Packing

One would think that after 5 trips of this nature I would know how to pack and would know that packing lightly is essential. In prepping for this trip I read a friends post where she was getting ready for a one year round the world journey and intended to pack well under 20kg – just the essentials comprising of a couple shirts, two pairs of pants, two sets of shorts, one dress and skirt plus your usual socks, underwear and toiletries. On top of that she planned to take a tent, sleeping bag, mat, some books, electronics and a few other little things. Reading that post I thought to myself that I should follow her example and pack in a similar fashion. You can judge the result for yourself on the basis of the above photo (and that’s after some things were already removed). I somehow cannot manage to travel with only two or three pieces of clothing. Maybe next time round.

Other than the usual couple pairs of pants, I decided to pack a pair of jeans, for a cold evening or an evening out somewhere to a bar/club. Then came the capris and shorts along with a skirt followed by a windbreaker, a hoodie for the cold nights, two long sleeved sweatshirts, one long sleeved shirt, some t-shirts and then a number of tank tops for those excruciatingly hot days in the Middle East. For good measure I grabbed a few dress shirts to go with the nice jeans and hiking boots on the few occasions we might go out. My one item of luxury this time round is the hair straightener. We will have to see whether this will turn out worthwhile. Aside for that there’s the sleeping bag, towel, bathing suits, PJs, electronics (my camera/laptop bag on its own weighs approximately 7kg), guide books, reading material, umbrella, shoes and toiletries.

All in all the grand total is approximately as follows:

Day Pack/Camera Bag = 7kg
Main backpack = 16kg (maybe a tad bit more)

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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.

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