This very day, my bosses gave me the thumbs up to take an 8 month sabbatical from the end of December 2007 till the following August. This signals the putting into motion of a plan that has been gestating in my mind and that of my wife for a good few months now. To take a trip around the world, with our two daughters (presently aged 5 and 7). If we wait another few years, they will be in too important a stage of their education to uproot them. If we wait until their schooling is over, then I'm not sure what kind of world we're going to be living in then.
If our politicians get their act together in the face of climate change, or even if simple market forces are left to do their own thing, cheap air travel is unlikely to continue at current rates. Perhaps much of what we hope to visit will be different - unpleasantly so - in 12 years time.
So we're going now.
To call what we have planned a trip around the world is not really accurate - it's more a trip to the other side of the world: Oz and New Zealand. But we'll get to see some of China at the start and more of the South American continent on the return leg. So we will physically be looping he planet. This is about as adventurous as we can hope to get considering the age of the kids and the budget we have.
I will be using this blog to document the preparations and the experience itself (part of my preparations include selecting the right mobile device to allow me to blog from anywhere).
10 comments:
May I be the first to wish you and your family the very best on your travels.
Thanks Dave. Much appreciated.
Hey mr.B ,
congratulations on ur travel approval, to say that I am jealous in an understatement :-) C ye over the holls!
Kaare@Apple Cork
And may I be the first to issue a gentle warning to any contries even considering offering this man a travel visa: lads, think about what ye're about to let yerselves in for and just pretend ye've run out of ink or something.
Mr. Creagh - I can't tell you how tempting it was to reach for the little trashcan icon that appears next to your post ;-)
Seriously though, try out the Google Calendar linked to from the main blog page, and chose a time and place in 2008 to meet up!
Kaare - don't be jealous. I'm sure we'll spend half the time sitting in a visa queue in the middle of nowhere thanks to Conor's interventions...
Hi Brendan, Tia,
Sounds like the start of a plan though eight months sounds a bit quick!
I shall enjoy reading of the exploits, of the planning variety as well as the journey itself.
Mind you, I think you should buy a yacht and do it the green way! You know it can be done :-)
Later
Chris
Buy a yacht? You should see the Google spreadsheet that I'm using for the budget. This is a shoestring affair. It ws either this or convert the attic ;-)
Actually the budget spreadsheet isn't public but I might make it public afterwards to show how much the whole thing cost.
Bren - you're some langer.
Em - as concise and elequent as ever.
;-)
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