Category — Pre-Trip

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.

Some days it feels as though the world is working against you; other days the breaks seem to fall your way. And sometimes, if you can both quiet and open your mind, providence appears.

Just as I had begun fretting about the trip again (obsessing, really), an email from Dan Clements arrived in my inbox. I didn’t know Dan, but he had found this web site and decided to send me a note of encouragement.

Dan also shared with me a copy of his book, Escape 101: Sabbaticals Made Simple.

I have to admit that when it arrived in my inbox, I was skeptical. Few things in life feel simple these days, least of all sabbaticals.

But I set aside my skepticism and read the book’s prologue. I was hooked. In his book, Dan organized and articulated many of the fleeting thoughts I’d had over the past year as I had tried to prepare mentally for this trip.

When his book arrived, I had been caught in a vicious cycle of plan-worry- plan-worry and was digging myself a pretty deep rut. I found myself trying to plan for every contingency – in some cases for things that would happen more than a year from now.

I was beginning to question my own sanity for thinking we could do this.

Then I read this passage:

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A year or so ago I participated in a conference call with several different organizations working together on a project. An everyday occurrence for me and millions of other “consultants.” But there was something memorable about this call.

The host of the call was on vacation. In China. On a Yangtze River cruise near the Three Gorges Dam. Other participants called in from four different U.S. states, all on mobile phones.

Forget the difficulty coordinating time zones – think about the technology involved in that call. Yet nowadays, we take it for granted.

A similar experience: Last summer, I had to reach a client on a fairly urgent matter. I dialed his regular U.S.-based cell phone number and was connected immediately. Again, nothing unusual about that – except he was walking through the medieval quarter in Tallinn, Estonia, when he answered.

With these recent experiences as context, I was determined to find the best “phone solution” for our trip. My goal was simple. I wanted us to be able to make inexpensive local calls in each country we visited and make it easy for friends and family to reach us wherever we were traveling.

After months of research and some modest real-world testing, here’s what I learned.

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When my dad asked me if I would go around the world I said, “Sure.” Like we were ever going to do that!

The trip started out as a secret and something we could only talk about as a family – and with no one else. I never thought it would happen. I was sure it was just another one of my dad’s crazy ideas that would never be possible.

My dad would sit in his office all day researching and learning about other families who had done this before (I have no idea how he still earned a living while doing this).

I never really thought much about the trip until now, with less than five months till we leave.

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As I drove Conor home from school, the car’s GPS screen tracked our every move. Some people may feel spied on by global positioning devices, but the feeling I’m inside a map makes me feel safe.

The clear criss-cross of roads and curvy lanes makes me feel sure of myself. Instead of a messy-haired mom in sweatpants, I am a bright red arrow moving steadily in the right direction.

The map in my head is a bit like our car’s GPS, except my range is infinitely smaller. My little mental map allows me to drive anywhere in my well-defined radius: the kids’ schools, the grocery store, library, friends’ houses. From the top of my street, a left takes me to town and a right to the beltway.

And, really, where else could I possibly want to go?

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Slowly I am beginning to realize there is more to preparing for a round the world trip than logistics and financial planning.

There is an emotional dimension too, as we prepare to step out of our community and away from our friends and family for a year. This became most apparent to me as I watched my daughter struggle to tell her best friend about our trip.

I am also learning that the emotional preparation for our year away can be as challenging for friends who remain at home.

Last week I was fortunate to read an essay that one of my son’s best friends wrote for his sixth grade English class. In the essay he explained his reaction to the news of our trip and drew an inspired lesson from one of Nickelodeon’s wisest characters: SpongeBob Squarepants.

Here’s the essay Dana Cook, age 12, shared with us.

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Recently a friend told me a story that struck a chord:

My father worked for an airline. I grew up in the days when employees and their families could fly free – or nearly free.

So my family did something no other family in my neighborhood could do. When we went on vacation, we flew. To Florida. The Caribbean. California. One year, we even went to Hawaii.

It sounds like it would have been a great perk for a kid, but for our family, it generated feelings approaching shame because it made us different. It made us stand out.

I remember once, I was about nine or ten, we planned to go to Disneyland in California. I was so excited about the trip, but my father forbid me to tell anyone where we were going.

‘Don’t say a word about it,’ he said. ‘People will think you are showing off.’

So we go on this trip, and it is great. Every kid’s dream. When we come home, I asked my mother if I could tell my friend Andy about Disneyland.

My mother looked at me and softly said, ‘Sweetie, nobody wants to hear about your trip.’”

This may sound strange coming from a person who has created a blog to document a trip, but I understand where the parents in the story are coming from. I’m not saying I agree – but I understand.

It’s one reason Dani and I have been very circumspect about discussing our trip. We both hear that voice inside our heads: “Nobody wants to hear about your trip.”

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Whew. I thought the State Department’s travel warnings were over the top. That was before I visited the Center for Disease Control (CDC) web site.

I’m not out on the Internet looking for trouble. I went to the CDC web site to research the recommended vaccines for the places we plan to travel. I never knew there were so many exotic diseases that could kill or permanently maim you.

When I talked to my doctor and to our children’s pediatrician, both recommended that we see a travel medical specialist to discuss vaccines. There are a number of specialists in the Washington DC area, and after checking around a bit, Dani and I made an appointment at Passport Health.

As we sat through an hour consultation talking about malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, rabies and Japanese encephalitis, I kept stealing glances at Dani to make sure I wasn’t losing her. I know she hates shots, and I must admit, she remained remarkably calm.

The nurse was looking through our prospective itinerary, cross-checking it against her chart that displayed the CDC’s recommended vaccines. Each time she identified another shot we would need, she would lay on the desk another CDC fact sheet describing the benefits of the vaccine and the potential horrors that awaited anyone foolish enough to not take it.

Then she shared with us a booklet containing advice for staying healthy abroad. It included 28 specific recommendations.

A sampling:

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I spent the decade from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s working in politics, a business where information is considered a weapon.

I learned to guard what I knew, to not share it with anyone, not even my co-workers or clients, because you never knew what piece of information might one day enable your success – or hasten your failure.

In the mid 1990s I moved into the corporate world, working primarily as a consultant to mid- to large companies. I had the opportunity to get a glimpse into the workings of companies in dozens of different industries, from aging industrial conglomerates to high-tech businesses.

Perhaps I was naïve, but I was surprised to find how closely corporate America guarded the most basic information – not just from people outside their companies, but from people within their companies, from colleagues, bosses and employees.

The thinking in politics and business, I suppose, was the same: Information is the coin of the realm – be careful how you spend it. Never share it willingly. Because you never know when you may need it to gain advantage.

What a breath of fresh air it has been to talk to travelers.

Since I started planning this trip, I have reached out to complete strangers. I have solicited advice with nothing to offer in return. I have asked stupid, naïve questions.

And I have been greeted all around with openness, honesty and a generosity of spirit. Every person I have contacted has responded thoughtfully, in detail and with a sincere desire to help.

Let me share two examples.

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