How the hell are we able to do this?

This is the question we have heard the most since we told everybody we were quitting life as we know it and traveling around the world for the next 7+ months.  We are not wealthy (see chosen professions above). We’re able to afford this trip* by (1) getting rid of crap we don’t need (e.g. my car) (2) saving cash where we can (e.g. eating PB&J for lunch EVERY day for 7 months) (3) the amazing generosity of Tom and Davida (Court’s folks) who allowed us to basically squat in their basement and completely disrupt their lives for the last 4 months.  (Thanks guys!  We definitely couldn’t have done this without you) (4) we both hope to pick up some work along the way (if you’re reading this and you need an urban planner/social worker/soccer coach/waitress/life coach/fruit picker/sheep shearer/general laborer/sherpa then look no further!)

We spent hours reading travel blogs and forums to plan this trip.  Hopefully some people will find our feeble attempt at a travel blog useful too.  We also read several Lonely Planet and Rough Guide publications (thanks Kerri), which contain tons of useful stuff.

*Whether or not we can actually afford this trip remains to be seen.  We’ve done tons of research and created a detailed budget but it’s pretty tight and will involve a lot of discipline (cue laughter from Lee’s friends) so we’ll see how it goes.  We may end up penniless, halfway through the trip, in some far off place at which point you’ll be reading the “Send Money Now!” blog post.

The Itinerary

Where are we going?

Planning a round-the-world trip is HARD.  We’ve been planning this thing for months and here we are less than 2 weeks before we leave and we still haven’t figured out all the details!  It turns out the world is quite big and you can’t possibly see it all in 8 months.  So, we tried to create a bit of a plan that will allow us to visit quite a few countries but also left it fairly open-ended so we can linger in places we like a little longer and duck out of places we’re not keen on earlier.  The only thing that is set in stone is the flight to South Africa.  We’re heading down there for the FIFA World Cup, which starts in early June and ends a month later.  Did we mention Lee likes football?

Here’s our itinerary as it stands today (Jan 5, 2010):

Los Angeles      01/17 – 01/19                       

New Zealand     01/21 – 02/10                       

Australia            02/10 – 02/23

SE Asia             02/24 – 04/08                       

Europe               04/08 – 06/01           

South Africa      06/02 – 07/19           

England             07/20 - ??