Justin and Hazel Around the World

Today I had to get 4 shots. Two more potentially! Plus a live vaccine in pill form. Wow!

We learned a lot today at the travel clinic. Like, for example, never put two high-ranking executives on the same plane. Check. Also, malaria is only common in one small part of South Africa. However, it’s the place most people go on safari. It turns out Malaria is one of the tougher choices we have to make. The pills are complicated, expensive, and all involve side-effects of one form or another. Choice A: a $5 per-pill new drug that you take 1 day before, during and 7 days after your trip into a malarial region, for a minimum of $40 pp plus $5 a day. Ouch. Most trips into malarial regions will cost us $100 on medication alone with this pill. B: a cheap, once-a-week pill that can give you suicidal thoughts. Oh, and you have to keep on it for 4 weeks after you leave the malarial region. C: A $1-a-day, once-a-day that you must take 1 week before and 4 weeks after entering malarial region. Also makes you prone to sunburn and irritable.

No easy choices! Just to go on safari, and to Laos which is completely infested with them. We got a prescription for the expensive pills but haven’t filled them yet.

We’ve started to make some really good progress in getting this trip on the road (er…air?).  Yesterday we sold Justin’s car so we’re now officially a one car family.  There’s still lots of furniture and odds and ends to go, but with the dining table, bike, and car sold we’re starting to make a dent.  Hopefully by the time we leave in a little over a month the house will be empty!

Although we’re significantly cutting down on “stuff,” we aren’t getting rid of everything.  The remaining car will get a year of retirement and wait for our return Dec. 2011.  It will also allow us to take one station wagon load of stuff to keep to my parents’ house near Seattle.  Between that and a few boxes here and there with friends we won’t have to completely start over on our return.

Tomorrow is our trip to the travel clinic to make sure we won’t catch any exotic diseases during our travels.  Wish my arm luck – I’m not a fan of needles!

After 5 months of delays we’re right back at the point of the last post I wrote and could not be more excited!  We’ve even made some progress on getting our backpacks set to travel (post on backpack contents soon to come).

We’ll write a proper post about where we’re going once we’ve purchased our tickets, but just to get it down on paper, here’s a basic sketch:

New Zealand

Chile

Argentina

Possibly Peru, Uruguay and/or Brazil

Ithaca, NY

Europe (this will involve lots of land travel, so not sure on countries yet)

Morocco

Either South Africa or Kenya

India

Thailand (and possibly other SE Asia locations)

Possibly China

Australia

What are we missing here?  Even though a year is a long time, it’s important to us to not just race around the globe.  This seems like a huge, but hopefully manageable, amount.   This list also reflects our main set of RTW flights, not all the land travel we’re planning on doing.  We can also take shorter hop flights from any of these locations.  I think we have lots of options here.

There’s a lot of preparation that goes into leaving for a year and we’re getting down to the deadline here.  We’re hoping to leave as soon after June 5th as possible and be gone until the beginning of May 2011.

So far we have:

• A rough route of travel planned
• Our backpacks and most of the stuff to go in them
• Informed friends/family/employers of this plan
• Hazel working full-time on trip preparation

We have not finished:

• Getting all the vaccinations needed
• Selling or donating all of our possessions
• Finalizing visas/travel documents

Seems like we’re cutting it pretty close, but it will come together in the end!

We have begun our journey, sealing the deal with fire and water. So excited to get started!

Justin and Hazel are about to embark on a year-long trip around the world!  This will be an adventure of EPIC proportions and we’re hoping this blog can be helpful in recording our experiences and staying in touch.  Stick around – the adventure starts soon!