Vijil Family Epic Travel Adventure

T-52 Days To Go!!!

vijilepicadventure — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 09:50:00 GMT

Oh my goodness, in 52 days we will be at the Orlando airport and be leaving on our 2015 adventure!

So, the biggest question (after "holy cow, how are you going that?") is why are we doing this. There are several reasons:

First...Why not?!?! We have always enjoyed traveling and have wanted to see new places. Every time I read one of those, "1,000 Things to See Before You Die" lists makes me want to go on vacation immediately. We are very much an "experience over things" family...although you wouldn't know if by looking at the toys in Hayden's room.

Second, Hayden will be 8 years old. We decided that this is a great time for him to see the world; he is old enough to remember the experiences, young enough to still want to hang out with us, and we are very much hoping that this experience of seeing the world will influence the way he views the world. We want him to appreciate the advantages that we have in our lives and for him to understand how lucky we are in all that we have; hopefully this will lead him to be a compassionate person. In terms of school, he will be homeschooled during this time and will not miss a beat jumping back into 4th Grade when we get home.

Third, although we are by no means rich, we are able to swing the financially at this time through lots of saving, being very thrifty and by doing the trip on a very tight budget. While we were deployed to Iraq (during our time in the Army), we saved as much money as possible knowing that someday we wanted to use that money for something really cool...what could be more cool than traveling the world?! We do appreciate that we are very lucky to be able to take this opportunity together as a family and will certainly enjoy this time.

Last, but certainly not least, when Hayden was 4 years old, he was diagnosed with a Brain Tumor. We have been extremely lucky that the tumor was benign and the Neurosurgeon was able to remove the majority of it. For the past 3 years, he has 2-4 MRIs each year along with Oncology and Neurosurgery appointments. He is such a trooper and has never complained about anything (except getting an IV...which he hates) through the entire ordeal. This year, he has been cleared to reduce his MRIs to once per year...we decided to jump on the opportunity and get out into the world!!

So with that, we have planned/booked just about everything and I think that we are almost ready to go!!

Getting Closer T-4 Months

vijilepicadventure — Tue, 7 Oct 2014 04:31:00 GMT

Time is flying and it's hard to believe that we are less than 4 months away from departing on our crazy adventure.

As we have been digging into planning/itineraries/locations/methods of travel, we have learned quite a lot. First off, our original plan of "flying by the seat of our pants" has pretty much been abandoned. As much as I love the idea of being free to go where we want, when we want, it's not as easy as it sounds. Between Visas, plane tickets, tour arrangements, and providing an itinerary to our family back home, we have decided that we will be better off planning each leg of the trip prior to our departure.

The first big decision was whether to use a "RTW plane ticket" or to open-end the tickets. Ultimately, we decided to go with open-ended (one way) tickets to avoid any backtracking. We like to think that we are pretty proficient in navigating our way around locations and using public transportation, so we are going to start in one part of most countries and depart from another. Another big decision has been where to stay. Hotels are expensive, hostels are not much cheaper for 3 people (especially with a child), and we don't have much extra cash to spend. Thankfully, my job over the past few years has included quite a bit of travel, so we are able to get about 2 months worth of free hotel stays using travel/credit card points. Although we won't exactly get a local experience staying in these hotels all over the world, we will definitly appreciate the chance to get in a hotel a couple of days every few weeks to sleep in a nice bed and enjoy the pool. Much of the rest of the time, we are going to be camping. Our time spent in Australia and Europe will be primarily in our REI Quarter Dome T-3 tent. It's close quarters, but Europe has a very developed camping system and it will save us loads of money in the long run. In the rest of the locations where we either don't have hotel points and are not really wanting to camp, we are trying to use AirBnB to find local accomadations.

The third big question was whether to do our own planning or use a travel company...this ultimately came down to the cost. We are planning all of our own excursions, travel, transportation and lodging except in Africa. We decided that give the environment, there are too many variables to maneuvering Africa on our own. Through the African Budget Safari company, we were able to arrange a 42 day overland (a.k.a. riding in a bus and camping) safari from South Africa to Kenya that hits most of the highlights.

Now that we have made (some) of the big decisions, the booking has begun!! We have locked in a departure date of February 1st leaving from the Big Island of Hawaii. We will spend a week there with my mom before heading to Australia for 2 weeks. We plan to spend a week in Sydney and then another week in Cairnes where we are going to see the Great Barrier Reef (and crossing our fingers that Hayden does better snorkeling there than in the Bahamas!!) After Australia, we make our way up to Toyko, Japan for a week and then to Osaka/Kyoto for another week. At the beginning on March, we make our way to China beginning in Shanghai and working our way around the country for about 5 weeks. There are so many things to see that we have had to cut out some cities and it still feels too fast (may need to do some more cuts). As is stands now, we plan to spend 5 days in Shanghai, 5 days in Beijing, 5 days in Xi'an, 3 days each in Chengdu, Kunming, Jiuzhaigou, Guilin, and another 5 days in Hong Kong. Travel around China by train can take up to 24 hours to get from location to location, so we have a few days planned for that as well. After China, we will move on to SE Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand) for a month and then be off to South Africa to relax in Cape Town for a week or so before departing on our Safari. The Safari will take us from Cape Town, South Africa through Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, and into Nairobi, Kenya.

Following the Safari, we are spending 2 weeks in Egypt and then flying to Greece to spend the last 3 months traveling by train around Europe. The 3 month global Eurail pass and our tent will give us the freedom to keep our plans open and go where the wind takes us. I'm very much looking forward to this part of the trip! Then, on October 6th, we board the Norweigian Star to head back to Tampa, FL on a 13 day Transatlantic Cruise. I'm kind of depressed to think that exactly a year from now, we will be finishing our trip and coming back to the real world.

Photos: Vijil Family RTW Adventure

vijilepicadventure — Tue, 7 Oct 2014 04:27:00 GMT

Feb 2015 - Oct 2015 Around the World Trip

Getting Ready T-5 Months

vijilepicadventure — Tue, 9 Sep 2014 01:39:00 GMT

It's hard to believe by we are only 5 months out from departing on the craziest adventure that we could imagine! Our family has always loved to travel and it seems like there is a list a mile long of the places that we want to visit, so we decided to take a huge leap and spend 2015 traveling the world. We will be taking Hayden (currently in 3rd grade) out of school for the year and will be homeschooling him along the way. I truely believe that he will learn more on this trip that could ever be taught in a classroom. in addition to gaining a much better understanding of the world as a whole, I hope that he will learn to appreciate how truely lucky we are in our lives and to be grateful for everything that we have in life.

We have already started booking tickets as well as purchasing Travel Insurance. As it stands now, our plan is to visit the following countries:

USA (Hawaii), Australia, Japan, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonisia, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, England, and the Azores. CRAZY, I KNOW!!!

As I am planning the itineray, it seems like a ton of places, but it is so hard to take out such cool countries/cities that we know we may not have the chance to visit again.

Lots of planning still to go, but at least we have started and that's the hardest part!