There's a World Out There

London - 28 May 2008

I'm only a 30 second walk from my office in the City of London, but already things have been put into perspective. I'm learning that PR firms are experts at perspective:

PR Guy #1: "Your trip sounds great, but we need something unique to really sell it to the magazines. Are you doing any kind of big charity events along the way?"

Me: "Well, no, I don't have anything planned."

PR Guy #2: "Perhaps you are climbing the highest peaks of each continent?"

Me: "Nope. We thought about doing Kilimanjaro, but it is really expensive."

PRG #1: "Maybe some kind of 'fastest route' across whatever??"

Me: "No, sorry."

PRG #2: "So basically, you are just a fairly successful guy who is going to travel for 3-months, then work in the Hong Kong office for 3 months, then travel for a few more months. And simply return home at the end."

Me: "Yeah, that about sums it up."

PRG #1: "I'm not sure we can get that into GQ."


Here I thought I was about to embark on the trip of a lifetime, and I'm already learning that I'll be humbled at every turn. And after about 6 months of preparation, my journey is finally here.

The trip, and the reason I haven't written for a long time, is a sabbatical from my current job, a chance to experience vast parts of the world I haven't seen, and an opportunity for me to go 'the wrong way' around the world before returning back to my company in NY....doing....something, we aren't really sure yet.

The plan is split into three parts...

Part 1:
- Embark from London to Cape Town, South Africa (where I'm actually writing this from now!) and meet my friend Tom
- Head down the Garden Route to Port Elizabeth
- Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and around
- Safari in the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti
- Nariobi, Kenya, for a night
- Cairo, Egypt, and tour around there
- Athens, Greece, meet some friends to sail around the Cyclades for a week
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Tel Aviv, Israel, meet my friend Patricia, and see as much of Israel and Jordan as we can
- Dubai
- Bangkok, meet my friend James, and enjoy Thailand and Cambodia
- Beijing, meet my friend Nicole, and experience the sheer insanity that will be the Olympics
- Hong Kong in late August.

Part 2:
- Work for my company in Hong Kong. I'll be covering for a coworker on maternity leave. Don't ask how this got worked out - it was sheer luck I guess!
- Visit Japan, Vietnam, and a few other places in the area as best as I can to continue the ADVENTURE

Part 3:
- Sydney, Australia, at the end of November, and tour around Sydney and Melbourne
- New Zealand
- Los Angeles (um, California)...for a night
- New York, for two weeks around Christmas & New Year's
- Buenos Aires, Argentina, and south to Patagonia
- Chile
- Bolivia
- Peru
- Back to NY at the end of Feb 2009.


It's a big trip. I've been saving for a while, hoping that I'd find the right opportunity for something like this. But between wrapping up a major project at work (or trying to), attempting to find my replacement in a crazy market (apparently this was something I was supposed to do!), deciding where to go, for how long, and WHY....and then actually preparing....my time has been filled up to the brim.

I bought my first Round the World plane ticket, which will cover about 45,000 miles. I've been vaccinated against Polio, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Typhoid, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Rabies, Yellow Fever, and Malaria (assuming I remember to take the pills). I will cover about 25 countries.


Cape Town - 14 June 2008

Tom and I have been anxiously following the news in our first stop, South Africa, where xenophobic riots had been spreading throughout the country.

http://www.theroot.com/id/46604

Our second destination was planned to be Zanzibar, the amazing spice island off Tanzania, but the whole island has been without power for a month, with at least several weeks to go.

http://africa.reuters.com/business/news/usnBAN523622.html

And shortly after, we are planning to stay in Nairobi, Kenya, where botched elections caused massive chaos and strife throughout the country. It has been getting better, and they are doing their best to push forward.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7447545.stm

A bit of an inauspicious start to the trip. But sitting here in the City Center of Cape Town, you only see a bit of this. Beautiful people with big sunglasses stroll down the street, dressed in their best 'winter' outfits. I have a light jacket on. It seems like a cross between San Diego's atmosphere and Rio De Janiero's surroundings. The contrast is clearly there however, and I'm sure we'll get to see more and more of it as we venture around. This is Africa, as they say.


So why the PR agency anyway? My friend Rich thinks the trip is an example of a growing trend of financial services employees who are leaving their jobs (often not voluntarily) and taking the chance to travel "the way they always wanted to." So he's offered to provide his company's 'virtual assistant' services in exchange for me being a small part of his marketing campaign focused on this trend during this difficult time in the financial markets.

But the PR guys just have to figure out if it's interesting enough to sell.