"Peters" map of our route

Click the map above, or click here, to supersize it!

• [Sept] Shanghai, overland to Beijing, to visit with Hong Wei & Yu Jin
• [Oct-Nov] Mumbai, overland to Kerala & back, taking in Bangalore, etc.
• [Dec-Jan] Nairobi, then Kisumu and elsewhere in Kenya with Naomy
• [Feb-Mar] Thailand: Bangkok, the South, and Chiang Mai
• [April] Australia (Teresa), New Zealand (Levitt-Campbells), and the USA (Rachael)
• [May] Mexico, including Mexico City, Oaxaca, and San Luis Potosi
• [June] Jamaica, Cuba, and then home!

Who would do such a thing!?

So far we know about the following family rtw travellers with a book (the first three) or a web presence of one kind or another:

• One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with Our Children by David Cohen (the classic Westerner's "consume-the-world" tour, and our model of what we don't want to do this year. Our favourite bit was finding out they had a nanny with them when they remembered to mention her in passing after travelling for several months ...)
• 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time: A Family Tale by Mark Jacobson (2003) (we liked this crew a lot better)
• The Seven Year Hitch: A Family Odyssey by David R Grant (Great book - but we decided against trying to match this Scottish family's seven years circumnavigation in a horse-drawn caravan ...)
• Bunnell Family Around the World 1998
• Hathaway Family World Tour 1999
• Mason-Slaughter Family "Worldhop.com Journal" 97-98
• Rawlins Family 2001-02
• Hughes Family Big Trip 2000-01

and we also liked these:

• Marc Brosius' very handy Round-The-World Travel Guide
• and Edward Hasbrouck's Practical Nomad book and website

Any more suggestions and references welcomed!

- Mark

Four weeks to go ...

Four short weeks from today, we'll be in the air between Helsinki and Shanghai, and we won't see Europe again for 285 days. The list of 108 things to do is shortening, slowly. Insurance is bought, international driving permits applied for, Indian anti-malarial suppliers identified, tax returns sent off, much of our travel clothing bought, and our cost estimates checked and re-checked. I had fun yesterday building a spreadsheet which grabs exchange rates off the web and uses these to calculate and display our daily and weekly spending budgets in local currency for each country. The best part is that this can now live on our new 512Mb pen drive and travel with us - are we going to have chilled out fun in non-materialist cultures or what?! I'm even more pleased with getting a browser (Firebird) installed on the pen drive, which does all it's housework (cache, history, password store) on the drive. This means I can stroll into a Mumbai internet cafe and do online banking without worrying about the internet cafe staff helping themselves to several hundred times their monthly wage out of our bank accounts when I leave. It's also cool, and free - unlike the pre-installed browser-on-a-drive that the Guardian recommended. And it's open-source, too! I haven't tackled installing Firebird's cousin Thunderbird yet - if I can do that we may not have to use any different email addresses on the road than at home. Now, if you still reckon the posts on this blog won't get interesting until we leave the country, you'd better go and read about Chavez, the Venezuelan referendum, and the Independent on Sunday somewhere else (the offending article has since been taken of the IoS site - but I know it was there - I read it myself ...) - Mark

Getting close!

Well, just looked at the log and realised that it definitely needs updating!!! It's just over 5 weeks until we go now, jabs mostly done, tickets bought (no Bangladesh but otherwise roughly the same) and packs bought. Loads left to do - Mark has a list of 108 things that he's ploughing through! I've got my dissertation to finish (about half way through now), Melissa is off on Saturday to a week long activity camp and Rosa on Sunday to a three week summer school - next week is my DISSERTATION week - must get full draft done - any help offered? Mark got a couple of weeks work, time is moving fast and it is definitely seeming like it might actually happen. Finding it hard to sleep at the moment - heat, children going away, dissertation to write and so much to do to get ready arghhhh!!! So glad we're doing it though ... Post a comment we'd love to hear from you - get into practise for when we've gone and are feeling homesick and needing all the contact from you guys that we can get. - Heather

Testing a new way to put pictures on here ...

... which worked for a while, then stopped working, then worked again. So I think we'll be using a combination of imageuploading.com, photobucket and tinypic. If you can see photos beneath this text, imageuploading.com is working.

And now ... audioblogging!

