However, this is a packing post, so here it is:

Bags

• Bag – REI Lookout 40L – The old standby
• Doite camera bag thing (man purse)
• Extra, compactable bag
• Compression Sack
• Silk Sleep Sack
• Packing Cube

Clothing

• 2 pairs REI Pants (Northface pants sucked last trip, also Jordan was right)
• Travel Towel
• Light Jacket (third long trip for this guy, probably his last)
• Gortex Rain Jacket
• 4 pairs of travel underwear
• 3 short sleeve shirts
• 1 long sleeve shirt
• 3 pairs of socks
• Nature Valley Bar (Vintage, from Nepal)
• Sunglasses
• Extra Glasses
• Hat

Electronics

• Headphones
• Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mark II (new camera!)
• 18mm lens
• 300mm telephoto lens
• Air thingy for dirst on lens
• Tripod
• GoPro
• Mounts for GoPro
• Jambox
• 6x camera batters
• Microfiber clothes
• 3 x battery chargers
• Sundry cables
• Universal plug thing
• USB chargers
• Extra battery, USB connected
• Travel power strip
• Headlamp
• Kindle
• Extra, Unlocked iPhone 5

Miscellaneous

• Passports and Yellow Cards
• Playing Cards
• Money Pouch
• Bug spray (30% deet)
• Bradt Guide to Uganda

Not shown:

• Boots
• Sandals
• iPhone SE (took the photo)

We’re back in the country after our time in Nepal and China. We will get some actual posts up about the trip and some of our experiences, but we wanted to share some pictures right away. Above is a shot of Everest from base camp.

This is a valley on the way first day or two of the trek. These Buddhist monuments are constant throughout the trek and at this elevation everything is still green and lush.

We spent a lot of time in Namche Bazaar. This is the last bastion of civilization along the trail. They have reasonably workable internet, tasty baked goods, and occasional hot showers for only $5.

Tasty treats in Kathmandu.

Monkey temple in Kathmandu.

We made it!

Giant panda feeding time in Chengdu.

Chowing down on bamboo.

Red panda at the verbosely named Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

You can see all of the photos from our Nepal/China trip on Flickr.

We have about 5 days of ascent remaining and about 8,000ft to go.

Upload or posting the image I wanted here proved… daunting. Click here for proof of life.

Everyone knows that I love a good packing post. For our five week Nepal/China trip, it is extra important that we pack only the essentials (and all of the essentials). We are going to be doing a lot of trekking and carrying everything with us, so every pound counts. Likewise, we are going to be in some remote places and won’t necessarily have access to things like a pharmacy should the need arise. I did a fair bit of adding/subtracting, but I think I came up with the right balance. Without further adieu:

Bags:

• REI Lookout 40L backpack (this is the same bag I used on the RTW trip)
• 2  compression bags (one for clothes, one for my sleeping bag
• 2 packing cubes (one for toiletries, one for medical supplies)
• 1 sleeping bag
• 1 compressible/packable day pack

Clothes:

• 1 microdown jacket
• 1 waterproof shell
• 1 thick hoodie
• 1 thin hoodie
• 1 base layer top
• 2 short sleeve shirts
• 1 tank top
• 1 running shorts
• 2 sports bras
• 1 regular bra (not pictured)
• 3 underwear
• 3 pairs of darn tough hiking socks
• 1 pair leggings
• 2 pairs hiking pants
• 1 hat
• 1 gloves
• 1 pair of flip flops
• 1 pair of hiking boots (not pictured)

Toiletries

• SPF 30 sunscreen
• deodorant for me
• deodorant for Daniel
• 1 travel hairbrush
• qtips
• hair ties
• 1 bar glycerin soap
• toothpaste
• floss
• toothbrush
• razor
• tissues
• 1 scrub glove
• 1 bar of shampoo (lush)

Medical:

• aquaphor
• gauze pads
• medical tape
• bandaids (regular and butterfly)
• neosporin
• moleskin
• ciprofloxacin (for traveler’s diarrhea)
• acetazolamide and dexamethasone (for altitude sickness)
• birth control (no Everest babies for us!)
• diva cup (unpictured – you’re welcome! if you’re a guy… don’t ask)
• iodine tablets (in case the Steripen fails)
• Bottle of mixed OTC meds (worst.pharmacist.ever.) including ibuprofen, pseudoephedrine, pepto bismol, and maybe some other random stragglers
• nail clippers
• sewing kit (since Daniel insists on bringing only one pair of pants…)

Accessories/Misc:

• 1 travel towel
• 1 travel inflatable pillow
• 1 sunglasses
• 1 buff
• 1 headband
• 1 pack of gum
• head lamp
• kindle
• iphone and headphones (unpictured)
• chapstick
• 2 sets of ear plugs
• 2 collapsible 1L water bottles
• passport

I omitted several things from the RTW packing list to make room for the sleeping bag. Less clothes, 1 less pair of shoes, no purse, and no ipad. All in, the pack weighs in at 16.2 pounds. I will probably add a roll of toilet paper once we get to KTM just for good measure. We won’t be blogging along the way because we don’t have much downtime planned and internet connectivity will likely be pretty spotty. I will try and post a picture here or on facebook every now and then, and we will write all about it when we get back!

