Where, when and why?

The why is easy, the where an when are a bit more difficult to define.

Why: Traveling is an insatiable passion of mine and it would seem that it requires more effort to stay put, than it does to pack ones bags. If given the opportunity, which essentially is comprised of time, there is simply no way that I can resist a trip. I had resigned myself to the idea that these trips would be limited to 1 or 2 week long excursions. Yet in December, faced with the idea of looking for work come April and then flying to Poland for a friend's wedding in July, I concluded that it would be easier to not bother with the first part and simply extend the second part. And why not? There's still a lot of the world to see.

Where: The general destination and route took about half an hour to figure out. I think I might have actually figured that out a good number of years ago - just the same way I know what the next few trips might look like if I'm ever presented with the opportunity to take another 3 months off.

This time round the route starts in Egypt with the main destination being the Red Sea. From there it's up through Jordan, making sure to spend a few days in Petra, up to Syria and into Turkey, maybe visiting Mt. Nemru, then definitely on to Cappadocia and the Mediterranean/Aegean Coast and finishing off in Istanbul. However, at that point the where becomes a bit more uncertain. I tried to draw out a route through the former Yugoslav Republics and the Eastern European countries but could not make much sense of the squiggles I was creating. At present I think the most logical route will first take me into Bulgaria, up to Romania, over to Serbia and into Bosnia & Herzegovina, from there back to Monenegro, and if time permits maybe a side trip into Macedonia and Albania. Then it's off to Croatia, from there to Slovenia, into Hungary and Ukraine and then into Poland with a possible side trip into Lithuania. The whole Sea-to-Sea excursion will conclude in Szczecin (with family) and Kolobrzeg/Koszalin for the wedding.

Over the last few days I tried to illustrate all the above in a fantastic Flash animated map. I spent quite a few hours (and nights) checking the longitudes and latitudes of all the various cities and town, color coordinating it all, sorting through all the HTML gibberish associated with Flash programming etc. only to come to an absolute dead end when it came to making it work in the blog. For references I've attached a simply country map in the margin with the destination countries highlighted in orange (you need to click the "x" and "close" buttons to make that annoying registration reminder disappear). Time permitting, I will try to enclose some kind of route map into this post.

When: The start and finish are easy - beginning of April on to mid July. Everything else is completely flexible. No reservations, no commitments and no unmovable plans. I hate itineraries and prefer to simply drag my finger across a map to a new location that might catch my interest or alter the route if someone recommends something worthwhile along the way. April will likely be spent in the Middle East with May for Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, then June for the former Yugoslav Republics, Hungary and Ukraine with July for Poland and Lithuania... we'll see whether the end result will even remotely resemble the above.