Two years of retirement. My new job. Not that bright anymore

I retired in May 2024. Earlier that January we decided that we will take a few years, maybe ten, to travel together to all the countries in the world. We started with two very long trips, full of energy and enthusiasm. A third round the world trip described before and a three months trip to Africa and Middle East. Then almost without pause a fourth trip around the world, a “brief” one, with Ioan and his future wife to Korea and China and then alone to Siberia, Mongolia, Belgium and Germany. It was then, on the shores of Lake Baikal that we decided to split our chores, I will travel to all the countries in the world and Ileana will stay home to take care of the important stuff…

Greece in Four Weeks

I never understood how Eol was such an important god, actually I didn't understand why he was a god at all. That is until now, when we left the island of Mykonos on a BlueStar Ferry. It is the biggest boat we've ever been on, but the wind is so strong that everything is trembling. Anna, the owner of our hotel, repeatedly told us over the last week that we are lucky, they didn't have one good day all summer. We had two or three days without wind, it was uncomfortably hot, but, when the wind blows, it is almost cold and it is certainly unpleasant.

We don't give shots to Jewish priests

We don't give shots to Jewish priests, but we do a lot of other things. We've done something significant for our trip almost every day in the last two months.

Before the end of June, I called a travel medicine clinic in the area. I talked with a nice secretary who took all the information and needed a few minutes to find some slots on their schedule. When I called back a half an hour later she informed me that they decided to change the price from $50 per consultation to "$130 or $150 after July 1st and we don't have any opening until then anyway." Obviously (!), all of us had to have a consultation even if we go to the same places and we have no medical issues of any sort. I made one appointment only, thinking we could apply that information to all of us (we cancelled in the end). We couldn't cover everything there anyway "because Ioan is under 12 he needs to go to a pediatric clinic." The contacts I was given wouldn't see him because he was not their patient and they really didn't know much about travel shots.
We decided to take the matter in our hands. We learned, there are plenty of resources on the internet and we are both doctors. I liked the MDTravelHealth.com. I work in a public health clinic, they give immunizations to people and pets, they have some records of our immunizations. So can we get hep A? "No, because you have insurance you have to go to your primary doctor!" "my doctor doesn't do this", "I know, find another doctor" then "wait a minute, you're a doctor why don't you order the vaccines?" Without getting into too many details, psychiatrists don't usually do immunizations, but -  if I ever decide to start doing that -  I did set up everything, including Friday Fedex deliveries. But it wouldn't have been cost effective for us.
Thankfully one of the doctors at the Primary Care decided to help us and we got 10 shots, unequally distributed from the youngest to the oldest. We covered the hep A and meningococcal vaccine (kids only) and we will stop here. Ileana contacted travel clinics around the world inquiring about their services. At some point one of the girls heard her mispronouncing the word rabies as rabbis and starting picking on her "We don't give shots to Jewish priests!" We decided that we will get the rabies ($35), typhoid ($20) and the yellow fever ($40) in Kathmandu. The rabies are 3 injections and will end up costing $105 compared to $900 here. The yellow fever we don't need until Africa and it would have been $300 here. Per person. We might still get the typhoid here even though it's tough to beat their price. We will get the required booster for hep A at the right time, in Bangkok. A couple of weeks of hard work but we think we figured this out.

The Sony Alpha SLT55 in action

I would hate to be a security guy at Chase following my credit card charges. It seems that they stopped blocking the card for suspicious activity (thanks!). Maybe they improved their software to accept charges from Hawaii, New Zealand, Japan or New York in the same day. Anyhow my credit limit wasn't high enough for this past month so I payed them back several thousands every few days. Overall we spent $12000 since last post. We bought some real gems, the best camera, the newest MacAir, a nook. We sold our older camera, will sell the laptops that we have now and get pretty much even. Comparing my old MacBook Pro with the new Air, you'd never imagine how much 700 grams can weigh. Ileana and the kids got their sandals and some shoes. I got a couple of hard drives and I am trying to figure up my data backup plan. We got another three headlamps. We got trousers, a special trip to REI in New Jersey. We'll always be grateful to Kendra, she spent several hours looking for five pairs of pants and in the end was more excited than us that she found what we needed. She was enthusiastic about our travel plans. She heard about Rolf Potts and his travel around the world with no luggage. "Do you know the vest he had? We don't carry that, but it's pretty cool!" "We have five of them" said Ioan calmly.

We spent the last couple of years researching our luggage for this trip. We hardly bought any new clothes all this time, no electronics, no nothing, except for the trip. Now we have a long list on the white board and we cross items every day. Ileana finished her shopping at Icebreakers, she knew what else we needed. We followed them since last spring and got the items that we wanted during their biannual sales. With the last one, we got some gloves, hats and other pieces of clothing. I did the same thing with Scottevest earlier and got our vests with a 40% discount.

Moving on, we got the first travel insurance. It is perplexing to some of my patients and coworkers, how can you quit work, do you have enough money to pay health insurance? The answer is no, I wouldn't have money for health insurance in USA. It might cost $1200-$1500 per month for my family. It would probably carry several thousands in deductible. Going abroad, I bought the first five months of insurance, travel, health, etc. all for the nice sum of $510. I got it from Worldnomads, the most obvious choice. I was even able to get a coupon for 7% discount. "Sorry - because of federal regulations we are unable to honor that in USA." They offered to donate my $35 discount to one of their humanitarian projects, and now I am glad to support the Teacher Training Program, Solu Khumbu, Nepal. I am sure that the American Congress in its infinite wisdom has a very good reason for denying discounts for international travel insurance. Apparently there is a law in France that forbids stores from offering sales except for a couple of days per year. They all have the sales in the same time. Are the French politicians even smarter than the American ones?

