The announcement –
I remember waiting for Isabelle’s parents at Daniel’s Broiler on the 21st floor of the Bank of America building. It was a beautiful night and one to remember as I was going to ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage.
The night was going great. I told them that I love their daughter and would like their blessings which they quickly gave. During the course of the conversation I described our plan to travel the world. Isabelle’s father was…concerned and a lecture proceeded about the importance of establishing oneself when they start a career which Isabelle just had. You don’t argue with Isabelle’s father. It was clear that I wasn’t going to win this conversation, so I quickly changed the topic.
The idea of traveling around the world started with me 6 years ago. JetBlue Airlines had a unique promotion called All-You-Can-Jet. It was a $699 pass good for 30 days of travel across the United States, the Caribbean, Colombia and Costa Rica. It was only by chance that I came across this deal. I remember asking myself, “why wouldn’t I do this.” I ended up buying the ticket and it sold out in less than 24 hours. That experience was life changing. Prior to then, I traveled little. So, in 30 days I became an expert. I had 18 flights, stayed in my first hostel and met many other travelers many of whom I’m still friends with today. It was at that point I dreamed to do another trip around the world.
I was fortunate to meet Isabelle who is more adventurous than I am and just as excited about seeing the world. As Isabelle and I planned and shared the places and itineraries we were putting together, her father started come around. I knew we had his full support when we talked about our plan to hike to Everest Base Camp and he expressed his interest in meeting us there! As our plans continued to develop, he has basically invited himself along the rest of the way!
The itinerary –
- 200 days starting in New Zealand and heading west.
- ~27 countries
- 5 continents
- ~30 plane rides
- 26 day Safari drive
- 4 vaccinations
- 84 malaria pills
- 3 different types of diahreea medication
Itinerit.com –
Itinerit.com is an application I built to help people dream about and plan travel. We’ve been using it to plan our trip. It models our process in which we surf the web searching for amazing places to travel to, save the sites, group them into a trip and then plan a detailed itinerary. Create an account and have some fun with it.
Itinerit blog 
This is awesome!!!!! Can’t wait to live vicariously through you 2 over your 200 days of travel around the world. You’re always an inspiration. Safe travels!
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One last thing…if you are in Istanbul:
“To get to the restaurant Çiya Sofrasi from the old city of Istanbul, you take a twenty-minute ferry ride to the Asian side of the Bosporus. On a cold Monday night last November, a friend persuaded me to make the trip with him. The place was pleasant but unremarkable, with a gray tiled floor, wooden tables, and no tablecloths or printed menus. There was a self-service bar with meze priced by weight. Hot dishes were dispensed at a cafeteria-style counter by a hatchet-faced man in a chef’s hat.
“The first sign of anything unusual was the kisir, a Turkish version of tabouli, which had an indescribable freshness and suddenly reminded you that wheat is a plant. The bitter edge of sumac and pomegranate extract, the tang of tomato paste, and the warmth of cumin, which people from the south of Turkey put in everything, recalled to me, with preternatural vividness, the kisir that my aunt used to make. Likewise, the stewed eggplant dolmas resembled my grandmother’s version even more intensely, somehow, than those dolmas resembled themselves.”
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/04/19/the-memory-kitchen
Go for me PLEASE, you two!
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This sounds amazing! Thanks!
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