We were originally planning to do the Annapurna Circuit, but an unexpected blizzard hit the region making key portions of the trail inaccessible. Instead, we plan to do the Everest Base Camp (EBC) trek, which is shorter (~60 miles), but we get to see Mount Everest. We should top out at 5,643m (18,513ft) at Kala Patthar, likely the highest point Jordan and I will ever visit. Needless to say, we are excited.

The List:

• My Bag – 40L, REI Lookout 40, same as I took on our RTW trip
• Sandals
• Hiking Boots (not pictured)
• Sleeping Bag
• Base layer pants
• Shorts
• Pants (only one pair this time around, Jordan thinks I’m insane)
• 3x t-shirts
• Long sleeve shirt
• Micro down jacket
• Gortex rain jacket
• Thin jacket
• 3x socks
• 3x underwear
• Travel towel
• Sunglasses
• Spare glasses
• Hat
• Gloves
• Vaccination card
• Passport
• Money thing
• Microfiber cloth
• Duct tape
• Playing cards
• 2x 1L collapsible water bottles
• Headlamp
• 5000 mAh USB battery
• Travel plug adapter
• 2 iPhone cables
• 1 mini usb cable
• 1 micro usb cable
• Travel power strip
• 3x 5V 1A power adapters
• Pulse oximeter
• Kindle
• Glif camera mount for the iPhone
• Sony NEX 5
• Sony SL55210 lens
• Sony SL16 lens
• Think Tank camera bag
• 3x camera batteries (one in camera)
• 4x 16GB SD cards
• 32GB SD card (in camera)
• Headphones
• USD SD card reader
• Camera air blower cleaning thinger (thinger is a technical term)
• Tripod
• Strapping
• GoPro
• GoPro bag mount
• 2x GoPro batteries
• 32GB micro SD card (in GoPro)
• Steripen (for killing nasty stuff in water)
• Ankle brace (just in case)
• iPhone (took the picture)
• Compression sack
• 2x misc mini bags to pack stuff

We saved some room this time around by only bringing iPhones and kindles. I replaced our computing devices with a sleeping bag which we didn’t have last time around. For flying, the bag is quite full, but once the camera bag comes out (it connects to the backpack) there is a ton of room in the bag.

That is all for now. I’m sure Jordan will be posting to Facebook occasionally and I’ll try to get pictures up on here as much as possible.

We’re staving off the wanderlust as long a possible.

We found it difficult to work up the motivation to work through those last 1,500 or so pictures. We got caught up in scheduling flights and attempting to squeeze the most out of our remaining time. Then there was re-entry into the US and the culture shock that it entailed. While Jordan seemed to handle things well, I had a meltdown when she came home with a box of clothing. It was too much, I said. It turned out to be not nearly enough.

We spent some time re-acclimating, Jordan studied for her Washington state pharmacy exam, and I began the arduous process of blindly applying for jobs in Seattle and surrounding areas. An opportunity came up to work in downtown Chicago for my old boss (at a different company) and we went for it. We’ve now got a beautiful apartment with a view of the lake and I’ve just finished my second week of work.

In hindsight now, Chicago was the right choice for us. It would have been very stressful to move to a new city without any jobs or contacts. We didn’t own anything and therefore had to buy everything. We spent the first night in Chicago sleeping on the floor since we didn’t have a mattress. What ensued was a buying spree of epic proportions: a couch, chair, bed, mattress, dining table, chairs, desk, nearly 180 hangers, and other various and sundry household items. The hemorrhaging of money has finally ceased and I was paid yesterday for the first time in nearly a year.

We’ve just finished up our pictures, you’ll find links to the flickr sets below. I’m actually quite proud of some of the photos towards the end of the trip. Turns out, if you shoot nearly 29,000 photos in 8 months, you improve.

Some numbers for you: We spent a total of 241 days on the road. We visited 13 countries (14 for me with Japan), an average of 19 days per country. We completely missed our goal of $80/day, ringing in around $165/day. This is a little misleading though, as it includes Antarctica and our flights home. Without Antarctica, it was a much more reasonable $92/day. I’m confident that if we’d spent a long time in South East Asia we could have driven the average without Antarctica back down to our $80/day goal. We were picky about the photos we kept – 5,811 (or 20%), of the the 29,000 number above.

Thanks to everyone for following along. We’ll try to post a few times per year, as we did before the trip.

- Ciao

P.S. Here are flickr links for the sets we haven’t shared via the blog. A special treat, we started taking pictures of people taking pictures with iPads (called “iPadography”).

Italy –
Christmas 2012 –
United Kingdom –
Turkey –
Tokyo –
Paris –
iPadography

This has been a while coming, I’ll explain a bit, but first, I’m sure you have questions, I’ll try to preempt them.

Question: Is something wrong?

Answer: Nope. It is just time for us to come home, see explanation below.

Q: Has Jordan got the preggers?

A: No progeny are forthcoming.

Q: Did you run out of money?