Visas! Another one. I am sure that there is a good reason for those as well. On my reading list, "The Travels of Marco Polo." I am curious how much he had to pay for his China visa. The Chinese pay back to the Americans, adjusting the cost according to the Department of State fees. When they raise it, the Chinese raise back, but it should be noted that they are nice. The Americans take the money first and they keep the money even if they don't give the visa. The Chinese would charge at the end, before they hand you the passport. It costs $140. The rest of the world pays $45. The burmese, vietnamese and north-koreans get it free. There is only one exception: Romanians pay $70 for one entry, $100 for double entry. Not the main reason, but it feels good to be Romanian, second in the world after USA! For those who don't know, a visa is a nice colored printed stamp that gets affixed in the passport. It makes you feel special, a better person altogether. I remember getting the first visa for America 15 years ago. After standing in line for many hours in a freezing winter weather, I got to the interview, passed it and got my passport. My frozen, wet feet didn't hurt anymore. That stamp made me feel above most other people in the room... Back then I believed that! Sadly, I don't feel like that anymore. I had to pay $540 for the privilege of being allowed to spend my money and my time visiting a corner of my planet with my family.

Happy Birthday! See you in Penang.

There are agencies that would charge $50 per person to take the passports to the Consulate. We skipped on that, choosing to make it a 30-hour trip to New York City for my 44th birthday. We visited the Metropolitan and had lunch in the park before going to REI in New Jersey. In the end Kendra told us that we have to go to Penang, Malaysian restaurant, around the corner. We had Penang Satay, Vegetable Dumplings, Pad Thai, Beef Chow Fun, Chicken fried rice, Pulut Hitam. There was a time in the past when I wouldn't have tried anything exotic like that. That time is gone too. I asked the waiter for whatever is their specialty and enjoyed it without any hesitation. We will be in the real Penang in February and we'll compare.

We booked and payed accommodations in the most expensive cities that we'll visit. A nice apartment by the beach in Sydney and a 2 story house in Central Tokyo.  The apartments that I got in Sydney and Hawaii are cheaper than one room in the hotel in my village. The house in Tokyo costs less than the cheapest hostel there. Then I also bought the tickets for the bus from Kyoto to Tokyo. Buying now I could get seats on the standard bus, it will be a tough night but the price for 5 of us is less than 1 ticket on the Shinkansen. They even had reduced prices (by 2.5%= $1.3) for students,  and by 5% ($2.5) for my son as a child under 12.

I decided to end my little romance with an obscure chinese low budget airline. They wouldn't release their schedule for October, even lead me to believe they'll stop flying the Ibaraki-Shanghai route. There is a straight 4 hour flight from Tokyo to Beijing. The direct flight is between $800 and $2400 for an economy seat. We took the $2400 seat paying in British Airline miles plus $80. I only got 4 tickets so far, I need more miles and I'll get those in a few days as reward for all my other expenses. We took the chance that we might be separated with this, but I am sure it will work out fine. We chose to do the right simple thing despite the aberration of China Japan air connection. Of course I also bought some regular plane tickets, a couple flights in Hawaii in March and a flight from Guilin to Guangzhou in January. We are going to Canton! Unbelievable!

I got a $50,000 loan from my retirement account and some new credit cards with 0% interest, one of them for 21 months. Getting the money for the trip is pretty much done. My bank, "the world local bank" decided to sell all its business in upstate New York. The sale would be final when we'll be away and I don't know how I'll be able to work with the new bank. They would have been useless anyhow, they charge 3% for any foreign transactions. I found one bank that doesn't do that but I had to travel 100 miles to show them my green card. They wouldn't allow opening the account online because I am not an American citizen. So I did it. There was a time when the bureaucracy and idiocy of all these things would have affected me. Not any more. I don't know why, but it feels good. I don't care. It's not worth my nerves. I am going on with my plans because I am doing what I have to do. Nothing can stay in our way, we are doing the right thing. The kids are laughing, joking, they are happy, they are excited. Maria is the first one in the morning to get to the board and change the number of days left. Ioan said "I cannot wait to go around the world." Ileana and the kids will return today from the church summer camp and we will get on the last straight line, 50 more days, nothing else until we leave. That's it.

In an unrelated matter, Steve Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO. The Thomas Edison of our generation. People talk about his genius and his achievements. From little that we know about him I think the most impressive lesson is how he chose to live his life and the man he has become. Going again over his 2005 commencement address at Stanford, he uses the world love 10 times and death 6 times. Do what you love. "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." He ended quoting Stewart Brand: "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

We'll do.

A step

We managed to go and buy sandals. Those who know us remember that shopping is not our favorite way to pass the time. We don’t like the material, the color, the fashion, the store, the crowd, and in general, we lack patience. In Ithaca there is this shop where they sell Birkenstock sandals. What is so special about these sandals? They are manufactured in Germany! Besides that the sole is made from cork (makes them light) and follows the natural curves of your foot (makes them really comfortable).

Ithaca, rush hour. I follow the instructions on the GPS and arrive on a small street with restaurants, agencies and in between them, our “Fontana’s Shoes Store” with two large windows full of different kind of footware. We entered and a young lady greeted us. She invited us to sit on chairs and measured our feet. We explain what kind of sandals we would like (podiatrist recommendation) and while she goes back and forth bringing us different models to try, we look around ourselsves with large eyes, like children in a candy store: so many models, and some of them look even elegant. We don’t lose time and start asking questions about the other brands. Naot? The sole is made from a mixture of cork and plastic. Teva? Just plastic and it’s not as rigid as Birkenstock’s. We sit on our chairs and she adjusts the buckles on the straps, brings different models for the girls because the narrow one is better for them than the normal one. Do you have a different colour? And what’s the difference between the soft footbed and the hard one? It has a thin layer of latex foam that helps the foot adapt easily to this kind of footware. She helps us one at a time and we get up from our chair, walk around the store paying attention to our toes, heels, to the straps, the way they rub the skin, the sole and all those mounds that we could feel under it. The girls are looking at each other, talk in Romanian, they laugh and they are wondering if they really look like twins. Ioan waits patiently for his turn, paying attention to every detail of the process. For him they have only three models, but just one is good on his feet: Keen.

We make our minds up. Four boxes are on the counter.

We take a deep breath... now we need water resistent, all-terrain shoes for the girls and they have to try them with their orthotics. Luckily our help knew what the store could offer us and brought two models for each girl (Ioan didn’t have his orthotics with him). They picked the one that suited them best. Maria was happy because she will not have to shop for trekking shoes for a long, long time.

