Northern Hemisphere Tour 2008:Itinerary Planning, Part One

In early April of this year, over many cocktails and a webcam, number one travel buddy Adela and I came upon quite the conundrum:

1. I'm flying to Osaka in February 2008 to spend a few weeks with Adela in Japan, where she is currently teaching English.

2. She and I are dying to go back to the ex-Yugo, and maybe pop into Turkey and Greece while we're in the neighborhood.

3. We're both rather impatient, and know that once I'm back in university and she's in grad school, it will be years before we embark on any serious travel.

So, what do two enterprising young bohemians do when presented with such a predicament?

Looking quickly on Google Earth, I say, eating the last olive of my fourth martini, "Well, it's only 10,000 kilometers between Osaka and Sarajevo..."


Northern Hemisphere Tour 2008

Seattle > Osaka > Mumbai > Kathmandu > Beijing > Ulaanbaatar > Moscow > Tbilisi > Athens > Sarajevo > Zagreb > Ljubljana > London > NYC > Seattle

While we haven't worked out, well, any of the kinks, we've established that the trip will begin shortly after my arrival in Osaka in February. After two weeks in Japan, I will (possibly, finances allowing) fly to Mumbai to meet ex Stephanie. From there, we will wander India for a few weeks in a roughly northerly direction towards Lumbini, Nepal, and then Kathmandu. From there we will head into Tibet and on to Beijing, where we will meet Adela and boyfriend Art.

After a brief stay in China, the four of us will get on the Trans-Mongolian railroad, heading through Ulaanbaatar to catch the main Trans-Siberian route to Moscow. From there, the route blurs. We may head through Ukraine and then south into Bosnia, or south from Moscow into Turkey and Greece and then to Bosnia.

After wandering the ex-Yugo for a while (Sarajevo, Split, various little spots along the way), we'll head towards London, catching a cheap flight Stateside.

More to come...