A: Nope, we still have over 30% of our budgeted cash left (even after buying plane tickets home).

Q: Don’t you want to visit [insert country name here]?

A: Probably (unless of course the country is Cananda, who wants to visit Canada?[1]), but not right now.

Jordan has had lost some of the luster for travel since we’ve been on the road so long. Turns out, traveling for longer than 8 months isn’t for everyone. We’re both still very excited to see more of France, England, Ireland, Russia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Australia, …. the list could go on and on. However, we need some time at home, some ‘normal’ time, before we see more. Not to mention, now that we’re better traveled in South America than in the US, we need to do some serious travel in our own country.

In reality, I’m pretty certain we’ll never do it quite like we did it this time again. We’ll probably keep our house and travel for a few months at a time. To start with, we’ll be traveling only a few weeks at a time. This isn’t to say that we feel like it was a mistake, in fact, it was absolutely the right thing to do, but we’ll do it differently in the future.

We had an amazing time while on the road, our time learning Spanish in Ecuador, hiking in El Chalten, eating ice cream in Bariloche, visiting Machu Pichu, seeing hundreds of Macaws in the Bolivian rainforest, taking a cooking class in Florence, and visiting the Harry Potter set in London were all amazing experience we wouldn’t trade for anything. There are countless experiences that we’ll remember forever.

We’re currently making preparation to return home. Jordan is flying to Florida to visit her mom and I’m headed to Japan to squeeze just a bit more travel in. We’ll both be back in Zanesville by the 23rd of January. We’re looking to move to the west coast, specifically, Seattle. We’ll be job hunting (tell us if you know of anything interesting).

Thanks to everyone for following along with us as we’ve blindly found our way through this amazing experience. It has been a ton of fun sharing the experiences with everyone. We’ll probably have a few more trip related posts coming, but Jordan and I will be very busy with re-establishing ourselves as well.

[1] Dear Canadian Reader, this is known as sarcasm, who wouldn’t want to visit the icy cold tundra of a country that you call home?

We spent three weeks in Italy and to say that it was a massive change from South America would be the understatement of the year. Housing, food, and transportation have all been a dream. Conversely, our budget… well before we even arrived we realized that we’d need to at least double it to be remotely reasonable.

During our time on the Antarctica cruise and even before at hostels, we’d discuss our plans. The reaction was nearly universal. “You’re visiting Europe in December? Are you skiing?” When we responded with a “no”, there was a universal awkward pause, followed by an “Oh.” *insert more awkward pausing* “So you’re going… to Europe… in the WINTER?” So ubiquitous was this response among both friends and family that both Jordan and I began to doubt our plans. Should we consider Southeast Asia first? Should we just stick to Southern Europe to avoid the worst weather? We ended up sticking to our guns and decided that Europe was the right choice for us.

We’ve loved visiting during the holidays. In fact, for anyone with a bit of time, we enthusiastically recommend this time of year, even if you are not skiing. December means holiday lights, trees, decorations, and music. It means Christmas markets. The downside, as we were warned is that December means cold and rain are a common occurrence. Your pictures will often have backdrops of gray skies. We even had to buy a cheap winter jacket (€30 at a market in Florence) for Jordan because of the bitter cold.

But the pros outweigh the cons for us. The major sites completely lack lines during this time of year. We just waltzed into the Uffizi, the Colloseum, and the Vatican museum. Italy is all the better without the stiffing heat of July and the long lines that result from summer vacation. Even the cooler weather is a pro (for our waistlines, that is)… We only ate gelato every other day or so. In the summer heat, our consumption would have probably increased four-fold!

We spent time in Rome, Florence, Lucca, Bologna, and Venice. In a scant 21 days we’ve been quite busy, the higher costs force us to move more quickly. Jordan had all of our accommodations booked (almost solely through airbnb[link gives us a credit if you use airbnb]) ahead of time so that we wouldn’t have to waste time figuring it out as we went. Since most of the where, when, and how of our travels is known, it has felt like we have more time than it otherwise would. We’ve had plenty of time in each of our locations to explore and relax when we wanted to.

Our biggest issue is that we should have done the country in the opposite order. The food had been superb until our final stop in Venice (still far better than South America) and all the wonderful museums and churches have paled compared to our first stop at the Vatican. If you started in Venice and worked towards Rome, you’d experience Rome as the culmination of your time in Italy instead of experiencing everything as a sort of denouement.

Our next stop was Paris for Christmas (our attempt to visit CERN in Switzerland was thwarted due to lack of tour availability) followed by London for New Years. After that we plan to spend perhaps another week in England and I’d guess at most 1 week more Western Europe. After that, we aren’t completely sure of our timeline… but we have a trick or two up our sleeves!

We have our other Italy pictures up on Flickr

Nuts and Bolts

• Visit Italy during the off or shoulder season. This helps you beat the heat and avoid the crowds.
• Give yourself enough time in each place, you don’t want to be rushing around.
• If you come in the winter be sure to bring warm clothing and rain gear. However, some days reach the mid 40s and that feels rather warm after walking around on days in the 20s.
• Come in December and enjoy the Christmas lights, it has been very fun