After two hours, with a headache, but happy we left the store carring six boxes of shoes.

Neun und Neunzig

I found out what the song is about. Growing up in a communist Romania, I turned 17 in 1984. It was probably the first year of dancing, clubs and interest in music hits. One of the best songs of that year was Nena's "99 Luftballons" and ever since the number 99 has a special significance for us. The song it's a fantasy about children who release a bag of balloons in Cold War era Berlin, soldiers think it's an incoming weapon, trigger a nuclear war and in the end one of the children stands in the rubble of the city and finds a single remaining red balloon (wikipedia). It was a protest song, I guess, we didn't know but we loved it.

Ninety-nine days until we leave. We almost finished the luggage, we are ready. Six bags lined up, just a few more items to add.

There's still some room in these bags for a few items.

We had several setbacks and turnarounds but

Why Facebook

I love Facebook. Maybe for the same reasons as most other people. I love that I hear from long lost friends, people who completely disappeared on the other side of the world. I love that I can see what my daughter is reading, what the other one is listening to, what video clips my nephew discovered and so on. Our children's friends and our friends' children share funny pictures and stupid tests. I can share an article on The Economist without having to send emails around. I can easily find out what Shakira did yesterday...

But mostly I love that I don't really have to work on this. I can screen through hundreds of posts in a couple of minutes and I don't have to click delete or like or send a reply. When the mouse reaches the bottom of the page it loads more posts. Nobody really expects me to get back to them and they don't need to get back to me.

Why then have I sent tons of posts around, begging friends to vote for our page "Noi6 Around The World?" Apparently if I get 25 likes I can get an userID for our page. I don't know how that would make things different. The Facebook page should help as a feed reader. We have a blog at http://noi6.blogspot.com. Today it has 700 days since the first post. Ileana started a separate blog at http://dejurimprejur.blogspot.com. I still don't know how we will use our blogs. Ileana's is in Romanian only to make it easy for our family members who don't speak English. They wouldn't know how to use a feed reader, they might not remember to look for new posts and would definitely be put back by the mixture of English and Romanian. On my blog I will mix English and Romanian and hope that the English readers will put up with it. But everything will be linked on Facebook. We might post every day or every week or every now and then. We try to keep it slow at this point, despite making a lot of progress in our plans, still nothing is happening, we only leave in 135 days. On the other hand, on Facebook I can post short, quick updates. I spend many hours reading about travels and I run into other interesting resources. Facebook could be a perfect vehicle to share that. I don't want to increase my number of friends there and I don't want to decrease my privacy settings. Having a page accessible to everyone would keep things separated. Having a two way communication with people posting on our wall or sharing pictures is another possible benefit. And in the end, I am sure that there will be some family that will get inspired to follow their dreams after reading our notes. On Facebook ;-)

We decided early that we need to document our thoughts and keep track of how they evolve. A diary is good for that and nobody needs to read a diary. But in the 21st century nobody writes for the drawer. Everything is out there and we should feel comfortable with that. But of course, we don't. We need to learn how to overcome our fears and our nature. We have to share the wealth of information accumulated and what more will come. We read thousands of pages of family blogs regarding family travel for a year or so around the world. Sometimes we discovered links to some blogs that were kept private. It was frustrating and hurtful. What do they have to hide? We felt cheated when some stopped updating their sites and sometimes when they would only put updates every couple of months. They should keep their end of the bargain. I subscribed to their blog and they should keep me posted. At least on Facebook.

We are going to travel as a family around the world. It is something special. Everybody knows this. Especially if I define "special" as being other than usual. Hopefully it would also be "special" in the way of "something distinguished by some unusual quality and being in some way superior" (Merriam-Webster definitions). Even being able to dream of this proves how lucky we are. But we probably wouldn't be here if it wouldn't be for some others who did it first and proved that can be done. They came back, better, stronger, happier. And as far as I know everybody said "I would do it again in a heartbeat!" They shared their experiences and wrote books about it. They started programs or joined organizations that promote travel. Some never stopped, continuing to travel in open ended fashion. They feel that travel makes them better people and makes this world better. I cannot agree more.

[Paragraphs self-censored because they were too serious][...] After a couple of days I got the Facebook userID and now we have a direct url http://facebook.com/Noi6RTW. We can print it on a business card.

I estimate that I told more than 300 of my patients that I am leaving in October. I estimate that 99% of responses where positive. Explaining to them I understand better why we have to do it. People are happy for me and for my children and praise me for doing this. My leaving will affect their life, sometimes dramatically, but they respect my right to do what I feel I have to do. Some people remembered similar experiences with their parents and how much it changed their life. Always in a positive way. Some people wanted to do something special with their children but never got to it. A lot of people said "you only live once." (!?) Some people say that they will travel vicariously through us, maybe on this blog, maybe on Facebook...

Fifty Tickets In 24 Hours

Three months after deciding the departure day. Less then five months until we leave we find ourselves closer and closer, sometimes too close. We bought the first tickets for an amazing price, breaking our trip in two, Asia until February 29, then New Zealand and the rest. In March I bought the first leg of our trip. Another great deal, taking us from New York to Osaka. In April I bought another three tickets, from Kochi, in the South tip of India, to Kuala Lumpur, then to Guilin, Hong Kong, Macau and back to Kuala Lumpur on January 27. It was a quick and impulsive decision, but we wanted more time in China, we wanted Hong Kong, we initially wanted to avoid the Chinese New Year. Then we realized that we actually want it in the craziest, busiest, most crowded place we could imagine, so we will be there for it. That wasn't anymore a time to look for cheap tickets, I think I justly assumed that the closer it gets the higher the price so we got the tickets and even reserved 2 rooms in Hong Kong for 3 nights and payed for 2 nights in Macau! Then we took a long break. We bought more things for the road, we bought some books, we read some more and went on with our life. We kept talking about it. We answered some questions, took some decisions, postponed some others. We are stuck (for now) trying to decide how to get from Tokyo to Beijing. Considering that the cheapest one-way direct ticket is more than $2000 (even more for return ticket), I have to come up with an alternative.

