Answers to the Questions Everyone Asks

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Answers to the Questions Everyone Asks

Basics like Itinerary and Timeframe: Leaving August 25, 2005 and returning May 22, 2006. Flying Boston—Zurich (with our tandem bikes in tow), then biking from Switzerland to Spain through northern Italy, southern France and across Spain to Granada (8 weeks or so). Then a month in Granada, where we hope to study Spanish and will send our bikes home from there, then we have to get back to Barcelona where we fly to Israel for most of December. Tel Aviv to London on Christmas Day, where we are stuck for 3 days before we can get a flight to Mumbai, India. India for most of January, then on to Bangkok, where we have about 8 weeks until we fly to Bali. Probably spend most of this time in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, and maybe Vietnam. Bail for a couple weeks, and then one month each in Australia and New Zealand, then back to the US.

Who are we? For those who don’t know us (I am still somewhat amazed that anyone reads these things who doesn’t know us, but hey, we’ve read enough of these travel logs from others in planning our trip, so…..) In brief: Rick (the writer here so far) is 45 years old and has been Director at The Compass School (a great small middle and high school (www.compass-school.org)) we helped found 6 years ago. I’ve led several European bike trips for Interlocken (now called Windsor Mountain) and Outward Bound and traveled around the world back in my mid 20’s (hard to believe how long ago that was) and traveled a lot of other places by bike, hiking, and all the other weird modes of transit the world over. I have a self-proclaimed proclivity for foreign languages, which means I can communicate minimally in present tense in Italian, French, Spanish, Indonesian, but as my traveling companion in China once said, “Rick is great at languages. He already knows about 500 words in Chinese. Unfortunately, the Chinese don’t know any of these.” Elaine is 45 as well, and is the early childhood coordinator for our school district, Fresh Air Fund coordinator for the region, and is in all other ways organized and skillful. She was a program director for Outward Bound and worked for NOLS and other travel organizations so she knows how to travel and manage groups. We co-led a community service trip for high schoolers in Bali for Global Routes about 15 years ago, and Elaine led an OB trip to Kenya way back when. Manya is 10, and super organized and thoughtful and usually a great traveler. At home, she seems to have a relatively low pain threshold (small whacks by her brother can cause alarming wimpering), but she usually is a stalwart when traveling and has been an absolute rock in getting shots for this trip and looking forward to our adventures. Koby is 8 and usually fairly easy going and very active. He is a super biker so should help haul us up the Alps (we hope). Both kids are avid readers and project doers, so I worry about having enough resources like this when we travel. They are also not the most adventuresome eaters, although they contend they will be much better when we travel—we will see.

Are you returning to Compass School when you return? Yes, the plan is I will be back there after the trip. Exactly what I will be doing will probably depend on how things go while I am gone, but I definitely plan to continue there upon my return (or at least after more vacationing over the summer).

Why are you going now? The main impetus for this trip was 1) a desire to travel extensively with our family at some time and 2) to hopefully help the development of Compass by making clear that it wasn’t overly dependent on the “founding head” and to give others the chance to develop capacity by serving in more formal leadership roles. Too many schools or small organizations seem to undergo big struggles when the founding director steps aside. I didn’t want to have that happen at Compass. And we have all these talented educators there who have great leadership skills and potential and might have to leave the school to have a more formal role in a leadership capacity. So the best way to keep these faculty and give them this leadership role was to step aside for a while. I am confident they will bring fresh energy and ideas and interests that will further the school’s growth. So this was the right time for the school, and for our kids, they are at a good age where they are physically strong enough to bike, hike, etc., old enough to remember stuff and learn from the experience, and not so old that their major priority is being around their friends.

Who will be doing “my job”? Eric Rhomberg, who has been at Compass since year 2 and is admired by all, will be acting director. Phil Grant (our last remaining founding staff member) and Louise Van Order (a 5 yr Compassite and summer Interlocken trip leader) will be assistant directors. We hired some great new teachers to fill holes (after reading my newsletter write up of the new staff, the kids said, “Wow! You have to have won the Nobel Prize and been an Olympic athlete to work here!”)

What are we doing for income during the year? Nothing really. I am on unpaid sabbatical from Compass. We have some income from the house rental business in Madison but mostly we are traveling on savings. It shouldn’t really cost us much more than life here--I am guessing about 50-70,000 for the 9 months. Not small change, but we have this much saved. I’d love to write for publication (and pay) but don’t know how to go about this beyond this site here.

What about your house? We have it rented to a great couple from Connecticut who hope to move to Vermont permanently. Their rent goes a fair way in offsetting the cost of the trip.

Plane tickets: We went with these around the world tix from the One World Alliance. One was a free freq flyer ticket, 2 were partially paid with freq flyer, one was full cost ($3000 for the kid version). In the end, this became a pain as the conditions they told us changed (only 16 segments allowed, which means everytime you get off a plane). So not as flexible as we would have liked, but I think cheaper than lots of indiv tix. If we had just been going to Asia, it would be better to get a ticket there and then get indiv tix there. It is the around the globe flights that add cost. I could go on an internet rant about American Airlines and their One World Alliance service. Maybe I can leave it at their personnel were often confused and ill informed (until it came to buy the tickets, when they suddenly were very clear on the restrictions and limitations). Like too many companies lately, their customer service is basically non existent (as they told me (to paraphrase), you understand that we are losing money and can’t afford luxuries like helping customers). One last grating feature of these tickets is they couldn’t figure out how to make them paperless, so we have to keep track of like 60 sheets of paper worth thousands of dollars for 9 months!

Equipment and Stuff: We are not buying too much stuff special for the trip. For biking, we decided to bring lightweight camping stuff and are borrowing a 2 lb Megamid tent and are thrilled to have discovered Western Mountaineering’s under 2 lb sleeping bag system (for 2 people). So we have tents and sleeping bags for 4 all under 6 lbs! We are biking with 2 sets of rear panniers, one small set of front panniers and a handlebar bag. Our bikes are a Santana tandem and a Univega tandem. The kids fit perfectly on these adult bikes as both have sloping top tubes that make the stoker seats easy for kids. We have two backpacks (45 and 55 liter size) for travel in Asia and are shipping one big Gregory pack with our bigger tent and warmer sleeping bags to Australia for camping there. We found PACSAFE, which makes security oriented travel bags, and they are generously donating a Daypack and waistbelt we will use after biking. For technology equipment, see the prior posting. Traveling light, we hope.

What about school for the kids? Manya is going into 6th grade, Koby into 3rd. They are both strong students, so I think the necessity of “keeping up” may be less imperative than with a child who struggled in school. Their teachers are very supportive, saying “They will learn so much from travel.” Officially, the kids will be “home schooled,” which means attending to writing, reading, researching, drawing, and studying in the context of travel. Math is the one discrete area that we think could need more structure, and both have math curricula they can do over the summer to keep in line with their peers. We are both educators, so maybe this comes more easily to us than some—We think our kids will need some structure in their days (they like school), so we will try to devote some pre-determined time daily to “schoolwork” (writing and thinking and reflecting on what they are experiencing).

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Photos

Random Nice Picture to Liven Page
Friends from Boulder and Switzerland in front of Front Range