Work, Work, Work

So I am the worst blogger ever. It's finals season and I have a work load so high I could probably base jump from the top of it. Failing tests tends to make you reorganize your priorities. Anyway, you probably won't get any real updates from us for a little while. At least until May when finals finish and I will be good and bored for a little while. Wish me luck! Oh and 495 days!

Slow Week

So it's been a slow week here in Winston. Most of us are buckling down and working hard to get through projects and tests. Our book readers are making their way through Shantaram. The nerds are playing marathon sessions of Starcraft, in between our work. Meanwhile, yours truly is trying to build up his resume and portfolio and find a job for the summer. Worst comes to worst, I can always just do freelance work all summer. Although that will undoubtedly leave me more poor than I would like. Anyway, I'll continue with our travel histories next week. But for now, I would bet most of us are settling in for a long, 500+ day wait for our adventure. 512 days to be exact!!!

Greg's Travel History

Now that the blog is up and running, we begin the long wait for our trip. I thought I'd being this wait with an expose on each of our travel adventures thus far. We'll begin with me.

So far I have hit the following locations:

• USA
• Nova Scotia
• Prince Edward Island
  
• England
• Scotland
• Italy
• Sicily
  
• France
• Belgium
• Switzerland
• Denmark
• Germany
• Several Caribbean Islands

After high school, I took a trip with my family following my grandfather's footsteps during WWII. It was a really fun and exciting trip that took us all over France, Germany, and a bunch of countries in between. My next adventure came Junior year of college, when I did a 6 month stay in Brighton England, studying at the University of Sussex. Using this as a launch pad, I visited a bunch of places, including Copenhagen, many many places in Italy and Sicily, and even an adventure into Scotland. (We wanted to go from out little Southern city all the way to the last train stop on the island. It was freezing but a lot of fun.) My final adventure was with our little group here. We found some super cheap airfare from Charlotte NC direct to London UK. And so we took a weekend and saw as much of London as we could. It was a blast to say the least. I can only hope this trip will be half as fun! Below you'll find all kinds of pictures from these travels. 525 days!

The Spreadsheet Nerd

I've been crunching numbers instead of doing homework for the past 3 days. If anyone reads the forums you'll see my posts about it. Right now our estimates are somewhere in the vicinity of $23,000 (I always estimate high to avoid getting screwed by.... well life in general). So now we are in the process of cutting back that number. We hope to be able to cut it back to a final number of $12,000. I think we can do it, mostly because we are an adventurous bunch that likes to go with the flow. Most of our travels will be vague and general, which will let us pick up opportunities for couch surfing, and other forms of free housing / work. We've done some looking around for information on these. But of course, nothing takes the place of real experience. If anyone has advice, info, or links for us, by all means share them. We would really appreciate it. In a few days I'll add a links page of things that are helping us plan our trip. Only 531 days left!

The Bug

So I've just returned from Spring Break back at home, and I did pretty much nothing but think about this trip. I have the travel bug bad. From brainstorming events and locations, to crunching numbers on living expenses and how to limit them. I can't seem to think about anything else. Which is very bad now, because I'm back to grad school and I have a stack of work 6 miles high. 534 days and counting!

First Post

Around September of 2010, myself and three others are embarking on the trip of a lifetime. We hope to add even more to that list. Our itinerary so far includes such amazing locations as Oktoberfest, India, Chinese New Year, Christmas in the Alps, and much much more. Hopefully we'll be able to pull this off, and this blog will become a chronicle of those adventures. Stay tuned.