We’ve worked out that there are 4 important things before we can go travelling, and we’re setting out to cover them all soon. Charlotte’s schooling – she’s 7 (Year 2) and will be leaving at the end of this year for 12 months. She’ll be away for the whole of Year 3, and so we […]
Read more "Starting to think about going around the world…"We’ve chosen our route to be: London-Vancouver-Fiji-Sydney-Auckland-Singapore-Nairobi-London – all in 12 months, starting around 1st August this year. When we called around flight agents (TravelBag, Trailfinders, Airline Network) today it appears that although it’s possible, it’s going to be pretty expensive because of two things – (1) we’re doing a bit of a backtrack to […]
Read more "Flights"Sarah and I went to see the Head at school today – to talk about taking Charlotte away from school for the year. Because we’re effectively moving out of the UK for a year, then we don’t have to fulfill any legal obligations about providing education (amazing what you can learn about the subject from […]
Read more "School"Now that we know that our first country to visit will be Canada, it’s time to start researching what we can do as a family in Canada for a month. Having brought the Rough Guide (interesting – last time we travelled RTW we used Lonely Planet almost everywhere, but this time when comparing the two, […]
Read more "Our RTW Route"Having chosen our rental agents, Finders Keepers, they’ve now posted our house up for rent on the Internet. (Got money and clean feet? Take a look at Finders Keepers). They were fast workers – they only took the photo’s yesterday, and today they’ve put it online – must be using some blogger software! Anyway, they […]
Read more "The House goes on the web"Today was the day when my boss told my department I’m leaving to go around the world. Although I won’t be leaving work until the end of June, we are going through a departmental reorganisation and so it made sense to tell everybody now, so that somebody could be hired to replace me, and leave […]
Read more "Work"Well, it seems that for this trip, its the right time to go Digital with the camera. Last time we hit the backpacking road (10 years ago exactly) digital photgraphy didn’t exist, and so we travelled with a brilliant Canon EOS 1000FN and a small Olympus mju-1. Both of them performed magnificently (and they are […]
Read more "Cameras, Cameras everywhere, but how to decide!"Started to research what we intend to do, and where we should go in Canada. We’ll be flying into Vancouver early August (when the whole place will be heeeeeaaaaaaving with visitors). Although we’ve found lots of information about travelling around Canada, we’ve found little that gives hints or good ideas for Canada with children. Anyway, […]
Read more "Canada"Wonder why we’d be mad enough to give up a (promising) career, nice house and fast car for a backpack and a peripatetic lifestyle? Well, one of the principle reasons has to be related to my diet – and it’s remarkably unsuccessful influence on my waistline. Compare: And now – badly in need of a […]
Read more "WeightWatchers"Today’s dilemma – if we’re going to be taking technology on the road with us, what kind? With our aim to ensure that Charlotte continues her education, and stays in touch with family, friends and school while we’re away, our aim is to take a laptop computer, along with a digital camera and a digital […]
Read more "Technology on the road"This weekend was the first S-Day – Shopping – having looked around London last weekend, and browsed through Ellis Brigham, Snow+Rock, Field & Trek, Blacks, and a few other smaller stores, we had a good idea of the kind of gear we wanted to get first. The key item is of course the rucksack. These […]
Read more "The shopping begins"Finally done it – booked the tickets. We are now the proud owners of tickets to fly around the world (GULP!). Having handed in my notice, put our house up for rent and arranged to take Charlotte from school for a year, it made me nervous that we didn’t actually have a flight out of […]
Read more "Book it"Having sooo nearly decided on the Nikon 5700, with it’s amazing zoom and resolution, I started thinking and reviewing what I’m looking for a digital camera to do. What we want is something to take our photo’s on this trip, that are good enough to be enlarged a bit, and that are likely to be […]
Read more "Cameras (road-kit)"This week the children are having to cope without television – due to the usual kind of minor transgression that allows parents to impose discipline completely disproportionate to the crime! Anyway, as a result, every morning they’ve been having a lie in, or even doing creative things in the morning. The interesting thing is that […]
Read more "A year without Television – or so we thought"Well, we’ve started to book some accommodation. Although we’d been excited by the SaltSpring Island Hostel, unfortunately the tipi and tree house reservations were grabbed right at the opening of the booking season, and we were too late to book! However, instead we’ve found a lovely camping site Lakeside Gardens on a lake, where we […]
Read more "Saltspring Island – our first accommodation booking"Every day things get more real – we’ve just passed the “two months to go” mark, and are starting to think about really boring practical things – like how much can you fit in a rucksack, where to get travel insurance (we tried lots of different places, but the cheapest by miles was Insure and […]
Read more "Getting closer…"Well, we now know how much can fit in a rucksack (or three). On Saturday we laid everything out on a sheet (to take this picture…) And then we packed it all into the rucksacks. Amazingly we had more space in our pack than we had thought, and we could actually all lift our packs!
Read more "Packing…"I finished work today, so that’s it – no more working for a year. Or at least, no more sitting at a desk in an office. However, I do have my first deadline for my TES column to meet – it’s got to be submitted by 11th August. That shouldn’t be a pressing deadline, compared […]
Read more "No more work…"Suddenly everything seems sooo close. On Saturday we received confirmation that we’ve successfully rented our house out for the year – suddenly we don’t have a choice of coming back early, as it’s in the hands of a tenant for 12 whole months! And we also sold Sarah’s car to our window cleaner – and […]
Read more "Next week, next week"With such a short time left, and so much to fill our time between now and then, we’re trying to squeeze in a lot. On Saturday we’ve got the local BBC TV station coming to film an interview with us, to be shown on BBC South Today on Monday – how depressing will that be […]
Read more "Bags packed, house sorted…all pigs ready to fly"