For Suzanne and I year 2000 was indeed memorable. It was a tuning point in our life's, the year when we gave up work for six months and went on a geographic and personal journey of discovery around the world.

Andrew and Suzanne in Norway

The story of how the whole thing started goes like this... One Saturday in March 2000 after a particularly stressful week Suzanne and I were having lunch at a Willow Street Pizza (in Willow Glen in south San Jose, CA.) talking about how much Suzanne's job sucked. In a "rash" moment, I simply said "why don't we quit our jobs and take a trip around the world". Suzanne, being the practical sort just said that it would be great and all that, but you know we can't...

Well, 24 hours later standing in the kitchen Suzanne, out of the blue turned and ask if I we serious about going around the world? Taken slightly aback I said, with a shrug of the shoulders and a smile on my face, "sure why not..." and from that moment it was set. Yes, we did have second thoughts more than once, but we stuck too it.

It was our first lesson, "you can do anything you want, (well at least try), all it takes is the courage to take the first step"...

Where to go, how to get there...

After the first excitement we got down to to deciding where to go. The world was our oyster, literally. To help with the process we both wrote out lists of the countries we wanted to visit, the countries were graded, "A" must go, "B" like to visit and "C" maybe.

Well, it was easy to see that we could dismiss the "maybes" straight away as we had too many "A's" and "B's". We knew that we would not be able to visit them all so then we looked at planning an itinerary, basically joining the dot's between the countries, (based on getting a cheap around the world ticket).

After much discussion we agreed on Europe first, followed by Russia, Greece, Egypt and then on to Japan and New Zealand. The original plan then had us coming back through the US to then spend the autumn (and our last 6-8 weeks) in Italy and Spain. As it turned out our actual itinerary ended up not being quiet to plan, but that's the freedom of the road...

Down to practical matters, we looked into flights and decided that we would use our air miles to get us from the US to Europe and then pick up the around the world flight starting and ending in London. We found that for the extended period we would be in Europe it was cheaper to lease a car (free of sales tax). We would then use public transport for all the other countries until we came to New Zealand, where we would hire a car again...

Paying the bills and keeping in touch...

We had decided that we were not going to rough it, we both like our little bit of luxury. Rather we would spend carefully, stay in bed and breakfasts were possible, or get cheap rates at business hotels, (especially at weekends). This also meant that we would have a better chance of finding Internet access as we were taking a laptop with us to be able to pay bills and and keep in touch.

We planned our expenditure which included our living expenses while on the trip, travel costs, including car hire, additional flights and gas, while also making sure the bills at home got paid.

With the total cost of the six months estimated (plus a buffer) we decided to use up our cash savings (which we had been accumulating but had no time to spend, because we were always too busy with work), together with the sale of some of our Oracle stock. In this regard we were lucky, as the share price was around $76.00 when we sold, i.e. still in the throws of the "Dot.Com" bubble.

We chose to use an Internet bill paying service during the trip, PayMyBills.com. In most part this worked, however we stopped using the service after we came home, (but that is another story...).

The one other thing that we were careful to ensure was that we maintained medical coverage, just in case we need treatment, as our medical plans provided enough fund for treatment when local coverage was not available. This was done using COBRA based on Andrew's Oracle medial insurance.

What to take, what to leave?

We looked into whether it made sense to sell our house, or rent it while we were away. In the end we decided to rent our our house and we were lucky to be able to arrange a short term rent with a friend. Additionally we looked into what we would need to take and made a big long list. As you might guess the list was too long and as we found out later, we still ended up taking too much stuff...

Some of the thing we took included:

Laptop		We bought a Sharps PC-A800 with a 266Mz Pentium chip, 128Mb memory and 6Gb hard disk plus modem. The main reasons for this spec. were that the Sharp has a nice large LCD screen, the large (at the time) hard drive left room for lots of MP3's and digital pictures. The laptop worked great throughout the trip and we have been very pleased with it even since we have been home.
Travel Iron		A big mistake... Firstly we never really found either the time or the inclination to iron, secondly after only 2 weeks we had decided to send home any of the cloths we took that need to be "specially" washed or dried.
Cloths for 7-8 days		You know, socks, underwear, two pairs of jeans, one "nice" outfit, tops and tee-shirts. After six months living out of a suitcase it becomes really obvious you don't need closets full of cloths!
Digital Camera		A great buy, (see more details in the Photo Index Introduction).
"Proper" camera + lens		Andrew took a backpack designed for camera equipment and loaded with a Pentax LX SLR, with 100mm, 50mm 1.4f, 28mm, and 17mm lenses.
Two medium size suitcases		Yes, we could have taken more "stuff" if we had bigger cases, but we understood that we would be lifting these cases up and down stairs, on and off trains, etc. What we had not of guessed was that after six months with this "weight training" equipment how much stronger we would be than when we started.
Two backpacks		Susan's backpack held all of our "valuable" documentation as well as the laptop. Andrew's backpack held the camera equipment plus headphones and MP3 player, plus lots of other things too...
Locks for cases		A good purchase, as we bought both locks for the case and backpack openings plus cable locks to be able to lock the cases too immovable objects. I'm sure a determined thief would have been able to steal our stuff if they wanted to, but the deterrent effect worked. Plus it gave us peace of mind.
Sunglasses		Very important! We also both had polarizing sunglasses which we would highly recommend.
Sandals		We knew for Greece and Egypt we would need something other than boots so we took a pair of sandals. Again a great success, although we did post them back when we were in Japan.
Walking Boots		Good comfortable boots are a must!
MP3 Player		We took over 60% of our music collection on the laptop and then used the MP3 player on planes, trains, etc. This was a hit, although we were disappointed when we picked up our leased car in France, as it did not have a cassette tape through which we could play the MP3 so we had to buy some additional CD's anyway, which in turn became our favorites.
Headphones		Andrew took a 'large" pair of headphone (which HE had to carry around) while Suzanne took a pair of the light portable type. Both were indispensable.
Fleeces		The combination of a fleece and the large, good quality waterproof jackets gave maxim flexibility.
Waterproof Jackets		A must for any trip that included the UK :-)

Time to leave on the trip

Well, with our bags packed, the finances organized, the house rented out, all that was left to do was to quit our jobs. Suzanne left her job at Anritsu without any regrets (other than the friends she would miss) and Andrew was lucky enough to be able to take a seven month sabbatical from his job at Oracle, with a return date of the 1st January 2001.

So we were ready to leave - and to start things off well we ordered a limo. to take us the the San Jose airport where we boarded a flight to the UK, traveling business class, for the first leg of our journey... A journey where we not only saw and experienced new places and cultures, but also where we learnt to start living....

To check out the photographs of the trip click here >>>