Well, we've finally done it. We booked our tickets for the trip last week and we're just 8 days away from departure.
Here's how it shaped up:
We leave for Baltimore on October 2 to visit our friends Mary and Andy and their ~1 year old son. We'll spend a few days there and then take the train up to Rochester to spend a couple days with Liz's grandparents.
After that, we fly into New York. We spend one night there and then it's off to Milan. We'll be in Italy for 5.5 weeks, and then we catch a flight from Rome to Bangkok (connecting in Doha, Qatar).
We have 10 or 11 weeks in SE Asia, then we fly direct from Bangkok to Los Angeles. From there we go LA---> San Jose (Costa Rica)---> Buenos Aires.
Another 10 weeks or so, then we fly into Cancun. We'll spend close to 3 months in Mexico, mostly in Oaxaca, then fly out of Mexico City back to Portland.
The grand total? Just under $3k each, which is much better than we could have gotten booking tickets individually (we used STA travel).
From now on you can expect much more frequent updates, including pictures.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Still waiting on details
Well, it appears that we're moving forward, despite the loan "hiccup" the other day. We had the VA appraisal today, although I haven't heard any results yet.
And it turns out we may not need a full inspection, pending the results of this appraisal. That would be nice. Even though I'm confident our house is in great condition, there are always a bunch of nitty things the inspector could make people worry about.
Once all this house stuff is in the clear, we can really start to focus on our trip, which is pretty damn exciting. We're still trying to figure out exactly where to go, of course, and we probably won't have everything hammered down until we actually buy the tickets, because we may make some compromises based on price.
Ideally, we would do something like the following:
October to November - Italy (Genoa, Celle Ligure, Florence, Venice, Sicily), Switzerland
December 1-15 - Indonesia (Bali, etc...)
December 16 to March 15 - SE Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam)
March 16 to June 16 - Argentina (Buenos Aires mostly, some travel around)
June 17 to September 15 - Mexico (Oaxaca)
In addition, Liz wants to go to Morocco during the European portion of our trip, but I'm not as sold on the idea. I'm also thinking I might want to go to Argentina first, and then SE Asia, so we can hit Europe in the Spring and finish out the trip in Mexico. Seems like it might be better for saving money on flights, but again, we'll see.
And it turns out we may not need a full inspection, pending the results of this appraisal. That would be nice. Even though I'm confident our house is in great condition, there are always a bunch of nitty things the inspector could make people worry about.
Once all this house stuff is in the clear, we can really start to focus on our trip, which is pretty damn exciting. We're still trying to figure out exactly where to go, of course, and we probably won't have everything hammered down until we actually buy the tickets, because we may make some compromises based on price.
Ideally, we would do something like the following:
October to November - Italy (Genoa, Celle Ligure, Florence, Venice, Sicily), Switzerland
December 1-15 - Indonesia (Bali, etc...)
December 16 to March 15 - SE Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam)
March 16 to June 16 - Argentina (Buenos Aires mostly, some travel around)
June 17 to September 15 - Mexico (Oaxaca)
In addition, Liz wants to go to Morocco during the European portion of our trip, but I'm not as sold on the idea. I'm also thinking I might want to go to Argentina first, and then SE Asia, so we can hit Europe in the Spring and finish out the trip in Mexico. Seems like it might be better for saving money on flights, but again, we'll see.
Monday, September 3, 2007
New header
We're still haggling out the details over what the blog will look like (and be called), but for now I have updated our banner a little bit. The colors are brighter, the font is nicer and the subhead is shorter and simpler.
In other news, we accepted an offer on our house last week. The inspection was supposed to be tomorrow, but apparently our buyers had a hiccup with their loan. Not sure what that means; I thought they were pre-approved.
In any case, we should know more within the next few days. We're planning on buying tickets as soon as the inspection phase is over, so we will have a lot more definite information on our trip at that point. And we will begin updating this blog a lot more frequently with details.
Keep your fingers crossed....
In other news, we accepted an offer on our house last week. The inspection was supposed to be tomorrow, but apparently our buyers had a hiccup with their loan. Not sure what that means; I thought they were pre-approved.
In any case, we should know more within the next few days. We're planning on buying tickets as soon as the inspection phase is over, so we will have a lot more definite information on our trip at that point. And we will begin updating this blog a lot more frequently with details.
Keep your fingers crossed....
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