People ask me if I am excited. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I explain that "travel is the saddest pleasure", at least planning for it. This is a quote from Paul Theroux, I will read something by him at some point. It makes sense. With the whole world and "all the time" to see it, we find ourselves constantly making sacrifices, eliminating things, giving up on some dreams. Every yes for a destination involves a no for several others. Deciding to go to China a second time means no Laos, Burma, or Northern Thailand. No Vietnam. Going to Xining means no Chengdu and so on. More days in Tokyo means no to Hiroshima and South Korea. So I explain it sometimes, but I'm not sure if I get my point across and I wouldn't blame them, nice problem to complain about. We set some dates to break our trip in different stages. Then we break it further apart, leaving room for decisions on the road. Anything could change at some point and we just need to know our options. How can we tell if we'll survive India? How long should we stay there? We all are very excited, very eager to discover it and a bit scared. How long should we stay in Nepal? Every extra day there would take a day away from India. So we decided not to decide anything. We'll cross Himalaya on December 3rd and then six weeks later we'll have to catch a flight 2200 km away. That's 1340 miles by air, but it will be much more and much slower by land. We are all confident that we will make it somehow.

Last week I started to hear rumors that AirAsia is having the yearly sale. Tons of tickets for 10 cents for travel from February 6 to June 20, 2012. We had to decide quick on a day to leave Australia, that being one of the most expensive tickets. We did that and starting Monday night I bought 50 tickets in 24 hours. I also worked for 12 of those hours, slept for 4 and else. After getting the Darwin to Bali ticket on May 8, I decided to buy a ticket from Penang to Kuala Lumpur on February 29. Then I had the "great" idea to try to fly from Bali to Yogyakarta, no direct connection, but who cares. I bought tickets from Bali to Jakarta, then return Jakarta - Yogyakarta. After another hour or so, I decided that we really don't want to spend any time in Jakarta so I got tickets to Singapore, one year from today. Initially they were $2.42, but until I made my mind they were gone. Finally I found 4 tickets for that price, and got another one for $25. It was enough for the evening, it was after 2 am. I went to bed still trying to solve some puzzles. Next morning at 7, I bought tickets for Thailand, leave Bangkok to go to Krabi (February 8), return on February 22 to fly to Penang. I went to work and when I got home I bought the tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Funny, the tickets were listed as 7-8 cents, but the final cost with all the taxes and convenience fees was $215. Still a good price for 5 tickets. At this point Ileana said STOP! I was done anyhow! I got 50 plane tickets for a little over $1500. Average of $30 per flight, that's a decent price especially considering that most of it is in fees. $200 of that is just the luggage cost, for just 2 bags.

Overall an amazing thing, we now have 15 flights bought and still plenty of open dates in our calendar to make our plans as we please. There are some missing links, three more mandatory flights, two optional ones and we are set with the air transport until June 1st. The first 230 days of travel. After we are done in that half of the world, assuming that we want to go on, we will most likely move to Africa. I'll write more before that...

Perseverence

Our plans become reality step by step. We bought $105 per person tickets for New Zealand from Kuala Lumpur, we just have to figure a way to get there. Mihai checks daily for cheaper airplane tickets. I continue to study Chinese (today I finished the first course with 102 hanzi, the squigly signs) and the children continue to live unperturbed, despite our commitment to make them interested in our plans.

We bought merino clothing from Icebreaker and jackets from Scottevest (they have plenty of hidden pockets). Ileana’s was little for her size so Ioan inherited it. He is happy to have a vest, but couldn’t he have one for men? (the smallest in men would have the sleeves up to his knees).

We started telling people our plans. The vast majority of reactions were of joy, we had offers to have our luggage caried or to be chaperoned. Our parents were initialy schoked, but they passed over it and now they are going to join us in China. This doesn’t mean that they are not going to be worried (with all these earthquakes in Christchurch or Japan and the revolutions in the North of Africa). For Mihai it was a little bit stressful to inform his boss and his collegues, but they were happy for him.

We don’t know if we are going to rent the house or not, but in May there is a whole village sale, so I’m selecting the things we don’t need so we can sell them (and in case that we are renting, it would be easier to pack).

Two Hundred Twenty Five

Guess what? You can only have an accurate countdown after you decide on a target day. We had some days counted before but we really didn't know when we leave. But now we know.  Since my last post we went back and forth between leaving October 23 or November 27, with two different plans. We were waiting for an answer from my job and checking some plane tickets and waiting. And waiting. I don't know for what, maybe for the right way to define the question. One day I realized that in the process of planning for this trip we ended up upside down. We knew the end but not the beginning. But since we actually don't know the ending, maybe we should just start at the beginning. Even though it would be a nice idea to end in Romania in December 2012, we might end our trip in September, or in June or in November. We'll know when we are done and when we are ready to come back. Or we'll just find out that the money is over and we'll have to come back.

I explained this to my director and during a five minute conversation he told me that I should just go ahead and decide. Looking at a calendar he had on the wall we chose my last day - October 15. Neither one realized that it's a Saturday and we don't work weekends. It just sounds good. October 15.

Saturday morning we bought our first tickets. It is amazing. Tickets for February 29, 360 days from now. Flying from Kuala Lumpur to Christchurch for less than $105 per person. Taxes, lunch and luggage included. It's a distance longer than from here to Europe. If I would find this ticket price for Europe we might just go every other weekend. Before this we had to decide on Asia or Australia first. Our parents were still undecided on coming to China. I asked if they might consider coming in November. They said no. But they said we should just make our plans as we think best. Started from Japan the trip could be 8000 miles shorter and at least $2500 cheaper. We don't have yet the plane tickets for Japan and we only have 225 days to get them and get on the plane... I'm working on it.

