Where Next?
My passport is getting dusty. It hasn’t been stamped in seven months. Something must be done. I went to the library recently to check out Lonely Planet’s guide to Mongolia. The fact that I borrowed a Lonely Planet from the library, rather than buying it like I usually do, should give you some indication of […]
Itinerary Planning 101
At our appearance at Meet Plan Go San Francisco 2012, I’ll be one of two panelists talking about itinerary planning. Two panelists, two perspectives. Since the other panelist writes a blog about traveling by the seat of her skirt, I guess that means I’ll be there to represent travelers with more of a Type A […]
How to Budget for a Round-the-World Trip
Since Robin and I are going to be speaking at Meet Plan Go‘s San Francisco event in mid-October, I thought I’d finally get my act together and and write this post. Robin’s specialty, as everyone who’s ever met her already knows, is planning. She’ll be speaking in breakout sessions that focus on proper planning for […]
The Ultimate To-Do List Before Leaving on a Round-the-World Trip
In keeping with the theme of my last post, in which I broke down exactly what you need to bring on your round-the-world trip, I now bring you our complete list of everything (okay, almost everything) you need to do in order to get ready to go. Lists like these do seem to abound on […]
The Ultimate Packing List for a Round-the-World Trip
When we were getting ready to take off on our Big Adventure, one of the things we agonized about the most was how on earth to pack for a yearlong trip. This task was especially daunting to me, as until that point, my bags had almost invariably gotten the “Heavy” tag added to them every […]
Recommended Gear: Eagle Creek Compression Sacs
Nerd alert: I love these plastic compression bags (obviously, since I decided to devote an entire blog post to them). As someone who has always had trouble packing light, I credit these bags with finally enabling me to get my packing down to a science – something that is essential when one is traveling for […]
Essential Travel Item: Capital One Credit Card
You have several options when it comes to paying for stuff abroad: (1) Get travelers’ checks before you leave, and then trade them in for cash upon arrival in the foreign country or use them at one of the few places that will accept them. Pros: if you get mugged or lose the checks, the […]
The Kili of Marin County
The iPhone weather app said “sunny with occasional light rain”. Total bullshit! Some meteorologist was sleeping on the job today, and we got hammered for relying on poor information. And all because of some damned hiking boots… Before we met almost 10 years ago, Robin and I independently managed to purchase the exact same Timberland […]
No Going Back Now…
The cat is out of the bag: I gave notice at work this week. Even though this is something that we’ve been planning for a while now, I still panicked a little after telling my bosses what I was doing. There is now an official date on the calendar (March 24) after which there will […]
Vaccination Junction
Today we made a visit to Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland hospital for a couple of jabs in the arm: A somewhat painful yellow fever vaccine, followed by a somewhat less painful meningitis vaccine. Lovely. Last summer’s trip to Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa ensured that we’d already received our typhoid, hepatitis A, TDAP, and polio vaccines/boosters, […]