How to get in touch with us on the road

We'd love to hear from you! Here's how to comment on this blog, email us, or leave voice-mail (or read about telephoning us cheaply):

Comment on this blog

• Click on the word "comment" or "comments" underneath any post
• Scroll down past all the comments other people have already left (!)
• At the bottom of the page, click "Post a Comment"
• Sign in, or click "post anonymously" (below the big Sign-In button)
• Write your warm and appreciative message
• Click the big blue Publish Your Comment button once only
• It may take a couple of minutes before the comment's accepted

Email us at our on-the-road addresses

This blog shouldn't show up on public search engines, but just in case, we're not going to put our email addresses here (fear of spam!). So if you can't remember what they are, just mail us at (nobody but us will see it) telling us who you are, and we'll remind you of our personal addresses.

Leave us a voice-mail

(You have to call a US number: for ideas on doing this cheaply click here)

• Call 00 1 661-716-2564 (Listen very carefully to the Voice Prompts)
• Enter 0123456789 as the "Primary Number"
• Enter 2468 as the PIN, press #
• Record your message (up to 5 minutes long), Press #
• Press 1 to post, 2 to review, 3 to re-record.

Then we can look at the voicemail you left us on the internet, and pick up your message! Be in touch soon - we're going to miss you!

How to call us cheaply

We'll be staying with friends some time: and we might have access to a mobile phone in, say, Kenya. If you want to call, get in touch and we can email you phone numbers when we have them.

From the UK, you can call foreign lands cheaply from a home phone, or a mobile phone and have the (discounted) cost added to your bill. Or you can buy a card with credit on that you use up as you call us in Cambodia, China or California. It's probably worth looking at all three and picking the cheapest for the appropriate country.

From anywhere with a broadband connection, it's cheapest to skype us: that's calling over the internet - you need a headset, but then it's free.

Look forward to hearing from you soon!

Still here!

We're still here - sorry no posts for a while, this is still really a test site until we hit the road. We've started our jabs, earned a little more money, thought more about not being at school for a year, and firmed up more details of the route. I haven't figured out how to enthuse the other three about posting here much yet - we'll see how it goes over the summer - but keep this bookmarked for September! - Mark

Medical musings

We need to book our jabs soon, which means deciding which to have. We paid £3.50 for an online "Health Check" from MASTA - good value for detailed notes about each country we're visiting, malaria maps and recommendations of particular drugs. Some immunisations seem clearly a good idea: Tetanus vaccine has few side-effects and catching Tetanus would be a great thing to not have to worry about while in rural Kenya. Yellow Fever is legally necessary. Some are clearly less of a good idea - Cholera vaccine has fairly common serious side effects and isn't very effective. But that leaves the ones that are less clear-cut to decide about: Typhoid (maybe we'll be fine if we stick with good hygeine..), Hepatitis A (ditto, and it's rarely severe in children), TB (usually caught through prolonged household exposure with an infected person). Some would be boosters, some new; some with some worrying side-effect risks, some with quite low chances of catching the disease anyway: and we're not keen on giving our immune systems loads of new stresses (from any unnecessary vaccines) just before they have to cope with loads of other new stresses. Malaria: We reckon we'll have to take malaria pills for five months - and this means that we should definitely go to Cambodia (malarial) before Thailand (most areas not malarial) rather than the other way round, so we can come off the drugs after February. This many pills will cost a bit, and be a little pile to carry - if anyone knows if it's safe and cheap to buy malaria prophylactics in the developing world, please let us know! - Mark

Check out the map!

Click here for a Peters Projection map of our route - Mark

India and Mexico - choices and worries

Two weeks ago I was going to India and Bangladesh at least partly because Heather said so, to be honest. With a little help from Lonely Planet, etc. I'm now very excited about this bit of the trip - maybe fly in to Mumbai (from Beijing), be boggled by the big city for a while; then head for Kerala for beaches, backwaters, lots of fish to eat and coolness to be found in the hills; then off to Orissa (because John Shotton says so!); up to Kolkata and overland (and water) to Dhaka, via the Sunderbans mangrove forest wildlife preserve. We have also to decide whether to take up offers to stay with friends and their families in the Punjab (we'll be in the subcontinent over Ramadan, so not a good time to visit with our Gujerati Muslim friends, sadly). If we do that'll set us up for Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist cultural immersion between October and the following February ... Mexico presents a whole further pile of bewildering options (any recommendations welcome, for any part of the route ...!) - I think the Hintons live near Saltillo, I want to see Mexico City and I think my grandfather Howard grew up around San Luis Potosi - but then there's the Yucatan, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Baja ... - Mark

