When we first began discussing our 4 1/2 month around the world trip with our family in 1999, we wanted to get away from everyday life, experience the world, be with our daughters (12 and 10 at the time) and learn something in the process. However, planning it and actually making it happen were anything but that.
We explored Alaska by train and cruise ship over 13 days in June 2007. The highlights of the visit included two national parks, Denali and Glacier Bay, as well as activities in four cities. The wide open spaces and natural beauty made it a very special trip.
As I write this, Sandy and I are making our return trip upstream on the Rio Napo (Napo River) from the Sacha Lodge back to Coca, Ecuador – a distance of approximately 50 miles. We stayed at Sacha for the last four days.
We spent three days in the Denali National Park area, including stays at two different lodges. The highlight of this time was a bus tour on the only paved road inside the park.
Our visit to the north portion of Death Valley National Park included a tour of the historic Scotty’s Castle and a 4×4 drive to Eureka Dunes. We enjoyed the solitude and beauty of the sand dunes as we explored them and camped there at night.
The first few days of our time in Glacier National Park were spent on the west side of the continental divide. Here we enjoyed our lakeside hotel room, drove along scenic roads and took several day hikes to beautiful lakes.
This was no ordinary vacation; instead our Cosmos (around the world) journey with our kids was a lifestyle change that lasted over four months, from September 2003 to January 2004.
We have been at sea for three days now. We are now approximately halfway between New York and Southampton, at about 600 miles south of Greenland.
We are now in route from South Africa to Namibia (about 4 hours into a 21-hour bus trip). It is a fairly comfortable vehicle with 2 stories, air-conditioning, a bathroom and fairly frequent stops to stretch one’s legs.
During our month in Africa, we saw a variety of sights, including a camping safari deep in the heart of Botswana, mokoro and walking trips in the wild, an epic 40 hour train journey from Zambia to Tanzania and the relaxation and history of Zanzibar. This video provides an overview of that experience.
