Maps!

Here are some visual aids that might be helpful or interesting to you! There's also a chart that will help you figure out what time is best to call us on Skype!

One week left until we depart for our first destination.  We start taking our malaria pills tomorrow, we have our travel insurance set to go, today we booked our hostel for the first night abroad, and in general we're just running around finding things to pack. I think half of my bag is going to be toiletries! We're only bringing about one week's worth of clothes since we're only bringing backpacks. It's so strange that this trip is finally upon us. It seems so long ago that we started planning this in 2009.  Don't forget to add us on Skype!

I leave you with some quotes from a travel journal I found:

"As you grow older, you'll find that the only things you regret are the things you didn't do."

"When I travel I have no idea what's in store for me, but if I'm wise and understand the art of travel, I let myself go into the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit."

"Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to."

Welcome to our Blog!

Our trip is approaching quickly (less than 2 weeks away), so we decided to make a blog that friends and family can follow while we are gone. For those of you who don't know, we are about to travel for four months to several countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

This idea started in 2009 when Anj and Sar (aka Andrea and Sara) started talking about traveling the world. Wouldn't it be nice to quit our low-paying jobs and travel? But that's crazy, right?  Then we thought, wait a minute- if we're going to do something like this, now is the time! We don't have kids, we don't have a mortgage, and if we don't do it now, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives always wondering what it would have been like.

After playing with the idea, in late 2009 we sat down together and made a list of places we'd want to go. The list was pretty long and allowed us to travel for one full year, which we feared, would not be enough time. Fast forward a while, and we both got serious boyfriends and decided to shorten the trip (much to our families' happiness too).  We had to cut out many countries and plan out how long we would stay in each remaining country. Long story short, after months of planning, we finally booked our flights in May of 2010 through STA.

2010 Adventure Around the World will begin August 17th and we will return to the US on December 21st. The countries we are officially planning to visit are: Tanzania, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, India, Nepal, China, Cambodia, Vietnam.


Naturally, being two females in their 20's, we've dealt with a lot of people telling us that we are crazy, that we will become sex slaves, or get kidnapped- but we've also had a lot of people encourage us and who have been excited for how much we will learn and experience. Hopefully, if you're reading this blog, you are someone who has supported us and we appreciate you for it!!  Preparing for something this big has been a huge project for us and your support really helps!


Traveling has always taught me more about myself and about the world than I could ever imagine. Personally, I've only traveled in the past with the company I used to work for: Cross-Cultural Solutions.  Through CCS, I've learned a lot about traveling, but I've also been spoiled by constant in-country support and guidance.  This time around, things will be a lot different for me and I won't have staff members to help me with everything.


Here are the countries we have previously traveled to:
Sara: Greece, Morocco, Mexico, Costa Rica, The Caribbean
Andrea: India, Peru, Thailand, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Costa Rica again


We have less than two weeks now to finish our preparations and figure out what to pack in our bag!

Love,
Anj