---

Melissa: I was reading Travel with Children - it was quite good. I looked at a book with Heather with pictures of Mexico. It looked quite good, but the whales were too big and the boat was too small [in the whale-watching picture]. What if the whale just came up and bashed your boat? You couldn't really shoot it. Heather: I should hope not! Melissa: Because it would still be alive ... Heather: They're friendly whales, that's why people go to watch them. Sharks would be really interesting to watch too. You think I'm joking, don't you? Melissa: Don't go and look for sharks or whales, or tigers, or lions - unless we're on a big elephant. D'you know when we're on an elephant, do we go on one each?

New look and new comments system

Well, Blogger's had a nice upgrade, so we've dumped the old comments system in favour of Blogger's own. Got tired of orange, hope you like the new look. Comment away, as happily as you like ... - Mark

All very exciting

Here is my first post -

I'm so excited about our big trip - can't wait! 

Scared about heat, sickness and anti sickness drugs, insects, running out of money and having big family arguments when we're staying with people - embarrassing for all!

Looking forward to no work, sun, new places and people, feeling enthusiastic about getting up in the morning (can almost remember what that feels like), sea, animals, fun, being close with Mark, Melissa and Rosa and having lots of time together - loads of things.

So much to do before we start and so many difficult decisions to make about where to go, where not to go (can't do too much), what to do etc etc.

I can almost believe that it is going to happen! 

- Heather

What's left to do before we go ...

Now

• Contact people we aim to visit to firm up dates 

Ongoing 

• Get fitter
• H learn some Hindi 
• M learn some Chinese 
•  Read newspapers and other in-country sources about destination 
•  Destination-specific planning

By end of May 

• Decide about vaccinations
• Statistics
• Theories
• Govt recommendations
• Travel clinic 
• Book to get vaccinated 
• Check out surface transport 
• Finalise route 
• Finalise dates
• Book to get all visas

By end of June

• Encourage and plan for people to visit us 
• Plan school return and absence 
• Plan summer 
• Organise dog sitting 
• Organise departy party 
• Get on a first aid course 
• Get an ISIC card? 
• Plan money things and organise them 

By end of July 

• Buy tickets
• Earn rest of the money 
• Finish dissertation
• Tax planning
• Opticians
• Overall medical check-ups
• Write a Will (a living will??)
• Work out what medical supplies to take
• Plan home education
• Clean driving license
• Check credit card renewal dates
• Check home insurance still valid 

By end of August 

• Decide what we need to take
• Buy what we need to take
• Organise travelling phone/ e-mails/website
• Travel insurance
• Dentists
• Get extra photos to take
• Rejoin International YHA
• Prepare lists of phone numbers and addresses
• Make copies of all documents to take
• Get business cards
• Store belongings
• Mail stuff to pick-up points

- Heather & Mark (with help)

needles are not nice

I don't want to have all those vaccinations - don't like the idea of all those needles. Polio vaccine on a sugar cube sounds alright though ... - Rosa

shopping for bags

We have been shopping for rucksacks. Today we went to Birmingham and tried some on in Blacks, Field & Trek and Oswald Bailey. We also looked at a few little bits and bobs, fun stuff like solar showers and freeze-dried meatballs in case the food is horrible, which it probably won't be. We looked a bit at shoes, found some nice looking ones, but of course they weren't the right kind. - Melissa

Where we're going (with a map!)

Well, this could be where you read all about the parker-hinton-campbell 2004-05 world tour. We'll try it out, and see what we think after a while. Our current plans are as follows: Sept 2004: Beijing, and touring a little with our hosts Hong Wei and Yu Jin Oct/Nov: India & Bangladesh - including a beach in Kerala and at least one train Dec 2004/Jan 2005: Kenya with Naomy and family: animals, Africa and anopheles mosquitoes Feb - Mar: Thailand Mar - Apr: Cambodia with Meng Tre Apr: Australia, but we might only be able to afford a week or so! May - June: Mexico, including visiting some Hintons June: Jamaica and Cuba July: Palo Alto, and then home and that will do for my first post - Mark

How to Use This Blog

This is for all the people we meet who haven't ever seen a blog before, and say they might look at ours. One day. Right.

