The following consists of excerpts of an email sent to our loved ones about our plans for 2007…
Dear Family and Friends,
Greetings from Chicago! We hope this message finds you well, as the calendar has turned to December and the holidays are fast approaching.
We wanted to write to let you know about an adventure we have planned for 2007. Starting in the beginning of January we will embark on our dream trip to backpack through south Asia. We are planning on being on the road for several months. Our actual final return date is not finalized because we have a year-long ticket and may take advantage of this fact, or we may return to North America to begin life in Toronto sooner if we feel we’ve had our fill of Asia.
We are starting our trip by visiting Taiwan for a week, after which we will fly to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Once there, we will work our way by land through Malaysia northward to Thailand. Then we will work our way through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. From Thailand we plan to fly to India, where we will tour extensively until we are ready to come home.
With regards to our trip planning, most of our time is wide open; we plan to experience our destinations as fully and richly as possible, and will make decisions about what to do and where to stay day by day. Rest assured we have done extensive research and reading, as well as talking to friends and fellow travelers about what to expect. For Taiwan and Kuala Lampur we have booked some accommodations through CouchSurfing; after that point we look forward to huts on the beach and guest houses off the beaten track.
In addition to visiting and experiencing these wonderful countries, we also plan to do some volunteer work. This includes a worldwide organization of organic farmers (WWOOF), where in exchange for working on a local farm, we will receive room and board. We have already contacted some farmers in Thailand and will be doing so for India. Also, we plan to volunteer in India with an organization run by one of renée’s French relatives. As we finalize things, we will be posting the details this blog…
Speaking of which,while we are traveling, our plan is to post updates and stories on our website, www.pastabroccoli.net. With Internet cafes quite common in all the countries we will be traveling through, we don’t anticipate problems doing so. From our website you will also be able to link to photos from our trip. Note that we won’t be sending mass email updates as our web site lets us reach whoever is interested in catching up with our adventures. If you visit our web site today, you will find current information about our lives and photos from the last couple of years. Please feel free to share our website with anybody who you think may be interested.
As you may have figured out, we will be moving out of our Chicago apartment prior to our big trip [Note: we did so the week of 17 December]. While we are away, you can reach us directly by email, or through our families. We also anticipate having a cell phone, but may not have a phone number until we are in Asia. Your best bet is to reach us via email and chat programs, as well Skype. Please feel free to add us as contacts or to message/call us when you see us online. [Note: email us to get our screen names if you are interested in staying touch that way.]
We will be in Toronto from 23-30 December, and look forward to seeing as many of our Toronto friends and family as possible in that time. Similarly, we will be in Naperville 21 and 22 December and 31 December to 4 January before embarking on our adventure.
Finally, to answer the question we’ve most often been asked, “why are you doing this?” there are several reasons. It’s been renée’s dream for more than a decade to travel through India. Joshua complemented this dream by adding his wish to visit countries in southeast Asia. We want more than what a few weeks that job-related vacation time provides because we want to immerse ourselves; an extended backpacking trip with volunteer opportunities lets us do that. We don’t want to wait until we retire, because frankly, the future is promised to no one and by retirement time, we may not be as able bodied to rough it and travel as cheaply as we are planning to do for this trip. In addition, since we are both ready to move on from our current jobs and move to Toronto, and we don’t want to do a trip like this with little kids in tow, this was the best time to do it — before we settle into new jobs and look towards starting a family.
We thank you all for your continued love, friendship and support; we will miss you while traveling, and look forward to seeing you after we return.
Be well and until our paths cross again…
rIAm and jft
p.s. If you have a blog or other website, let us know and we’ll link to you…
p.p.s. All travel tips, especially must-see destinations are welcome at any time… Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments on our blog or just send them via email…
p.p.p.s If there is an alternative email address you would like us to contact you with, please let us know so we can update our contact list…
Dear Renee & Joshua,
Althought by now, with the experience of past travel adventures that you have undertaken before we should be used to this, as you can well imagine it isn’t easy for parents to see their children go on a journey such as the one that you are about to undertake.
I wanted to wish you well, remind you of using a lot of common sense and good judgment in whatever you will do.
May the wind be always at your back
DAD
[...] Since I posted my letter to Mike, our numbers aren’t necessarily exploding, but Canada seems to be a bigger factor as a soure of visitors (the US and “Unknown,” a strange enough description, are first and second on our list, respectively, while Canada is third). After the home page, and our post introducing our south Asia trip, the letter to Mike is the third most viewed web page our site. And although more than 80 per cent of people who visit us directly type in our address to get to our blog, perhaps five per cent or more are finding us via Facebook. People also seem to find our site, whether intentionally or by accident via quite a variety of search terms. Currently, the top search term at 23 per cent is “Michal Juruc,” with “Michael Juruc” (the incorrect spelling of his first name), is at just over nine per cent. After that the search terms that a few terms clock in at five per cent or list and the majority of the list of terms that bring people to our site mostly account for less than one per cent each of key phrases used, like “juruc brampton,” “michal juruc what happened,” “pasta with broccoli,” “mexican food in chicago,” “making gingerale flat” and one of the more amusing search terms, “www.pastabroccoli.net” [...]