Crossing Into The Other World

Our secret plans are becoming public. We were living in a fantasy world for some time and now everything is becoming real. For us that was reality and the other world was living in its fantasy. In the real world there are a lot of people that we love and care about. They had no idea that we were planning for this. They never heard of anybody to do this. They say that this is everybody's dream, but nobody does it. They praise us and envy our children who might not know how lucky they are. They wonder if there would be anything left after that. How does somebody return to work and keeps going after they've accomplished their lifetime dream? They are scared for us and silently hope that we will come to our senses. They are excited for us and want to join us. And they are mad and hurt because we didn't share and kept this hidden for so long. They are worried about my job and the school. And on and on it goes, I love this range of answers to our disclosure. There will be more and more people to learn about this and hopefully more reactions to remember. We are working getting our story strait, some details need to be clarified. It might also help to have a script of how to start a discussion, how to break the news that we are leaving, how to say that we will go for 14 months.

For those who might start our blog here, let me make a short summary. We are a family of five Romanians from upstate New York and we are going around the world. We always wanted to travel, even thought about going around the world and we were waiting for the kids to grow and go, or for us to retire. After learning of some families who traveled extensively with their children we started to talk about it. In July 2009 we decided to do it. A few months later we realized that we have to do it. We can pull this through and we owe it to ourselves and to our children. Jokingly or not we can make it part of their homeschooling. We kept this hidden, just among the five of us, we waited to break the news face to face to our families in Romania. We did it in December 2010 during our winter vacation and they took it pretty well. After we came home we started to share the news with some of our friends and with the people I work for/with. We are counting the days and starting to wrap things up. We don't know yet when we would be leaving but we are clarifying our choices and moving forward.

As my daughter put it, we want to discover a "slice of the world", not just monuments and resorts, but people and cultures from four continents. For now the plan is to go west, we know the end, Maria's 18th birthday in Romania in December 2012. We will leave sometime this fall, before December 1st. We will have just the hand luggage and a limited budget and we will work our way through looking for shelter, food and fun, making arrangements and plans as we go. We are not talking about a long vacation, it is actually travel and it will not be easy, but we are ready for it.

Nightmares

I woke up last night with a terrible nightmare: I already bought the first two tickets of our RTW trip, I spent almost $7000 and I got tickets to a J....-j.... place somewhere in a colony of Brazil and from there to Surinam. We already decided to skip South America for this trip and this had been hard to accept. I had to justify it somehow, but this became easy when we realized that these places were on a different continent that was somehow hidden from the others (that's why we missed it the first time). There was a major issue getting from the hidden continent to the not hidden ones but at least it wasn't my fault. Having resolved this I felt a bit better but then I came to the worst part of the nightmare when I realized that I spent all the money for these places without having read about them and without knowing the weather! Eventually I woke up, I was relieved to realize we don't yet have the tickets. We are on vacation in Romania spending Christmas and New Year, we are letting families and friends know about our plans and making our secret plans public.

So far so good, people take the news pretty well, there is no secret that it is kind of crazy, especially for the life in Romania. We told my parents, Ileana's mother and sister, other people that are close to us. Some cheered, some got scared, obviously scared, but most people took the news very lightly and polite and moved the conversation to more pressing matters (like the daily life issues).

I am writing a draft letter to Airtreks trying to summarize our plans and our questions so far. We are now 301 days away from the planned departure and we could even buy tickets if we want to! This is something I played with last night and this would fully explain my nightmare. If this is what it takes, I'll take it...

Another update

Getting ready for Galapagos. Emma is coming to Romania. Maria is taking the SAT. We spent $500 on swimming suits. Next week my old highschool friends are meeting in a restaurant in Bucharest and I cannot go because I will be in Puerto Villamil. Nobody knows and nobody asked and nobody cares where is that. It is at one of the ends of the world...
We spent a lot of money buying various things, a new videocamera, battery and memory sticks, headlamps, special towel, special sleeping bags, ear plugs, medicines and sunscreen. Then Ileana saw a book in the library and reading something there I found Coolibar, special clothing for being in the sun. And yesterday we got our $500 swimming suits. We didn't take it out of the house (we have freezing temperatures here now) but it was so cool to try it and we had one of those moments "How could we live without it until now?" There are three pieces each, long sleeves, long legs and a hat, but they are rated UPF 50+ sun protection, we are going to use it in Galapagos and in Australia and in Bali.

Maria is a bit stressed out with the SAT this week but she did a fantastic job preparing for it and she's going to do very well. She even sacrificed some of her time for Nanowrimo! Then Emma visited us last weekend, we talked about her life and her plans for travel, she's saving money for her Turkey trip and maybe also for Romania, she had no idea when she might go and how much she'll need. After spending a few minutes on the internet she had some clear plan and information and four days later she had a plane ticket. She is going to take the train from Istanbul to Bucharest and join us for Christmas. Today I asked jokingly if I should go and pick her up in Istanbul and Maria immediately wanted to come. A moment later she asked herself surprised: "When did I start to get excited about travel?" And we didn't even start yet.

We learned a lot about Galapagos and probably we are going to do very little and try to be very frugal. Land accommodations and day trips. We are saving for the big trip and cannot afford to blow our money on cruises or scuba diving. We booked a house for 5 nights but we don't have the first few days or the last week and we will leave it open for when we get there. We will get to the port, get on the available boat and find out then on what island we'll go first. We might go West to Isabella or go East to San Cristobal. And then when we land we'll look for a place to stay and stuff to do. How crazy is that?

The Theme

For the past few weeks I searched on the internet trying to find families who went, or are or will be on a trip around the world. Mihai is following some already, but I wanted to find one by myself. I gave a search in Romanian and found one family that lives in France and finished their trip in May 2009 peicipecolo . It is like a parallel world, in which all have knowledge of geography, approximately same interests, with people who live from little, good workers. You look and see the pictures that they took, where they where, what transportation did they use. Verify their lists of objects, what was useful and what was not. And despite reading everything, it is not enough. I want more. I don’t want just to read about their adventures, I want to live mine!

Ok. Where do we go? Anywhere, it doesn’t matter because we want to see as much as we can. But we can’t go everywhere! Ok, how do we choose? We would need a theme. Some people go to places where there are marathons. Others go to UNESCO places. Others after endangered animals. Some crisscross a region and study it profoundly, and yet others choose places representative for a culture. What do we want? Difficult to answer because we have to prioritize. We know that we want to show the world to our kids and to be together in new places.