This 'blog' (short for web log) is an online travel journal, that we can update with words and pictures from (nearly) anywhere with internet access, and to which you, dear reader, can add comments of your own if you like. Here's what you need to know:

Content is dated

This blog, like most, is organised in date order, with the most recent entries first.
This means that:

• As you scroll down the page you come to earlier entries and comments
• To avoid being really slow to open, a limited number of the most recent entries are the only ones visible on the main page, so:
• To see earlier pages, you should click on the links to monthly archives visible on the right of the main page. (For example, you can look at all the entries for November 2004)

When we haven't blogged (or just haven't added photos) for a while, we sometimes add things in at the date they happened, rather than the date we finally found a working internet cafe:

• This means that new stuff sometimes appears not at the top of the blog ...
• ... but we usually mention this in a 'properly' dated blog entry
• - which basically means that if you read regularly, you won't miss anything.

'Thumbnails' and bigger photos

Those of our readers who post comments tell us they like the pictures. So that we can show lots of them, we make'em small. You may like to know that:

• If you let your mouse rest on a picture for a few minutes a little caption will pop-up - sometimes a witty one!
• If you click on a picture, a bigger version will open - usually in a new window.

Comments: Have your say, here today

So, you read what we wrote, and you want to let us know how cool / rubbish / interesting / predictable / moving / meaningless it all is. Here's how:

• At the bottom right of the fascinating post you just read, find the word comments in bold type (it will have 0 or another number in front of it)
• Click it - a pop-up window will open called 'Blogger: Post a Comment'
• (If you can't find the word comments to click, check for a link called Post a comment, below any already posted comments, and click this instead. The same pop-up window will open)
• Read any comments already posted, scrolling down as you go
• Type your message into the box titled 'Leave your comment'
• Underneath, below the heading 'Choose an identity', click the button labelled Other
• Type your name in the box labelled Name (or we won't know who you are!)
• Click the button at the bottom left to Publish Your Comment

That's it! Try it now with the comment or Post a comment link at the bottom of this post. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

The letter we sent out at Christmas time ...

Dear Friends,

As you may know, we (Heather, Mark, Melissa and Rosa) are planning to travel to visit friends and see the world for nine or ten months from the autumn of 2004. Not all the details are pinned down yet, and there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip – but that’s our plan.

So far, we’re planning to visit friends in Beijing and see a little of China; to travel (with stops) by train from Delhi to Kerala, and possibly then up to Kolkata; to spend Christmas with friends in rural Kenya; perhaps to nip over the border to Tanzania for a couple of weeks; to spend a couple of months in S.E. Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, maybe Indonesia); and then perhaps to pop into Oz on our way to Mexico; from where we’ll visit Cuba while Castro still lives (hopefully); maybe spend some time in Ecuador; and see Jamaica before heading home. We hear that “culture shock” is worst coming home – so maybe we’ll call on friends or family in Europe for a week or two first, to ease the return to our home continent.

We want to learn about some of the variety of places and peoples that make up the world; to make new friends and visit some old ones; to chill out on a beautiful beach somewhere for a while; to see wild animals, rainforests, bits of wilderness; to swim with dolphins and maybe to learn to scuba-dive; to learn some (beginnings of) languages; to keep up with “school work” in ways that relate to the journey we’re taking; and to have fun.

We’re writing to you for a few reasons:

• Firstly, just to let you know what we’re up to. If you want to make concerned enquiries or give us dire warnings about our finances, careers/education, health, peace of mind or spiritual well-being, this should give you ample time to do so…
• To warmly invite you to let us know what you think we would love, what we mustn’t miss, or what you think is over-rated in any of the above places. Sights, activities, modes of transport, food, places – anything you’ve experienced on any part of our route that you’d like to tell us about. We’re mostly going to places none of us have ever visited, so all ideas will be welcomed (even if we don’t end up doing all of them!)
• To equally warmly invite you to let us know about your best friends or distant cousins who live in Mombasa, Mumbai, Montego Bay or wherever – and who would love to have a meal with us, take us around their city for a day, or even put us up for a few nights … We are going to enjoy just being tourists for some of the time, but we’d love to get to know locals wherever we can.
• And finally, to check that you’d like to be on our mailing list – we’ll try and email home every two to four weeks, maybe even with the odd photo – if you want to get those emails, please let us know what email address we should send them to. If you received this on paper – we’ll need your email address if you want emails from us!

Hope to hear from you soon - with love,

Heather, Mark, Melissa and Rosa