We’ve been looking for an opportunity to do a “dry run” trip to test traveling with our packs, to experience a sample RTW week on the road and to work on a few editorial ideas for the blog.

In the back of our minds we have been targeting the kids’ Spring Break week for a trip that would test our road-worthiness.

When our friends offered us the use of their Brooklyn brownstone while they were on a ski vacation, we jumped at the chance. What better place to test ourselves than New York City?

Rumor has it, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

We’ve got our Lonely Planet guide book and intend to spend the week seeing the sights (some off the beaten path). We’re going to try to live on a “road budget” (OK, the way high end of our RTW daily allowance – it is New York after all). And we want to experiment with a few different types of blog posts – the kind we hope to be publishing regularly on the road.

Over the next several weeks we’ll post the content we develop in New York.  Hopefully this will give us a better sense of what works and what doesn’t. Constructive criticism will be necessary and welcome.

OK, so get this. I am going to travel around the world for 365 days. Kind of like the movie, except not. I am totally psyched to do it, and who wouldn’t be? (Other than my sister…)

A bit about me:

• I love cheetas.
• I can’t wait to go to Japan.
• I’m looking forward to living on a boat for ten days while we’re in the Galapagos.
• Once our trip starts, I’ll be writing a story as we go (chapters to be posted every week).

I am looking forward most to swimming with sea lions, going on a giant zip line in Peru, zorbing and street luging in New Zealand and visiting Machu Picchu.

Some fears that keep floating in the back of my mind are that you can’t go a year without crying or getting hurt, and it’s harder to deal with being sad when you are away from home. Hopefully I won’t have many sad moments.

I promise my posts will get more interesting when the trip starts and I hope you will want to read them.