We Wander — Mark & Meghan’s World Travels

Hello friends. Mark and I have no idea how to get to Africa this April for our overland journey. Nothing is panning out. We’ve been in touch with several freighter ship companies, cruise companies and have even spoken to several experienced freighter and cruise ship officers to no avail.

We are trying to get from Asia (HK or Singapore) to South Africa sometime before April 14th. The most viable options we’ve found are:

1. MOL Wish, freighter, leaving Singapore April 10, arriving Durban April 27.
Too late + too expensive

2. P&O Cruises, cruiseship, leaving Singapore March 17, arriving Cape Town April 4.
Too expensive + fully booked

So dear readers, any other ideas? Ya ya, we know we could fly, but we are trying our best to avoid that option. Know any talented travel agents or people with private yachts who need a hand on board? Can you help Toto bless the rains down in Africa?

Hello loyal readers. Today is our last day on this magnificent boat. We’ll be docking in Singapore tomorrow and staying there over Christmas. We have no idea where to go next. We have a few months to kick around Southeast Asia. I was thinking about Sumatra since we’re so close and there are frequent ferries over. But there are many excellent choices. Please send us some suggestions – places you’ve been or want to be or heard should be great. We’d really appreciate some feedback. We’ll take pictures and it will be almost like YOU were there too. Thanks!

Over the last couple of weeks Mark and I have been doing a lot of research into the next big legs of our journey. It has not been a walk in the park. There aren’t many people doing what we’re doing and aren’t a lot of helpful of resources (except for the man in seat 61 whose site has been invaluable). There are oceans to cross, visas to obtain and countries to avoid. There are costs, non-existent timetables and websites in unfamiliar languages. The world is not open to us as it would be if we were to fly and we are struggling with coming to terms with the fact that we may have to miss out on some places we desperately want to visit, like Nepal. We are at the mercy of what mode of transport is A) available to us in a general direction of favour, B) leaves when we want to leave (+/- a couple weeks), and C) costs the least. With these factors in mind we have booked our next big leg: Europe to Asia aboard…(drumroll)…

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We’ve been carrying a small tent and our sleeping bags around with is so far on our journey, and actually making quite good use of them. The camping hasn’t always been picturesque (see our post on Paris), but it has definitely been an affordable option for us. The last few days have been spent camping in Biarritz. Our camp ground is called Le Pavillon Royal, and it’s more like a resort than a campground. It’s right on the beach, and has a pool, fantastic hot showers, a small grocery store with fresh croissants and baguettes daily, and a bar/cafe. It’s been like a mini vacation from our bigger journey.

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Mark and I are busy these days getting ready for Jessica’s wedding. Planning a world trip seems like a piece of cake in comparison! It’s going to be a quaint English countryside wedding. The wedding is on Saturday so we may be out of commish for a few days.

Can’t wait for the travels to start again, which we hope will be on September 1st. We’re not sure where we will be headed first. We’re looking into postponing our African journey until April of next year. Getting to Cairo overland will take nearly all the time we have, which will leave little to no time for us to explore Europe with our rail passes. So we’re keeping our fingers crossed that someone will be able to take our spot on the October departure so we can spend more time wandering the Northern Hemisphere.

We’ll be keeping you posted.

Only 24 hours to go. We’ve gathered everything we are bringing into an organized pile in the middle of the floor, and done a test pack with our backpacks. The result: both bags had room to spare! Final weigh-ins have Meghan’s bag at 29 lbs and mine at 44 lbs. Admittedly they are a little heavier than we hoped, but this is the sacrifice we are making to support our blogging and photographic habits. Our camera bag and laptop combine to add nearly 12 lbs to our bags. We were debating whether or not to bring our thermarests (mainly for the African trip), but decided against it. We’ll pick up some foam sleeping pads closer to October.

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Whew! With the final days before our departure disappearing at an alarming rate, things are slowly starting to come together. We’ve now acquired our travel medical insurance (at last!), and have booked and finalized our plans for the African overland leg of our journey. Our to-do list each morning is still daunting, but at least progress is being made.

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The time is fast approaching. Yikes! There is an overwhelming amount of things for us to sort out. I had a bit of a breakdown last weekend before our Garage Sale 2.0*. I am keeping the faith that things will come together. They have no choice but to come together because ready or not we’ll be leaving in 16 days.

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We’ve just returned from our second trip to the doctor’s office, where we’ve received even more immunizations and advice. Meg got off easy today—only one shot, while I had four! After two shots in each shoulder, my arms are guaranteed to be useless tomorrow. It’s been fun going in to talk to the nurse and trying to convey the nature of our trip. For obvious reasons, she is continuously trying to determine where we are going, and how long we will be staying once we get there. For the most part, we answered with a lot of “we’ll probably go there” and “somewhere in the range of one to six months over there”. In the end, we basically got everything: typhoid, yellow fever, malarial pills, MMR and tetanus/diptheria boosters, hepatitis A and B, and meningococcal something-or-other. There may be one or two specific vaccinations required for some specific locations, but we were advised that we would be able to locate reputable distributers when the time arose.

My arms are aching already…

We’ve added a countdown to the sidebar - it’s counting down the days until we set sail from New York, and our adventure begins! It’s amazing how the time has flown by. It feels like only yesterday that we were counting down in months, and now it’s only days. We still have so much to do before we go. Over the next few weeks, it will be important for us to keep things in perspective. There have been days lately where we have felt overwhelmed, trying to balance work, planning, studying, and friends and family. We haven’t been able to give as much time or attention to any of these things as they deserve, simply because we feel pulled in so many directions at once. But I think it is important to remember that whether or not we get everything done, we are still leaving to wander the planet in 43 days. With that kind of light at the end of the tunnel, everything else seems to be a lot easier to handle.

I will be writing my last three Architectural Registration Exams this week, as I push to get my license to practice architecture before leaving. Wish me luck!