Hello World!

Here it is- a chance in a lifetime, to literally go around the world! In our wildest dreams- when we first met many decades ago- we never thought we could someday take off and go around the world. How long would it take? Where would we go? How much would it cost? Would we get sick of each other?  Then the next set of questions- would we get physically sick? Would we get robbed? Would we get mugged?

Although we haven’t necessarily thrown ‘caution to the wind', we have decided to take off and let history unfold. This was not an easy decision. First- family is very, very important to us and we thought seriously about all the ‘what if’ that could happen and maybe we shouldn’t go. But in reality, we could easily be hit by a bus when we go out next as there are no guarantees in life. Then we thought about our friends- dear friends who we love being around. Will they embrace us when we return? For that matter, will our family still be talking to us on our return? 

Next, what would happen to our home if a pipe breaks or the heat pump goes or we forget to pay the electric bill or someone takes our parking spaces we get robbed while we’re away? These questions went on and on and on. This may not be the best adult decision we’ll ever  make and financially it's probably going to be more expensive than our simple budget allows- but we have good health and we’re (relatively) young- so why not take off while we can!

So dear readers, prepare for the unknown, because that’s exactly what this blog is going to be. Hopefully you’ll see gorgeous pictures of some wonderful scenery or festive occasion or even strange wildlife. We’ll try and explain how the impact of visiting far-away places feels like, what it's like because we’re a minority, how we get by as we don’t speak the language or we get lost... stuff will happen when you travel the world in one year!

As for where we're going, we’re ‘only’ visiting 22 major countries. To put this into perspective, this is 11% of total countries in the world. To get there, it's way in excess of the maximum 39,000 miles a world airline ticket gives you. So we'll be travelling by bus, train, even elephants! The world might look small when looking at earth from space, but it's actually very big and we’ll be only hitting a small part. We’re also not going to some of the places we’ve already been to (so no Europe, no Caribbean, no shopping in New York City).  

But one thing is for sure and that is we’ll be telling you about places and things and people that in our wildest dreams we never thought we’d ever experience. So hang on to your heart monitors folks, as we make our windy way up and down the globe going right around the world!