I’m doing my work around the house and I’m thinking how are we going to manage, how will it be to sleep on a lumpy futon (hard doesn’t bother us), maybe with bugs, how are we going to eat all the strange food, hot or of unknown provenance. And what is going to happen with the things that are staying home? The garden, the objects (will we have to pack everything in order to rent the house or will we let them gather dust?). What to keep, what to give? What interest will we have in some subject when we’ll return? And do we have to return? For us it is so simple: we moved from our country and adapted here. To leave this place and move somewhere else it would be no problem.

What’s our theme?

Galapagos

LAN airlines sent me an email that they offer free tickets to Galapagos with a purchased ticket from United States to Guayaquil. I noticed this and moved on, mentioned it to Ileana on Saturday as just some piece of news, but why do we care, we are going to Galapagos in February 2012 anyhow. Sunday night I thought to myself that I should probably check this out. It turned out to be true and the terms of the offer couldn't be better. Buy a ticket before June 21st for travel after September 16th. LAN is starting this new service and it is likely to be just a one time thing. A couple of months ago I played with the idea of taking one week off to Galapagos while we are in Florida in November. It was too expensive and the time on the islands would have been too short. Now I could buy tickets from New York for $3137 and from Miami for $500 less.
Monday morning when we woke up I asked Ileana if she would like to go to Galapagos. I have an annual conference in Orlando the week before Thanksgiving and this could be a great two week vacation, including some time on our favorite beach at Caladesi Island. She didn't need more than two minutes to decide. We did some calculations and realized that it might cost us just $1200 more to fly from home, instead of going during our RTW trip. We both admitted that we are afraid that Galapagos might be cut off as we get closer to our trip because it is such a huge expense. Better go now when I am still employed and we can count the money differently. The Florida vacation would surely cost more than $1200 and we gain 2-3 weeks on our trip next year. We could spend more time in New Zealand and Argentina and we could make it to Brazil.
It is Wednesday now and yesterday I spent two hours buying the tickets to Galapagos Islands on November 11! There were two agitated days on my part but the family reaction was very enthusiastic. Maria is happy about the "bragging rights", it sounds so much better than Florida, her sister is happy that "this means we can go to Brazil" and Ioan was unhappy with any option because he won't be home for his birthday and won't have a birthday party. Again.
It took less than 48 hours to make this major decision and it might seem an impulsive one, but I don't think it is. Surprisingly I had much more anxiety about this issue than I would have expected and the last two days I almost fell sick. We spent an entire year thinking everyday about our trip next year and by now there is a level of impatience, it seems too long to wait another 509 days. And suddenly we find ourselves having to make plans for November, we can buy some equipment and test drive it right away, we can get a glimpse at how we'll travel next year. We have time to learn and prepare and we also have a "distraction" to make the wait for the big trip much shorter. And we can tell everybody right away. I can only imagine the surprise as this is might seem to come from nowhere, how can someone suddenly decide to go to Galapagos? We just watched the BBC movie (the islands that changed the world) [Blu-ray]  [DVD]   [book] last week and we've been talking about it quite a few times in the last year, but we cannot say it yet.

It is also interesting to note that the purchase of the tickets was much more painful than it should be. After spending almost an hour to start a household account for frequent flyer miles on British Airways, I went to lan.com to buy the tickets and on the last screen I got an error after entering the credit card data. I tried again, got another error and called their customer service. Their representative, Fabian, apologized and explained that they need the passport numbers to issue the tickets, I gave him that and then he tried to charge my credit card and got a denial. We tried another credit card and got another denial. I called the first card to unblock it, called Fabian again to buy the tickets and called the second card to unblock that as well. This morning I got another call from the security department at Chase to verify what happened last night. Bottom line, they block these transactions thinking that they protect me from unauthorized charges. I can only imagine the pain of buying $30000 plane tickets next year. Well, we'll get through that...

Galapagos is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, 1000 km off the coast of Ecuador. There are several inhabited islands, several villages and two small airports. It is mostly a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some people call them "the islands that changed the world". Everybody knows about Charles Darwin and the giant tortoises but I'm sure not much more. They are much bigger than they seem and much more difficult to explore than one would think. There is a $100 charge to enter the National Park and you are required to have an approved guide in the park at all times. Most people would visit the islands on a cruise, but the cruises are expensive, they only have 2-bed rooms and they also waste a lot of time getting there and in between islands. A regular 9-day prearranged trip can have only 5-6 days on the islands and can cost as much as $2400. We will try to read as much as we can, book the first night on our arrival and then decide on the spot how we spend the next 14 days. We'll see.

Beginnings

Sir Ernest Shackleton … he tried to cross Antarctica going through South Pole in 1914. The ship was claimed by ice and for a year and a half, he and the crew lived on ice trying to save themselves. Mihai read several books on the subject and one of them was “Endurance: Shackleton’s incredible Antarctic Expedition” by Alexandra Caroline. The book was written following the crew’s diaries, but Frank Hurley’s photographs (on glass plates and celluloid! which were recently rediscovered) were the ones that  were making the book special. Some of them you can see at Endurance-vessel on wikipedia. After this we read another book „Around the world in 80 dates” and another book, then websites… and that is how we came up with the idea of traveling around the world… of course with the children, initially  for 6 months and later, as we continued to think about where we would like to go, for a year and it already looked like a too short time.

Pro: we are young and healthy, we want to see so many places that we’ve heard or read about, we want to be together, the two of us, and both with the children, we want to be exposed to new situations, that can’t be met in our normal lives, we want for them to be a little bit hungry and a little bit cold, hoping that this experience will enrich our souls and open new horizons.

Cons: we still have time, we interrupt established rhythms, we’re missing “trains”, it’s a folly, we can get sick, it is dangerous and the list could continue, but somehow this part seems too general and without substance.

