by and for backpackers who have no money or health insurance. I even saw a “tradeoff” chart showing the likelihood of getting a disease and risk of death vs. the cost of the immunization.   Did you know that 200,000 people die from Typhoid every year?  (or so the brochure from the doctor’s office claims)

Thanks to good ol’ KP’s preventative care, we are were able to get our shots for almost nothing.  I did mine a while ago and Eric finished up this week with a pretty sore arm.  We’re now generally protected from Tetanus, Typhoid, Hepatitis A, and Polio, as well as having a stash of Malaria pills. 

Aside from reading about the variety of bad stuff that can happen when you’re traveling, we’ve also been checking country entry requirements.  It turns out we’ll only need 3 visas for the whole trip.  We got the one for Australia online.  Our passports are en route back from the Indian consulate with Visas.  (Is it just me or is it really unnerving to put your passport in the mail?)  Finally, we can get the one for Egypt on arrival there. 

Shots and visas are fairly minor things, but they felt like progress this week!

Posted in Planning, Travel | 1 Comment »

Game Day is November 1st

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

It’s official…  we booked our plane tickets!  We are now the proud owners of two LAX-Sydney-Carins-Alice Springs-Perth-Sydney-Bangkok-Mumbai-Hong Kong-Dubai-Cairo-London-Miami-LAX tickets.   While we celebrated the purchase with a great Napa cab, it really hasn’t sunk in yet that we are actually committed now to going.

Our decision on what type of tickets to get has been a huge open question for such a long time.  We thought about just buying flights as we go so that we wouldn’t be tied to any particular places or times.  However, after surfing for prices this really turned out to be the most expensive option.  After more research, I found out that American Airlines has a program to use frequent flyer miles to book RTW tickets.  Joy!

I have about 250,000 miles that I’ve been saving for just this purpose.  After hours on the phone, I soon realized that they are pretty much useless for this type of ticket.   There were no flights to any of the places we wanted to go within a month of any of the dates we wanted to go.  Frustration! Despair!

Finally we gave up and went back to our first plan, buying a RTW ticket.  Note that AA has a great tool for this here: http://www.oneworld.com/ow/flight-info/itinerary-planner 

There are lots of rules with this type of ticket.  For example, once you leave a continent, you can’t go back to it.    There’s also a limit to the number of segments and breaks in the itinerary.  So we’ll have to buy a separate ticket (or hopefully my miles will be good for something)  to get to New Zealand, as well as some internal flights in India and Europe.  The best part of the ticket is that even thought the cities are set, we can change dates. 

Anyway, it’s done – paid for and booked.  Elation! (and a little anxiety)

Posted in Planning, Travel | 1 Comment »

Tere from Estonia.

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

After a delayed flight and some classic British customer “service,” we finally made it to Estonia a day late.  My group’s team building activity turned out to be sailing in the Baltic sea – beautiful day.  Eric came along and then the two of us headed out to Tartu, the second larget city in Estonia.  After an evening of watching the Euro 2008 and a day of walking around the city, we returned to Tallinn to take in more sights in the Old Town.  Unfortunately I caught a cold along the way, but it didn’t stop us from climbing the tower at the Oleviste Church for a great view of the city.  More about Tallinn later – we’re writing this at the aiprort and our flight back to London is boarding….

Here’s the Town Hall, taken at 10 PM last night.  

 town-hall2.JPG

Posted in Estonia, Travel | No Comments »

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