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Published: November 5th 2008
Chiang Mai elephant ride 2007
Our first taste of Asia - and a trip that solidifed our interest in travel.I have always wanted to SAY I had a travel blog, but to do so would require me to travel for longer than 2 weeks at a time. Now, I will see if anyone is actually interested in anything I have to say. Over the past who knows how many months Eric and I have been planning our RTW to take a year off starting in January 2009. This blog hopes to share our experiences, our excitement, our fears, and what we are learning along the way. Our trip is known affectionately as the M.P. - or Master Plan, throughout the blog.
My first entry is commerating the momentus occassion of actually booking our RTW ticket. Well, to be more specific, it is a 3/4 of the way round the world ticket. We purchased a few one way tickets through AirTreks (www.airtreks.com), with a wonderful travel consultant - Daniel. Bless him for his patience with me.
Tickets Are Booked
So, the date is set. We fly on January 29 from Chicago to Sydney, at some point will make our way to New Zealand. After about six weeks in Australia/New Zealand, we head to Bangkok on March 17 - Happy Thai St Patrick's day to us. I anticipate and fully expect we can find an Irish pub to knock back a pint, probably with some already drunk Irish countrymen. Our next set flight is from Singapore to Istanbul on August 17. This gives us a full 5 months in Asia. We will spend some time revisiting Thailand, Cambodia, and possibly Laos. We are totally excited for Vietnam. Hope to spend a lot of July and August in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The rest of the time - who knows. We are interested in Nepal, Bhtuan, China, Japan, Korea - all depending on how quickly we are blowing through money, and where we can get discount tickets. Our Singapore to Istanbul flight allows us to stop in Doha, Qatar for two nights. Qatar was not a country on our original list of places to visit, but could not pass up a trip to the Arabian Peninsula. We land in Istanbul on August 19, and plan to travel through Turkey and Greece. Our next set stop is a planned trip to Oktoberfest for my birthday on September 30. Aside from that, our interests lie in Croatia, Prague, Budapest, who knows. At some point there will be a stop in Ireland to see family, have a home cooked meal, and Teresa's famous fry, and the use of a washing machine we can trust. We also are thinking of heading to Africa - Egypt, Jordan, South Africa, and Tanzania. After August 19, which is our last current flight - we have no real set plans.
Please Visit
For those of you keeping score, you will notice we do not have too many set dates. We have already spoken with many of you about visiting us along the way. If you have a set vacation within a region we are in, let us know, and if we can we will come to see you. We will totally need some fresh blood on the trip - Am I expected to have almost all of my English conversations with only my husband? Pure recipe for disaster - please visit. Please.
Keep Reading - It will only get more interesting from here
I will update this blog before we leave with our travel plans, which always seem to change, how we are settling our lives before we go, and other nuances. Right now, just hoping people out there will read, leave comments, ask questions, and generally keep in touch. I hope to add beautiful pictures in the future, and will learn more of the formatting from the blog to figure out how to do this and keep things interesting.
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Greg
non-member comment
Good luck -- and good ridance
I think you guys are going to have an adventure of a lifetime. I will miss you while you are gone but hope to catch up with you somewhere in the middle.