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Going Home

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

After 9 months of traveling and 20 countries visited, its finally time to head on home to the good ole U.S.A. Christy and I have mixed emotions about the end of our travels. We are both extremely excited to go home and see family and friends and our two dogs, but we are sad that our trip is over. Its been an amazing time and weve learned so much about  the world, ourselves, people, politics and religons. Weve seen how amazing strangers can be and how everyone in the world is really not that different. Its amazing what you learn when you turn off CNN and go out and see what the world is really like.

For anyone with even the remotest interest in doing a world trip, all I can say is “GO.” Dont wait for the most ideal time, dont wait for retirement or to win the lottery, just do it. Weve met kids 19 years old on budgets of almost nothing traveling and loving it. Weve also met people in there 30s, 40, 50 and 60s doing it. We even met a couple in there 60’s riding there bikes around New Zealand.

When we tell people how long weve been traveling its seems like there first question is “what country did you like best?” I couldnt even begin to answer it nor could Christy. Africa was definitly our most challenging by far, but it also held some of the most amazing scenery we saw and some of our best stories. I’ll never forget riding along that dirt road in Tanzania packed in like sardines in the most beat up minivan you could ever imagine. Or watching the sunset over the Serengheti as the heard of Elephants goes traipsing by. South East Asia had some of the best food and friendliest people. Europe, they just dont make cities like that anymore. Iceland, like your on another planet. New Zealand, the outdoor playground of the world. I could go on and on.

Now we will begin a new adventure when we get home, One that we are both looking forward to with excitement and a little bit of fear. Its going to be great sleeping in your own bed night after night but it will also be weird that we wont be exploring new horizons every day, meeting new people from different countries and eating exotic foods. But for now, I can say that doing the daily grind sounds fun and different. Knowing where I will be sleeping come sundown and what I will be doing for an entire week sounds really cool. Im sure it will wear thin really quick though. After we get home and get all settled we will update the blog with a lot of stories that we just didn’t have time to put into the blog.

New Zealand

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Once again we have fallen way behind on our blog. We got here to New Zealand a week ago and have been going non-stop since then. We have less than 3 weeks left in our travels and were trying to fit every minute that we can into seeing this incredible country. We have been spending everyday either hiking to some incredible areas or mountain biking, lets just say this place fits Christy and I rather well. We have also been hit with much higher prices compared to S.E. Asia so we are adapting to that as well.I rented a little car and got a cooler so we can cook our own food at the hostels we stay at. Yep, back to hostels and sleeping in dorm beds.  No more nice dinners for 10 bucks and private bungalows on the beach. Now its peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and frozen pizza. The locals tell us it isnt there prices that have gone up, but our dollar has taken a huge beating here just like everywhere else. Oh well, thats life. We will update the blog with some pics and some good stories once we get a chance. The clock is ticking and we need to enjoy our couple weeks of freedom before we head home and face that thing that people call “THE REAL WORLD”