But before books and movies there was something else…It was summer and I was getting ready to take the exams for medical university. With the Popa family and their friends we went to the Argeș river for a wonderful afternoon with grills and water games. A storm came from nowhere and we retreated to Aunty Nușa’s home for some coffee. I was 17 and preoccupied by my future, and so I took the courage to ask her to read my cup. She said she could not tell me specifics, only general things and nothing in the immediate future. I remember something about a setback (I did not pass my exam), after a while I will move with my house over the water (we moved to USA), but after some time I will walk with luggage, probably to return from where I have left. For a long time I was afraid that after establishing our lives in US, we will have to return in Romania and start all over again. BUUUUUUUT now I know: I will go around the world, this is what Aunty Nușa saw!

How interesting, we come to fulfill the future that was “predicted” to us!

Secrecy

We had an interesting discussion about secrecy and in particular about keeping this plan secret. We agreed that the only right way to go about this would be to let our parents/grandparents know first and only after that start to freely talk about it. We have no idea how people would take it, we expect the whole range of reactions possible, but especially in the case of our families we would expect a lot of questions. So we have to let them know in person and this will happen during our winter vacation in Romania.

Considering the nature of my work I will let my director know first as soon as possible and then we will work together toward a plan for my replacement. The sooner people know the better, but I think that 6 months should be enough. After that all our friends would be informed. I hope they will all understand that we had to keep this secret for a while.

The children asked various questions about this topic but in the end we think that they understood. So far they've been really good about this, it doesn't even seem to be much effort and this is a very impressive sign of their maturity.
A couple of months ago at the church, Father Daniel asked us "Are you still going on the trip?" My answer was: "Of course, we will let you know when, we don't know for sure yet!" Maria witnessed this and asked when we got in the car: "How come we have to keep it secret and the Father knows?" We explained that almost a year ago, just a couple of days after Ileana and I talked about this and decided to do it, Ileana mentioned it to him. Then we agreed that it's too early to really talk about it and never mentioned it again to anybody outside our house. But then in September 2009,  Ioana, my cousin, asked about our round the world trip. We were shocked "How could she know?" It turns out that we talked about it five years ago! We answered in a similar manner... Are there other people that we talked with about this?

It will be exciting to break the news to everybody but for now it remains our secret.

Five Months Closer

Another five months passed. I am working three jobs and trying my best to keep the pace. Several significant developments happened:

1. We decided when to go.
2. We determined an eastern route.
3. We found the money to do it.

Where should we go?

Sometime in January, at dinner we asked the children when do they think we should go. They answered one after another, in a surprising show of unity: 2012. They gave their reasons, Ileana saying she would be old enough to remember most of it, Maria that it will be after she's done with the high school and before she goes to college, and Ioan explained that he still needs some time to play his computer games and he's not ready yet, but he will be by 2012! Then we played a game at the big map on the wall everyone showing how they would like to go around the world and through which countries. We will need to repeat this at various times. 

Spending most of my free time learning about this world - I had a hard time figuring out how we could go east instead of west. I finally got it, but this is just a part of hundreds of possible itineraries and will be left for later. We have no particular reason to go east, it would be an extra night to pay for, it's just good to have options.

Even more important, we have been saving as much money as possible and we are starting to see a serious improvement in our finances. A significant decrease in our debt will be soon followed by learning how to keep and manage our savings. Also just realizing that I can afford to pay interest for one year on a hundred thousands, that I can get a home equity loan and a loan against my 401 and cash another retirement plan - we can have the money and leave in two months if we want to...

Thank you Christine (from a dissapeared blog almost fearless), your book really helped, just that tip alone made a huge difference for us: 30-ways-in-30-days-to-redesign-your-life-and-travel-the-world/

I Think It's Funny

Last night I took a couple of things outside to the recycle bin and while getting back in the house it hit me: "We have to do it. It is our duty!" Such a strange feeling, I almost felt it physically as a hit on the top of my head. What sort of parents would we be if we let the kids grow up and leave our house without taking them around the world? I hope you see a funny side to this, Ileana did, it is definitely the opposite of what most parents might say. We didn't talk with people yet, and this is still more than a year away, but I would expect some comments concerning the safety of the kids and how such a trip could put some risk on their future. So, let me say it again, now that we actually thought of this, how could it be possible not to do it? We owe it to them and to ourselves!
As this blog is recording the evolution of our thoughts and the whole decision process, we continue to talk almost nightly about it. We both feel much more comfortable with the idea of a full year of travel compared to the initial thought of a six month vacation. As we learn more, we also feel much more comfortable with the idea of independence and open ended plans, where we would have much less of a set schedule and the freedom to stay more in places that we like. Comments about having a round the world trip come up much more often in casual conversations at dinner. I cannot possibly recall all the comments, for example last night somebody said something about Indonesia, I asked, "Do we want to go to Indonesia?", Ileana replied immediately, "No, I want to go to Tibet!" Her younger brother agreed with her saying something about Himalaya. A couple of days ago I was looking with Maria at the map and showed her the TransSiberian route and how we could end up in Europe from China.
As far as places to go, we leave this open as we continue to collect information, but now definitely in are New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, China, India, Cambodia, Romania. On the questionable list are Japan, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iceland, Finland, Mongolia. Probably not includes South America, Easter Island, Africa. Europe is a big open hole, were we could do everything for 3-4 month or it could be just a short stop somewhere. We might leave open any plan after Beijing, getting to Europe by train through Russia, and we could leave open any return from Europe to US and decide on the spot if we want to take a cruise or a flight. I need to remember the part about a cruise, I might forget that.

On a more practical side, I continue to make adjustments to our budget and finances, it is time to start saving some money. We have more than $130,000 in debt and maybe some $5,000 in savings so something needs to be done. We cancelled our DirecTV and changed to lifeline cable. From $95 to $10 it will be a saving of $2000 over 2 years. Similarly choosing a Tracfone over the Apple iPhone is another $2300 saving. We changed the Internet provider and that should be another $550 saving. But more importantly getting comfortable with the idea of loosing the income for a full year, that is not easy. The good news is that there is money to be made in low taxes on a year with no income. Transferring money from regular IRA to Roth IRA, potentially transferring the 401k, potentially cashing the retirement savings... The plan remains to work in 2 years for 3 and we should be OK...

