Countries We've Visited
Walk the Earth Slowly...
Four years ago my wife & I met a couple who had
traveled around
the world. Before that, such a trip had never occurred to us. Because
we both love to travel, however, we knew immediately that we had to do
the same. And so finally we're here.
Update (January 2006):
We're back in the San Diego now, eleven months after we left. I'm still
working to get all of my photo albums and essays ready to publish. Stay
tuned!
Our Route (roughly):

Itinerary:
We left Los Angeles on February 15, 2005. Here is the list of
countries we are
planning (at this time) to visit or have visited:
Japan
South
Korea
New Zealand - [North
Island][South
Island]
Thailand - [Bangkok,
Ko Samui] [Chiang
Mai]
Cambodia
Dubai
Turkey
Bulgaria
Romania
Hungary
Poland
Czech Republic
Austria
Slovenia
Italy
France
New York City
We're starting in Los Angeles, and our first city back in the
States
is New York. Who knows what we'll be doing or where we'll be after
that, but we will be going back to San Diego to visit our friends and
pick up our stuff.
How? Why? (Common Questions):
Q: Why are you doing this?
A: We're on a mission from God. Seriously. We think. This is sort of
our vision quest to learn why we're on this planet. We sure hope to
know more than we do now by the time we're done.
Q: How much money are you
taking?
A: We don't feel comfortable giving this information right now. We do
plan on providing our budget after we return so people can see how
surprisingly inexpensive it is to take long-term journeys. We
now
have enough money for our trip, which is a huge blessing from God
because we were kind of stressed about it. As always,
there
is no need to worry.
Adam Heine
wrote an
excellent
post on generosity and people's reasons for giving. In light
of
that wisdom, we decided that we will still accept donations.
We have a
PayPal
account
(so you can use your credit card) set up in order to do this. If you
hate PayPal, or have trouble using it, but you still want to donate to
our trip,
contact
us
and we'll
work it out.
An even better way that you can help us (and it doesn't cost money) is
by letting us know if you live in one of the
countries (or you know somebody there) we will be visiting. We love to
meet new people and this is one of the things that we are most looking
forward to. Any favors of hospitality we will gladly return if you
ever visit San Diego!
Q: Where are you going to
stay?
A: Hostels, campgrounds, new friend's houses. We're also looking into
some really cool networks like
CouchSurfing
and
Hospitality Club.
These
are both great concepts and fit perfectly with our belief that humans
should have the freedom to live wherever they want and that all of us
should welcome pilgrims on the road. When we are stationary, we do the
same for other people all the time, and we love it.
Q: How much stuff are you
bringing
with you?
A: As little as possible.
Rolf
Potts
wrote a book about long term travel called
Vagabonding
and it inspired us
to
avoid the common trap of isolating ourselves from our experience by
bringing too much of home with us. So we're basically just bringing
some clothes, a camera (+ gear), a book or two, and a sleeping bag.
Q: Are you going to keep
an online
journal?
A: Yes! I've been
blogging
for over a year at
Sacking
Rome and
Kaoru
just started blogging at
Kaoru's
Notepad. She writes both in
English
and in
Japanese.
We also take a lot of pictures and we host the ones we
like
online in categorized web albums. Our photo albums can be found
here.
Q: Are you buying Round the World (RTW) tickets?
A: No. We debated about this a lot but we want to have the
freedom to change our plans whenever we want to. It looks like buying
one tickets as we go is actually going to be cheaper. This way, we also
don't have to commit a lot of cash up front.
Q: What are you going to do when you get back?
A: We don't know. Kaoru will likely continue her
jewelry business.
She is also
an interior designer so she may take that up again.
I would love to be able to make a living as a writer but that will take
some time to get off the ground. I'm also deeply interested in
economics, international relations and social justice in Asia,
specifically in Japan and its neighbors.
In the meantime, I've decided I'm not
going to work for somebody else in technology. I wasn't put on
this earth to sit in front of a computer.
We also aren't sure where we'll live. San Diego isn't a bad town but
it's also losing it's personality to sprawl and over-valued real
estate. I
am considering grad school at
UCSD.
That would keep us here for a few more years. We'll see.
Navigation:
Personal Information:
Web Consulting:
Writings:
Photography:
Round the World Trip:
Ray's wife Kaoru is a jewelry
designer with wonderful designs. She is also blogs here.
All
Images & Content
Copyright Ray Grieselhuber 2003-2005