Packing Starts With the Pack

Second post ever written by Jerry on this site!  :)

One of the first things that goes through one’s mind when embarking on a crazy 5-month trip around the world is, “how the heck are you going to bring everything you need for a trip everywhere around the world in all conditions?” Not only do you need to bring all your clothes for a variety of climates ranging from blistering hot deserts in China/Mongolia to windy mountainous terrain in Europe to the continuous Thailand rain in May, you have to bring toiletries (including toilet paper for undeveloped countries), shoes, camera, and various electronics to allow blogging and uploading pictures.

We narrowed down our search rather quickly to the large hiking pack category. A hiking pack in the 70L range would allow us to pack enough volume yet walk long distances and maneuver through busy trains and subways. I looked at virtually all of the lightweight hiking packs and didn’t like the way they were essentially top-loading stuff sacks – it’s a pain to keep unpacking and repacking all the time when on the move.

Then I stumbled on the REI touring line of packs. The Grand Tour is a hybrid of sorts -- hiking style, yet cleaner on the outside and built more rugged to withstand the rigors of being thrown around in the cargo hold of a bus or airplane. The pack is designed to open like a suitcase which is much more convenient, and all zippers are lockable. There's also a detachable daypack which seems to be pretty useful, and a rain/dust cover is included for the pack. All in all, it has everything we need, so we bought it (on sale too!)

Our recent long weekend trip to Boston validated the packs as a good choice. We packed fairly light (23 lbs for me, 15 lbs for Jeannie) and had plenty of room to spare for additional clothes and amenities that we'll surely need to go on an extended trip.  That is, unless Jeannie embarks on another one of her shopping hauls...(see previous post).

Camel Camel Camel

Camelcamelcamel is a really nifty tool.  It tracks prices of items on Amazon and lets you know when it reaches the price threshold that you want!  It also shows you the pricing history so you can see if there is a pattern of when during the year that particular item goes on sale.  We've been doing a lot of gear research but don't feel the rush to buy anything at the moment, so this is great way to save some money along the process.  We've got a good feeling that sometime in the next 6 months, prices will drop, especially during the holidays!

I've also got camels on the brain.  At some point during our trek, I want to go on a camel ride.  Originally, the plan was to head from Beijing to Zhongwei/Yinchuan in the Ningxia province, and ride camels in the Tengger Desert.  You can learn more here and here.

However, the more googling I did, the less I found about camel riding in this particular region of the world.  Many of my searches actually procured Morocco as THE place for camel adventures, especially on the Lonely Planet forums.  Then, since I missed that day of zoology in 4th grade, I proceeded to teach myself on the differences of camels in both of these regions.  Turns out that there's two kinds of camels- Bactrian and Arabian/dromedary. 

The single hump camels are Arabian/dromedary and native to the Sahara Region.  The double humps are Bactrian and reside in the Gobi Desert.  Jerry proceeded to school me by saying, didn't you know?  If you stand the camel vertically, the single hump is shaped like a D for dromedary and the double hump resembles a B for Bactrian.  No, husband, I did not know that.  Thanks.  

So now our next steps are to read up about camel adventures in Morocco.  Man, I can't imagine planning this trip without the help of Google.  However, we do live fairly close to Barnes and Nobles and are avid users of the public library so I'll probably find myself referring to a book every now and then.  I think the thought of having TOO many choices will get overwhelming!  

Around the World in 2012

I have some very exciting news to share!  For a long time now, Jerry and I have been kicking around the idea of traveling more extensively over a longer period of time, and thanks to some good timing and other circumstances, we've finally decided to make it a reality.  Here's our plan!


View RTW Trip Planning in a larger map

We'll be the first to admit it, this is a very ambitious plan.  In the initial planning stages we decided to do a "travel wish-list dump" and plot out as many places as we could think of.  Over the next 6 months or even during the course of our journey these places may change, but for now, we're pretty happy with what we've come up with.

We're going to start in Tokyo at end of March and make our way west.  The plan is for London to be our last stop sometime in September.  Planning is currently going on full force, and I've already got some blog posts outlined in my head about the process so far.  Stay tuned, and yukon ho! :)