Two Weeks Later

The other day Ileana asked: "Why can't we go round the world in the year when we go to China and meet with the grandparents there?". I praised her for a "very good idea". Maria was screaming "Why can't we just stay home?!" Ioan, Ileana and Maria were arguing about going round the world, making categorical statements like "We go!" or "We don't go anywhere!". We didn't tell the children yet. We talk about a trip around the world in a casual manner, like something that any normal family with three children does. Maybe they will come up with the idea themselves and believe for the rest of their lives that they started it. Like Ileana with China.

Privately we, the parents, are making progress in consolidating our decision. At this time, again, all we can do is save money and learn and dream. Ileana is cooking special fancy meals, better than a restaurant, and we are not eating out anymore. She charges me a lot, but she saves the money. I also save money anywhere I can, but most of this is on paper. It is time to start preparing for the opening of my private practice. It is a time to make investments, but with the prospect of a trip that will get us broke, I am thinking twice about these expenses. Do we need to pay the internet and the phone twice? Do I need a new computer or can I just use the one I have?

Also we are talking a lot trying to clarify what we want and what we would like. Ileana was the first one to say that six months is too short and she wants more. Now we are thinking more on the line of six to nine months with the summer spent in Europe, maybe Czech Republic, Germany, Scandinavia. Could we travel in an RV and sleep all in it? How long could we do that? This might be the only way we could afford Sweden and Norway. It might cost us nothing to stop in Iceland, and should be a must see. I would like to go to Ushuaia and Iguazu Falls but this would add a lot to the cost of plane tickets and we have to mind the weather. We learned that "There is no bad weather just inappropriate clothing" (Arthur Frommer?), but we are not going to find this out on ourselves if we can avoid it.

I read another book 360 Degrees Longitude: One Family's Journey Around the World and this is definitely one of the best. Their web site also has a lot of information and there is a file that can be downloaded to see in Google Earth. On the other hand I started to read WorldTrek: A Family Odyssey and I stopped in the middle because it's a very boring book. These two books are the stories of two American families traveling for a year around the world, with their two children. For me the lecture is not necessarily just entertainment. It is work, but is good.

Starting It All

Twelve days ago I got my annual retirement report. Ever since I started my current job, they took 3% of my salary and put it in a New York State Retirement system. It was not an option, but there were dates to remember and understand, and even to look forward to. For example after 5 years I would be vested, meaning that even if I change my job I would be able to maintain my retirement account and eventually get a pension. Another important time to look forward to was the 10 year anniversary, after that they will not draw the 3% from my salary, but my retirement account will continue to grow. On page 6 there were as usual the nice numbers of the pension I will get after working for them for 25 or 30 years. Numbers keep piling up and this is good but reading the same information again this year, I picked up a different side of it. Up to 10 years of employment I can get all my contributions back with the accumulated interest. After I work for more then 10 years the money will be "lost" forever. I will have to wait to be at least 55 to start getting some of it back. I now have more then $30,000 there and by my tenth anniversary I will have about $45,000. It is a lot of money to "lose". This got us thinking and it turns out that there is some catch to it - if I want to get the money, I would have to pay federal tax on it, they will send 20% of it to the IRS and I only get 80%. After that when I do my taxes that year I might have to pay a 10% penalty on it! Anyhow doing the math, this could be a $33,000 check to get if I leave my job before January 27, 2012!

A couple of months ago I was listening to Rick Steves audio podcast and he was interviewing a couple of parents who took their three children and traveled around the world for 8 months. They survived to write a book about it, A Brilliant Teacher: Lessons Learned from One Family's Journey Around the World. Listeners called in, including a doctor from Arizona who took his 3 children around the world. I wanted to read the book but our local library only had One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with Our Children. I bought the first book from Amazon, but we all read the second book first, even Ioan started to read it. It is a good and funny book, much better than "A Brilliant Teacher." But this got us thinking and we talked on and off about it. For several years we have been considering the possibility of a sabbatical, but mostly the doctor offers for a 6 months or 1 year job in Australia and New Zealand. That would be an interesting experience, but what's the fun if I get to work all the time and Ileana and the kids stay in some rented apartment waiting for me.

Several months ago we were talking-joking at lunch about our future vacations. Ileana wants to go all over the world, but her older sister only wants to have her vacation in Romania with her grandparents. So we talked that maybe grandparents can come to China and we have a vacation together there in 2011. This would be acceptable for Maria, but not for Ileana. She started to cry: "Dad, you don't realize, this means we won't be able to go to Australia until 2012, I will be 15 years old then, I can't wait that long!" She was so serious, so broken hearted and powerful in her cry, I had to hold her tight and assure her that she will be OK. We spent some time on the internet looking at available flights to New Zealand and Australia and her tears dried up. She moved on to a different subject, but I was left with the doubt. What sort of horrible father lets his children wait to see Australia and New Zealand until their 15th birthday ?

And again a couple of weeks ago, I got this statement from the retirement program that I could get $33000 if I just leave my job in 2012. This would be the year when Maria would have to go to college, then she'll be gone for good and all these wonderful places in the world would have to be seen without her...

What if I leave my job in January 2012, say goodbye to everybody and we take off for 6 months? We'll be back in time for college start. Ileana and the children would have to hurry up the homeschool a bit and free up several months of vacation. Maria would apply for colleges before December 2011 anyhow, so we'll know where she'd go in August 2012. The London Olympics would be in August, we won't miss it. And I have to make the jump at some point from public employment to my own private practice, this could be as good a time as any other. Thoughts keep coming. Maybe we can postpone the unplanned undiscussed 2011 China trip and meet with the grandparents in China in March or April 2012. That would be awesome! Easter is on April 15, I don't want to spend Easter in China, what would be a more appropriate place for that? Jerusalem? Sounds good. April 15 in Israel. We'd have Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Cambodia, India and China before Easter. Then Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Romania and I could be back for the annual picnic at my job before June 25th.

We need a theme. But we have a theme. There are some places in this world that Ileana and I know that would be hard to enjoy without the children. There are other places that we'd be happy to see without them. We can see Japan or London by ourselves, but we want to have the children with us when we get to The Great Wall or Taj Mahal. As simple as that.