Amsterdam, here we come.

Another flight booked! We will be in England from September 17-November 5th... Upon when we will make a departure to Amsterdam. Another flight to put in our books. We are making progress!! I think deciding to book flights as we can has been a better choice, rather than waiting. This way I can check out all the cheap fares.. I definitely liked skyscanner.com, which gave a lot of flexibility and allowed me to look at different airlines and days. Thanks to Paul's friend Mitesh for the advice!

Aaaand we're off....

Well, not quite. Still in the saving/planning phase of our trip. It's been a while since I have ventured onto my blog, but to be honest, not a lot "trip wise" has been going on.. Until.. Friday! I managed to book the first leg of our trip.. Atlanta -> Reykjavik-> London. After much consideration, I've decided to take the tickets into my own hands, for now. I wanted to get this thing started, and otherwise I would have had to wait until July 2013 to book our official tickets.. So for now, we at least have a ticket. I'm thinking to get a EuroStar pass rather than book a bunch of internal flights in Europe. I'm not sure how long we will be in Europe, but I know I want to be there for Christmas and visit the Christmas Villages in Germany. Ahhh this means it's real, folks!!!! :) 

Dilemma

For everyone who has ever tried to save a large amount of money, you know how "little" things can come up to sabotage your plans. Enter Paul's 12 year old Jeep.... Well, it seems that we will be going to do a little car shopping this weekend so that we can ensure his safety while driving around and to his soccer fields 3 times a week (a 20 mile journey each way). I am hoping that this doesn't set us back too much as we are SO CLOSE to buying tickets. We could: A. revisit our route and see where we can cut some costs so that we can just go ahead and purchase or B. Keep waiting to buy and hope fuel prices subside while we accumulate more funds. All of this takes a lot of patience. It's like when you are looking at flights and then decide to wait a few days only to find out it has gone up $300.00 when you check the next time. For anyone who has ever purchased a ticket like this, we are welcome to your expert advice. In the mean time, we will keep putting money away and hope we find a car that is in our budget and not a junker!

Bon Iver - Holocene


After my last post, this is why Reykjavik is on our list. I want to go all the places this kid goes.

Save, save, save...

This blog may be past due, as we are already in the process of the hardest part of long-term travel: saving money. My husband and I have been meticulously (most of the time) putting money away into a savings account which has finally grown to almost ticket-purchase size. After looking into many RTW (Round-the-World for those of you non-backpackers) ticket sites, we have realized that we would need to save around $13,000 for two tickets for all the stops we would like to make.


Here is a projected itinerary:


ATL-Boston-Reykjavik (If you have not seen Bon Iver's video for "Holocene", you need to watch it. You WILL want to go to Iceland, too)
Reykjavik- London (Paul's family lives in England, as well as some of my relatives)
London-Brittany, France (by ferry)
Travel through Europe by train - Paul wants to visit multiple soccer grounds, all I can remember at this time is Ajax.... I think that is in Holland?
Eventually end up in Rome, where we will fly to Istanbul, Turkey
Istanbul - Delhi, India
Delhi - Hanoi, Vietnam
Hanoi - Taipei, Taiwan
Taipei - Brisbane, Australia
Brisbane - Christchurch, NZ
Christchurch - Lima, Peru (I hold Peru dear to my heart after spending a month in this beautiful country.. I encourage everyone to go there!)
Lima overland to Sao Paolo, Brazil (Hello, World Cup 2014)
Sao Paolo - Atlanta (home!)


We may try to get to places like mainland China or Thailand, we just have to see how it all works out. At this point, we are still in "Saving" stage.. things may change when we get to the "Booking" stage.


A little background about us:
I am: a teacher, extended day teacher, yoga teacher (as of September 23, 2012).
Paul is: my husband, boys' soccer coach, and an awesome personal trainer.


Follow us on our journey to touch (almost) every continent in our RTW trip as we try and volunteer and teach as we go. Our goal is to come back with a widened view of the world and the satisfaction we were able to see and experience things we would have not had we "settled down" as most married couples do. Sure, some people may think we are crazy, especially "in this economy", but when else could we do this? We are still young, have no kids, and have been wanting to do this for years. Soon we will make our dream a reality.