Posts Tagged ‘planning’

Curious how much we spent this past year on traveling, but too shy to ask? Well don’t be, because we’re not shy to talk about it. In fact, I’ll just lay it all out for you. Analyzing the cost of something like this is really interesting to me – it seems like so much money,

but it all comes down to your priorities in life, and what you want to spend your time and money doing. We chose to spend a good chunk of both on traveling around the world. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
 

The Costs

Total Travel Costs

Item	Time	Cost
Europe Travel	3 months	$15,600
Europe Plane Tickets (Airline Miles)	–	$130
RTW Travel	5 months	$18,580
RTW Plane Tickets	–	$9,530
Total	(8 months)	$43,710

Travel Costs by Country (more…)

I’m so excited to share our upcoming travel plans for 2010! While the first half of our year of traveling was a whirlwind of many places within a relatively small amount of space and time (3 months in Europe), the second half of our trip will be fewer places but spread around the world for 5 months. And I mean that literally, Ben and I will be traveling completely around the circumference of the world using a RTW (Round-The-World) flight ticket. In RTW-terminology, we’re purchasing a 5-continent OneWorld Explorer ticket (“LONE5”) starting in February from Ecuador. The ticket is pricey, around $5k per person after all of the taxes and a couple additional flights. And it’s not easy to plan it either, I’ve probably spent a good 40-hour week figuring this out (good thing I’m not working!)

But back to the fun part, here’s our itinerary:

View RTW 2010 in a larger map
 

• Quito, Ecuador (3 weeks) – Alonna will be studying Spanish while Ben remains in Boise
• Galapagos Islands, Ecuador (10 days) – Ben arrives in Ecuador we head out for an 8 day cruise
• Patagonia, Argentina & Chile (3 weeks) – Hiking, biking, and enjoying the outdoors
• Buenos Aires, Argentina (4 days) – A little time in the city before leaving South America
• Istanbul, Turkey (6 days) – We missed Istanbul on our Europe tour, so we’re going back!
• Egypt (9 days) – Traveling further back in history from where we left off in Ancient Greece and Rome
• South Africa (9 days) – We’ll base in Johannesburg and go on an African Safari
• New Zealand (1 month) – Focusing on the South Island and all the adventures we can manage in a month
• Australia (3 weeks) – Three weeks somewhere in Australia
• Hawaii (1 week) – Bonus! Our RTW ticket lets us stop in Hawaii on our way home

All of this starts January 8th when Alonna leaves for Ecuador – only 1 week away! Our dates are flexible, but we plan to be back to Boise by the end of May.

Please share this trip with us! We are extremely interested and open to having YOU travel with us at any point of this trip. If you were thinking of going to New Zealand, Egypt, Hawaii or somewhere else listed above this spring, let us know because we’d love to meet up. Also please share if you know anyone in any of these areas that would be interested in meeting or hosting us. The more the merrier!

It’s getting close, only one week until we leave for Europe!

Getting Ready

I have borrowed TONS of books from the library.  I love reading guidebooks. If only there was more time in the day…
 

I also did a trial run of my new shoes and my loaner backpack.  I hiked up to Table Rock with about 15 lbs in my pack.  Success!  No problems with either items.  But my legs were a little tired.
 
 
Goals for the Year

On a different note, here’s a few of the things I hope to gain from this year of traveling:

• fun and adventure
• appreciation for different cultures and ways of living
• learn more about history and the world
• be brave and try new things
• improve my photography
• make friends all over the world
• remain flexible and open-minded
• learn a little of the local languages, and improve my Spanish
• share my experiences with friends and family

Our plan for Europe is to take one backpack each and travel around for 3 months.  We’re keeping our itinerary flexible in case we want to change our pace, hear of new places, or want to stay somewhere longer.  So although it’s guaranteed to change… here’s our initial plan of where we’ll go when:

(more…)

Ben and I have some exciting news to share with you.  This summer, we will leave our jobs to travel the world for one year!

Lately we’ve realized that now is a great time to pursue some of the things we want to do in our lives.  We both enjoy exploring new places and seeing different parts of the world, and I’ve always dreamed of traveling for an extended period of time.  Working as engineers for the past several years, we’ve been able to save up enough money to make this happen.  Ben will be leaving his job at HP at the end of June, and I will be taking a one-year unpaid Leave of Absence from HP starting in July.

Some of the places we’d like to go include: Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Asia and Africa.  So far we have the following plans for July through December 2009:

• July: Road Trip to Canada (1-2 weeks)
• Aug-Nov: Backpacking in Europe (3 months)
• Nov-Dec: Home and Family time in the US (1.5 months)

Over the next couple of months we’ll share more of our thoughts and travel plans on this site.  And while we’re traveling we plan to post photos and stories along the way.  We hope that you’ll enjoy sharing this adventure with us!