After nearly 2 years of planning and some intervening expeditions and adventures, I am finally beginning my dream of traveling about the world. Many friends and family mentioned that I should write a blog, not something that I'm particularly prone to do without encouragement, so here goes my first attempt. You will have to bear with any typos or grammatical errors, but feel free to correct my English and grammer mistakes in the comments section. At least in this way my English skills might improve, while I'm butchering some other language.
Here's a abbreviated and rough itinerary of my travels through Christmas time, so you can get a sense of my ambitious plans. (Note: This is all subject to changes, which is sort of the point. It will be a grand adventure, whereever I end up).
Fly to Athens, Greece bright and early tomorrow morning.
See my folks for a few days before taking a ferry to Bari, Italy.
Explore S. Italy (Naples, Pompeii, Amalfi Coast) before heading onto Rome.
Days in Rome, as I explore this hub of western civilization and all its history.
Onto N. Italy, not totally sure where, Milan seems most likely so far.
Work my way through France (possibly hitting Barcelona), enroute to UK.
Spend most of November in the UK visiting family and friends across the country.
Onto Belgium and the Netherlands for a quick visit before continuing on to Germany.
Work my way North to South and eventually into Austria.
Find my way back to Athens in time for Christmas with the folks.
As you can see this is presented in pretty broad strokes, but it will hopefully give you a good idea of my immediate plans. Post Christmas is a bit more blurry, but I hope to make it to SE Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, before return to the US (Hawaii en route to the continental US). If you have any suggestions or contacts along this route, please let me know via email wrightp28@gmail.com.
I hope to keep you all informed of my whereabouts and experiences throughout this journey, and maybe even provide some entertaining reading.
Off to bed, as I will be rising at 2:30am tonight(tomorrow) to catch my SuperShuttle to Dulles and begin my 23 hours of flying and layovers as I finally get underway. Thanks for all the wellwishes I've received leading up to this and thanks in advance to all those friends who have agreed to host me along the way.
-Peter
