Saturday, February 16, 2008

Extended Prep

OK. Thought I had better add this post so nobody thought the only thing we did to prepare for the trip was take a sleeping pill.
First of all, since we own a travel oriented business, we had a little bit of an inside track. (http://www.mapshop.com/) We have been talking to lots of other customers taking trips to exotic places for the last 15 years. We also decided it was best not to leave our business for more than a month. That we can be gone that long is a testament to the caliber of our Map Shop family.
The next part of the prep came with some introspection on what we wanted to see and why we wanted to see it. And the realization that we were not going to be able to see everything we wanted in 30 days. So our goals came down to this. What are the hot spots in the world in terms of the future and what the coolest antiquities to see. So these are our stops. China, India, UAE, Egypt, Rome. Our othr goal is to see, meet and understand the people in these places too. maybe do something good along the way by attending Rotary meetings and discerning where a real unmet need might be. There'll be more details about the plan in another post.
Next Patrice read guidebooks for each area and planned an itinerary that gave us a little down-time in each place. She booked us a full set of tickets before the airfares and oil-prices went thru the roof. And of course we saw the doctor for a check-up and a full set of vaccinations. Finally, we convinced a friend of the family to live in our house while we're gone so our cat Lucy doesn't go crazy. That's enough for now. More another day as we get closer to leaving.

No comments: