The Real Beginning

In May 2014, my lovely wife and I will be getting on a plane down to Santiago, Chile.  From there, we will travel to Easter Island, the Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, and many other beautiful places in Ecuador, Peru, and Chile.  The journey, however, as all avid travelers know, begins far earlier than our leave date.  And so, for those who want to live vicariously through our adventure or for those fellow travelers looking for insights, we offer you this blog.

The happy couple

A bit of history, Tanya and I were married on May 16 of 2013 in a courthouse in Seattle.  We later had a reception in Anchorage with close family and friends.

Photo by Laura Shaw

And since that time, we have been planning our ultimate honeymoon to South America.  Originally we had planned to backpack through Greece and Bulgaria, but with the riots in Greece and the insecurity of the economy and general goings on, we decided to pursue another path.  It started with Chile.  And then it grew and grew and grew.  And then suddenly, we had airplane tickets to Easter Island!  The serious planning had begun.

The planning begins...

Let me introduce you to my wife.  She is at the center of everything I love most.

My beautiful wife Tanya

Now, first of all, I made the calendar and the map because I am a visual learner.  But the books and pre-packing and the pre-booking of flights and hostels and camp sites and everything… that was all Tanya.

We each have a single backpack, each about 42L.

We’ll do another post with more details about our packing strategy.  Basically, these two backpacks are it.  We’re going as light and minimal as possible.  Since we’ll be doing a lot of moving around, we want to limit our carry weight and minimize the risk of getting our stuff stolen.  The less stuff we have, the easier it is to keep track of.  We’ve taken other precautions, as well, but all that will be in the packing blog.

In the meantime, stay tuned for updates about our sweet vacation and all the preparations we’re making.  And happy holidays out there to all who are celebrating!

Happy holidays from our family to yours!

Small money saving tip

It can be hard to save money during the holiday season, but it's easy to never have to buy wrapping paper. Just wrap your gifts for any occasion in newspaper! We prefer the Sunday comics. :)