Losing Luggage

Nearly all my thoughts about my ensuing trip are optimistic. The year’s possibilities excite me, and I’m inspired to work more planning and researching for this adventure than I was for any scholastic pursuit. Amid the dreams about virgin coastlines and trekking through the Himalayas, however, a potential problem break through my dreamy naïveness. My picturesque year is muddied with negativity, not about anything happening to my health or safety, but about losing important paperwork or having my money stolen. Will my luggage get lost between Australia and Malaysia? This thought plagues me more frequently than I’d like. Premonition…let’s hope not. I’m an average sized American girl, which equates to not fitting into anything in Southeast Asia. My size 9 feet don’t have a prayer of slipping comfortably into SE Asian footwear. The nightmare of losing my luggage isn’t specific to the Aussi flight to SE Asia. Losing everything I have – all 35 lbs of it – anywhere would be bad news, because even if I could afford to replace my gear (which I can’t) I don’t know if I will be anywhere where I could find replacement items. The good news is Katie is the most unselfish person I know, and she would share her stuff with me. Maybe not her toothbrush, but my hygienic practices will probably be seriously lacking anyway so what’s a week without fresh breath. Also, we are flying into major cities and capitals and with America’s pervasiveness throughout the world, I would be hard-pressed to not find western accommodations.

I suppose it’s a good that I’m thinking about these things now. It gives me time to plan ahead. For example I plan to keep my toothbrush and a bar of soap in my carry-on bag.

A Word (or more) about Blogging

One of the cool things about a blog is that it is informal. The language can be conversational and I tend to let my though flow through the keypad without stressing too much about sentence structure or perfect wording. Blogging is a liberating way to write with the freedom and vulnerability of journaling mixed with the added excitement of having an audience – maybe even someone to care about what we are blabbing about! (Everything I desire can be traced back to power-hunger and the need to be influential.)

The problems with blogging, which are related to all the good things, arise when I read back over the things I wrote (usually after posting them) and realize I was rambling, made entirely obvious grammatical errors or made absolutely no sense. My remarks intended to be clever or insightful come across as underdeveloped or stuck-up.

So a message to my readers: I welcome critiques. I hope to become a better writer through this blogging experience and like it take a village to raise a child it will take a team of citizen editors to school this wanna-be writer.

The Trip Basics

Starting September 10, my friend Katie and I will be embarking on a year-long, round-the-world backpacking trip. Although we will be working and volunteering with a variety of groups throughout the journey, we are not affiliated with one group or organization. We have planned this adventure ourselves, creating budgets, planning itineraries, networking and researching. Our budget is about $6,000 a piece for all our travel (flights, trains, buses, tuk-tuks and taxis, among other means of transportation), accommodation, food and miscellaneous costs. The budget is tight, but we have Faith that God will provide.

Our current trip itinerary, much is yet to determined and open to change, is Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, India, Nepal and Egypt. After Egypt, Katie and I part ways. She will be traveling to Kenya with her boyfriend Brian, and I will be traveling to Greece, Spain and Morocco.

To initiate our trip, we used STA’s, a student travel site, round-the-world trip-planner to explore the travel possibilities. (Our countries have changed many times since we first used the site’s maps during the fall of 2009.) Throughout the planning process a huge component has been to find the cheapest means of transportation possible, whether by air, land or sea. From the beginning we were blessed with a helpful travel agent at STA who helped us find travel deals, but Katie used her research saviness to hunt out deals from a number of airlines. She really is gifted at unveiling the hidden deals!
Other than actually getting to and around each country, the greatest expenses are accommodations and food. Whenever possible, we will be volunteering and working in exchange for our room and board. One of the organizations we are working through is the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), and network of who invite people into their lives –much like a host family. In exchange for a few hours of labor daily, we will receive a place to stay and food. Also, we will deepen our experience and learn more about local cultures by staying with natives; we will learn about organic agricultural practices and sustainable living. We will be wwoofing in Argentina, New Zealand and Australia. I will wwoof in Morocco and Greece.
During our time in India and Southeast Asia we will be volunteering in orphanages, teaching English and serving the poor.

Let the Blogging Begin

Through this blog I will be documenting my year-long backpacking trip around the world. Because I will be living in rural communities and in many third-world countries, I will have minimal access to computers and the internet. My plan is to keep copious journal entries and transfer any bloggable material onto the web whenever I find an internet café. Thanks in advance reading what I have to say, you are enriching my experience by sharing it with me, and for being patient with my inconsistent posting schedule.