Well, the holidays have come and gone and we are now 5 months from our departure date.  We had put off moving on any actual preparations for our trip until after the New Year, so now it is time to really begin getting ready.  There are passports to be updated, visas to be procured, immunizations to be administered, houses to rent, gear to be purchased, school-work to be organized, and a myriad of other little details to be handled – all while working full time and trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy.  While this is all very exciting, there is an aspect which is still  very unreal…..it’s been something we have talked about for the better part of a year, but now it is time to put our plans in to action.  Going grocery shopping or skiing on an amazing winter day is much more tangible and consistent with our previous life that it is difficult to believe that we are really ditching all of this to head out around the world.

The upside of changing from what we will do to what we are doing is that we are all very excited – Lucia has started her own blog (travelingperfume.wordpress.com – the first post will be ready soon), Mac is choosing which Legos to bring with him and Colburn and I are finally getting to do all of the things we have been talking about doing.  It is very difficult to decide on a route, what to bring, etc. but what we have realized is that you can’t prepare for every situation.  We will plan for an average situation then adjust accordingly as we go.  Part of the beauty of extended travel is that you get to adjust to where you are and what you are doing.  We are hoping to limit our baggage to “carry on only”….which all sounds well and fine until you try to cram school supplies, iPads, first aid kit, cameras, emergency barf bags (a necessity in this family), etc. in too.  If it was just clothes and shoes, we’d be fine, but it is all the other stuff that we feel we must take with us that makes it a bit tight.

Many people have asked what our route will be – while we cannot say what will actually happen once we are on the road (or even how things will change between now and then), our current plan is  rough idea based on region.  Obviously we cannot see everything in a year, so we will take a selection from the following areas/regions:

Asia: Japan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, India (mostly northern), and a few places in SEA (Indonesia, Thailand, ????)

Australia and New Zealand (if time permits)

Africa: South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, and Morocco.

Middle East: Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon (all depending on what the political situation is at the time)

Europe:  Italy, Holland, and who knows where else.

South and Central America: Argentina and Peru with “maybe” for Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, or Costa Rica.