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Trip Tik

Three months after our wedding we packed up all our belongings and hit the road. With years worth of adventure magazine clippings in tow, we whittled down our list of places to visit while touring the western half of the USA in our VW camper van. We decided to start our trip down under. After 6 months of adventurous travel through Oz and New Zealand, it was time for some culture shock (maybe a language we didn’t know!).

With our very flexible around-the-world ticket in hand, we made our way back to the northern hemisphere and toured around mystical Central America where we learned Spanish. We pitstopped in NYC just in time to experience the blackout in 2003 (surprisingly fun) before beginning our adventure through 8 European countries. After 6 weeks of bulking up in Italy (wine, cheese, bread, pasta…mmmm!), we headed for a month to Turkey and Israel.

With only a few months left to go, we packed in the intense experiences: safari (Kenya), Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Chinese New Year (Hong Kong), beaches, elephants, & great food (Thailand).

Click on one of the maps below to see EXACTLY where we went.

United States
We got hitched, quit work, & simplified our lives in very short order.The inagural ride from Maine to Texas in the VW Campervan Heimo was not without problems, but it sure was fun visiting with friends & family on the east coast. Our journey from Texas to Seattle was filled with beautiful countryside, visits with family & friends. We hardly spent a night in the van! Bottom line: Much more time is need to explore America. But hey, we have the rest of our lives!

Notes from the Road

Australia
O.K., perhaps we were just excited to just fly by the seat of our pants. We knew Australia was big, but we thought we had enough time to see the entire country during out 2 1/2 month visit. Yeah right, it's almost as big as the USA. That kind of kamikaze traveling would have made us go completely mad! We decided to check out the states of Queensland (good beaches, rainforests) and Victoria (rolling hills, wine country, jagged coastline) since we both had been to Sydney previously. We still missed out on seeing the majority of this huge & beautiful country!

Notes from the Road

New Zealand
November '02 - February '03
Who doesn't want to take the 12 hr. flight from LAX to NZ after seeing Lord of the Rings??? Our plan for NZ is to buy a cheap van to tour/hike around the North & South Islands. We hope to get to know some Kiwi's while volunteering on farms/B&B's throughout the country.

Notes from the Road

Central America & Mexico
March '03 - May '03
The weather was amazing for snorkeling in Belize as was our timing - Carnivale! In Guatemala we visited the Mayan ruins of Tikal then headed off to much needed Spanish school which made the rest of our trip around Guatemala, Mexico, and Costa Rica a bit easier!

Notes from the Road

Europe & Turkey
August '03 - November '03
We have a 3 month Eurail Pass and plan to take FULL advantage of being able to travel to 17 countries. Countries visited: Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Italy, UK and Turkey (not included on our Eurail).We plan on saving Portugal, Ireland, and Spain for later in life.

Israel-
December '03

We went to Israel for ~2 weeks, toured around, visited M's cousin Patty, and hung out with an old friend of M's. We toured the Gallilee, Golan Heights, west coast, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. A very quick trip packed with tons of sightseeing!

Africa
December '03

We flew to Nairobi, Kenya before heading off to several game parks throughout the country on safari. After that we headed to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe for a few days and Dave slipped over the border to Zambia for a day of fishing. We only had a quick stay in South Africa because our Around-the-World plane ticket was about to expire....had to get to Asia!!

South East Asia
January '04 - mid-March '04

After spending 3 weeks on the beach in southern Thailand instead of 1 week, we decided to save Vietnam for another visit. No rushing around Vietnam for us! We almost checked out Laos as well, but a floating trip down the Mekong was just not meant to be because the river was too loo low. Instead, we toured the incredible ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and spent 2 weeks in northern Thailand. One last week on the beach, a few days in Kuala Lumpur, then we fly home...