Details to Plan

There's so many details in a trip like this. I'm sure as I get further into it, I'll learn what's important to plan ahead of time and what isn't.

I've made plans to stay with my high-school friend Fabian in London since he lives there now; I'm also hoping to meet and hopefully to meet up with my roomate from San Diego, Jamie, who's working outside of the city. I've also made plans to meet up with another high-school friend, Hugh, in Ljubljana, since he's travelling (for a shorter time than me) before he goes to law school next year; we're going to travel together for a little over a week through Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary.

I've got places to stay lined up for the first week in Europe: In Prauge at Junior Hostel, in London with my friend Fabian, and in Ljubljana at Celcia Hostel.
I've also got flights lined up: BritishAir 0248 SFO-Heathrow on 6 June; EasyJet 5497 from Gatwick to Prauge on 7 June at 18:20; EasyJet 5496 from Prauge to Gatwick on 10 June at 14:55; EasyJet 3245 from London Stansted to Ljubljana on 13 June at 13:30.

I've still got to figure out what I'm going to do exactly between 21 June and 30 June. I've got to be back in London in the evening of 30 June, so I can catch British Air 0676 Heathrow to Istambul on 1 July at 9:55 am. I'm increasingly starting to think I'm not going to go to Russia given how much the visa and transportation into and out of the country cost. I can get from Budapest to Berlin (EasyJet), Berlin to Riga (EasyJet), Riga to Stockholm (Overnight curise across the Baltic), and from Stockholm to London (RyanAir) fairly efficiently, cheaply and easily, so I think that's how it will play out. I also got an e-mail today from Tove, who's I met at UCSD and is Swedish/lives in Stockholm: she'll be out of town 23 June to 27 June for a big Swedish holiday weekend; she can show me around after that, but it sounds like all of Sweden might be worn out by that point.

I better get with these remaining details...

The Plans and their Genesis

The point of this blog is to keep friends and family up-to-date with my travels on my around-the-world trip.

Here are the tenative plans:

June 6 -- Depart San Francisco, CA
June 7 - June 10 -- Czech Republic (Prauge)
June 10 - June 13 -- England (London)
June 13 - 20 -- Slovenia (Ljubljana) to Croatia (Zagreb) to Hungary (Budapest)
June 21 - 30 -- Berlin?, Latvia (Riga)?, Sweden (Stockholm)?, Russia (St. Petersberg, Moscow)?
July 1 - July 14 -- Turkey
July 14 - August 4 -- India (into Mumbai and out of Delhi)
August 4 - August 12 -- SE Asia (into Kuala Lumpur, out of Singapore)
August 12 - August 19 - Australia (Sydney to Melbourne)
August 19 - August 27 - New Zealand (South Island)
August 27 - Sept 7 -- Hong Kong & China
September 7 -- Arrive San Francisco, CA


For those of you who don't know the backstory:

Realizing this was the one time in my life when I could take a trip like this, I quit my job at the Federal Reserve in DC shortly after being admitted for the Fall of 2005 and deciding to attend the PhD Progam in Global Economics & Management at UCLA's Anderson School with a generous financial package. After all, I'm at a relatively commitment free point in my life and have something great lined-up for when I return; when I'm 80, there certainly won't be regrets.

In late April, I drove across the country--for a fifth time, which is an experience by itself, given how much there is to see in our own country--squeezing everything I own into my car since I could store it at my brother's house in San Francisco. That's where and when the planning began in earnest.

I wanted to choose destinations that meet certain criteria: 1) they would be cheap, 2) I had not been before, 3) I knew people if possible (esp. if they weren't cheap,) and 4) where I would be unlikely to go again soon because they'd be too far away. In addition to the places I'm going I considered Southern Africa and South America, but unfortunately given time and cost constraints I wasn't able to work those in. Besides which its winter in both places anyway (and being in California for the next 4+ years, South America shouldn't be too hard to reach.)

In the past I've lived in Japan and travelled to Morroco, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Ireland, England, France, Italy, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Canada. That means that at a minimum this trip should bring me up from 16 to a total of 28 countries, which is still only 14% of the world's 193 countries, meaning I'll have plenty of opportunites ahead of me to travel to new places once I return to the US.