One Month

T-Minus one month. I don't have any actual words for the excitment level I am at.
July 28th is lift off for B.
Also, I will literally not have a job for one YEAR. I think I can hang with that. July 4th is lift off for unemployment.

Baller

Today I received this 'I am kind of a big deal' email from Mary...

"Dude I just got another wave of excitement and just had to share. This is so baller I can't even believe it. Do you realize what we are about to do. We are diving head first into life and I am loving it.
I wonder who I am going to become"....
- Mary P.

The Skeleton Plan

I realized that I haven't even blessed you all with the run down of our 'skeleton' travel plan aka actual cities we will venture into. Now I know this plan appears to resemble an actual itinerary but keep in mind, 12 months and we don't have any dates associated with most of these locations. Oh, and before you get your panties in a twist over 'how come you aren't going there or how are you missing that city?!!?' Please note: a.) we cannot go EVERYWHERE we have to pick and choose, b.) just because it is not listed here doesn't mean we won't be going there. Stranger things have happened.

Alright, here we go with this rockstar plan. Soaked.

Europe: (the country to start it all off, approx time 6 weeks)
Paris (Due to controversy, comment retracted)
Amsterdam - starting this trip off right
Berlin and Munich
Prague, Vienna, Budapest
Interlaken (Switzerland) and Croatia
Greece!!

Egypt (yes mom we will be traveling with a group)

Istanbul (Fact: Turkey is officially part of two continents- Europe and Asia)

Asia:
Delhi, India :-S
Nepal (Everest base camp)

China: (eh, lets say 3 weeks...)
Hong Kong and Beijing

South East Asia: (SO excited for this!!! Approx time: 3 months!)
Cambodia and Laos
Vietnam and Thailand
Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia

Australia: (Approx time: 5 weeks)
Perth
Cairns and Brisbane
Melbourne and Sydney
New Zealand

South America: (Again, super excited for this country!!! Approx time: 3 months)
Chile
Peru and Bolivia
Argentina!!
Uruguay, Brazil and Venezuela

And what better way to end this adventure then saying hola to COSTA RICA and giving Central America some amor.

Additional adventures just to keep things interesting and give us something to do (note sarcasm):
Hang-gliding in Switzerland
Climbing to base camp of Mt. Everest (minor obsession of Mary's)
Getting certified for scuba diving in Thailand, scuba in Great Barrier Reef
Skydiving in Australia
Machu Picchu - Inca Trail
Get some Amazon action in S. Ame

Go big or go home. Done.

Our favorite inspiring quotes

Just because I want to put these inspiring travel quotes somewhere in this blog:

My (aka. Batman) favorite:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do then by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER. TRAVEL. LIVE."
- Unknown (my dad swears it is Mark Twain)

Mairs (aka. Robin) Favorite:
"Don't put one foot in your job and the other in your dreams. Go ahead and quit, or resign yourself to this life. It's just too much of a temptation for fate to split you right up the middle before you've made up your mind which way to go."
- 'The Piano Player'

Mary comes to visit

So Mary was here last weekend and we had a blast... we were even able to tie in a Vegas weekend along with all the travel planning and more planning and travel booking. We are off and running (and perhaps some jumping and dancing from all the excitement). It is here. Now the crazy-ness comes in with all the little things that need to be done. I literally have a list called 'random shit i am going to forget' in order not to forget. Mairs is definitely the practical one while I am the 'I am going to take two of those'. I am going to be the jammed backpack, buying too many souvenirs, pack-ratting, paper packing, scrapbook saving, and west-coast illin. If I do actually get to it, it will be one hell of a scrapbook.

Sidenote-Tab: I am notorious for taking goofy pictures, so get used to it.

Two Months... Almost

We are getting down to the two month mark and there is a shit load of stuff I need to get do before this trip. Don't get me wrong, time has moved at a snails pace since we decided to do this, but now I actually feel like the trip is finally almost here. I have decided that I think about Plan B every 10 to 15 min... it is almost like a peaceful reminder that soon I will be gone, traveling.

Reactions to THE trip

Since deciding to do this trip it is amazing the responses I have gotten when I tell others about our plan. For me it has ranged from a slightly uninterested 'Oh wow, that will be cool. How are you going to travel for a whole year with only a backpack? I could never do that', to the person whose eyes get wide and they want to know all the details of the trip. That is my favorite response, mostly because all I really want to talk about is this trip. Often there are those people that it seems NEED me to do this trip. Need me to do it because they never will or because this is what they always wanted to do, but then life happened.

For me, I think the coolest thing about traveling is the people and cultures that you encounter. The way of life outside of the US... the priorities, values, perspective and the definition of life itself. Life in the US will still be there when we get back. Really I just cannot wait for this. I have never been so excited in my life, for this chapter in my life, well lets face it, this trip will be a large book in the encyclopedia of my rockstar life.

Plan B is Born

We had a plan. I was going to move to NYC in July and live with Mary... This is Plan B and this plan is way f'ing better.

It started off simple enough, two great friends discussing how much they love traveling, that they want to see everything, that they want to travel the world. Then the obvious question was posed 'Why don't we just quit our jobs in July and instead of you coming to New York we go traveling for 6 months, then we move back to New York.' 'Let's actually do it!' Done. A scribbled contract was signed (yes I am a total dork), a list of destinations jotted down, a 5 hour discussion on how the hell we were going to do this, and we were in. I never looked back or doubted that we would embark on this journey. I was so lucky that I had a best friend that was willing to do this with me, that could do this with me. For me the travel bug had been in my system since my semester study abroad experience in Barcelona (admittedly, I then added two summer programs -6 weeks in Rome followed by 5 weeks in Sevilla) during my junior year of college. For Mary it was the trip to Peru's Machu Picchu earlier in the year that got her.

This blog will (hopefully) cover our travels through the world and inspire others to do the same.