A lot of this trip is still up in the air, as we are tring to figure out exactly how much we can afford and how we want to travel. There are so many ways to experience the places we are going - bumming around, couch surfing, organic farming, teaching, freelancing for places back home, hostels and hotels ... we will see what all we do!

December

This is the start of everything! We will be moved out of our apartment by the first of the month, at which point we will begin our couch-surfing adventures around Anchorage while we get ready to go. Mystie will wrap up work on the 2nd, and Garret will stick it out to the bitter end. Fortunately, that bitter end is only a week later. We will head to Seattle on the 9th.

We will be headed to Mexico City after a few days in Seattle. We arrive in the first of our foreign countries of the trip on the 13th of December. There is a chance that we will try to meet up with some people starting a new bicycle co-op further south in Chiapas, but we aren't solid on those plans yet.

The 17th will see us arriving in Oaxaca, where we will have a chance to meet up with Mystie's grandfather, Peter. We will stay with him through the 26th of December. After that we will probably head back to Mexico City, and then head West to meet up with Garret's family in Puerto Vallarta.

January

Mystie will get her SCUBA certification in Mexico early this month, while we both spend time bonding with the fam bammity before heading off on the rest of our adventure. The originaly plan was to head to Belize to get the certification, but the cost of heading over there AND getting certified AND (most expensive yet) having Garret dive some of his dream spots was getting hard to justify. We fully plan on doing a Belize dive trip some other time.

After our time winds down with the Spargo family on the 7th, we will poke around Puerto Vallarta for an additional four days. On the 11th, we hop a flight to New York City. We haven't bought our next ticket yet, but the plan is to get a direct flight out that same night. Flight to where, you ask?

Morocco! We should land in Marrakech on the 13th of January. We aren't completely solid on the itinerary for this leg of the adventure, as Garret will be trying to set up a telecommuting stint for a week while we are in the country. There is a good chance that the first week will find us running around Marrakech, after which we will head to Casablanca for a little under a week. Our last stop in the country will be Tangier, at which point we will likely stay in a slightly-nicer setting so that Garret can get some work in. That will push us up through January.

February

Our goal is to catch the ferry out of Tangier and into Spain. Once there, we think that we will go to Seville for a week or so. After that, perhaps a few days in Barcelona on our way to France. We will be spending Valentine's Day in Paris (and the next day, and the next day, etc). We aren't completely sure when we are going to move on, or what our goals are for our time in France. We would like to spend a good chunk of time. Mystie has family that we would like to see, and Garret has a contact with an Eyak-speaking Frenchman that he would like to meet in person. We will probably stay entertained in France through the month.

March

Things get especially unclear for us as the months go on. We would like to go through Frankfurt to see some friends of ours, and maybe swing through Amsterdam to see some other friends of Garret's, and there are hopes to see a few cities in Italy. Ideally, we will wind up in Budapest for a few days, then take a train to Turkey. We are torn on whether or not we will also put time into Israel and Petra. It is a huge goal of ours, but we are finding ourselves pinching both pennies and weeks as we try to set up some goals.

April

This is the month of India. Mystie will likely study at an Ashram for a while. Garret is unsure what he will do here ... he may dedicate some time to telecommuting intensely for a couple of weeks to help make a bit of extra money for the last leg of the trip. There is also talk of maybe going separate ways while Mystie studies in the ashram, as Garret would really like to do some trekking in the colder parts of Nepal. Either late April or early May will find the two of them in Nepal for a little while.

May

May is going to have some carry-over in India and Nepal, and then will see us off to Thailand for a few weeks.

June

Bali!

July

We are wrapping up our trip in Japan, celebrating our first amazing year together as a married couple. The timing here is great, as our wedding was timed to coinside with the Tanabata festival, so we will be able to celebrate both the anniversary and festival together. We will do as we did our first time in Japan - lots of trains, lots of running around, and a variety of accomodations.

If Garret gets into a grad program that he likes, we will be headed back on or around the 21st of July so that we can catch the last of the dipnetting season in Alaska, say hello to family and friends, and get our gear together to head off to some advanced schoolin'. If we don't find ourselves going to a graduate program, there is a chance that we will stay in Japan for a while to teach, although we both are looking at other countries that we both really want to see ...

Mind you, this is pretty early on in the planning, all things considered, and there are some stops we haven't fully cleared up (Italy and other parts of Europe). We will be updating some stuff, letting you know who we are farming with, where we are couch surfing, etc. It looks like the native hospital might let Garret work while traveling, which means that we might be holing up for one week out of each month so that he can focus on creating new content for his telehealth technology program

We are playing around with the idea of using a Google Map as we go ... I don't think that they are the prettiest maps ever, but it can be a good way for us to show you where we are, where we've been, and give you easy access to photos from the regions, blog posts, etc. We'll see how this looks, and then make changes!

View The Adventure Test in a larger map

The end goal, which Garret feels pretty good about, is to get into graduate school to study Social Anthropology at either Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford, or Auckland. More on that adventure a little later...