Around the World in 21 Days

Well, it's down to the nitty gritty here. As we rush to finish packing for our upcoming trip, I'm beginning to think about how amazing this experience will be. My mom and I love traveling because of the experiences we have immersing ourselves in the culture. We love meeting locals, visiting schools, going to local markets, and of course eating traditional food. We've been known to go to more "off the wall" places, so to speak and when we tell people about this trip, we're often asked why we would want to go to some of these places. 

In my eyes, going to some beach resort (while nice) does not necessarily enable you to become involved with other cultures. Sure if you go to Mexico you may meet locals. But these "off the wall" places give you an entirely different experience. You see real people, facing real life challenges. In a lot of the places we go to, we come across extreme poverty, lack of sanitation, poor living standards, but among everything, you see the beauty of the country: the people who, even with everything they have to deal with on a daily basis, are always so kind to foreigners and so proud of the country they live in. It's a completely different world, one which many people who don't travel won't even think about. We often take things for granted here and complain about the simplest things. But when you travel to these places, you get a better idea of this huge world we live in and you see firsthand just how different these places are. All are so unique, so special, and the memories you make there stay with you for a lifetime. 

That all being said, we'll be going to a mix of these "off the wall" places but also destinations that are popular with people who maybe don't want to go to go off the grid. This trip will take us to:

1. Kyoto, Japan...where we will shop, visit temples in Nara, go to Arashiyama and of course eat a lot of good Japanese food (one stop will be a tempura bar.. Mmm!)

2. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and the Gobi Desert... where we will visit the National History Museum to see dinosaur skeletons and relics from Mongolia's earliest civilizations. We will also go to the Gobi Desert, where we will stay in a traditional ger, see a Naadam Festival demonstration, and horseback ride. 

3. Irkutsk, Siberia, Russia... Where we will go on a historic tour seeing sights such as the Znamenskaya Cathedral which houses the graves of the Decembrist revolutionaries who launched the 1825 uprising against Tsar Nicholas I and sought refuge in this Siberian city. 

4. Moscow, Russia... Where we will visit the Red Square, take a riverboat cruise down the Moskva River and attend a performance of La Sylphide at the Bolshoi Ballet. 

5. Svalbard Islands, Norway... Where we will embark on a four-day cruise of the Arctic searching for polar bears, walruses, and hopefully narwhals! 

6. Reykjavik, Iceland... Where we will visit geysers and waterfalls, go to the Blue Lagoon hot springs (a long time bucket list destination of mine) and go on a helicopter geothermal tour to see mountain ranges, geothermal hot springs, lava fields, and sweeping craters. 

7. Kangerlussuaq, Greenland... Where we will board a four wheel drive glacial expedition vehicles to explore Russell Glacier, looking for musk ox and reindeer. We'll stop at at the ice cap's edge where there's an ice wall 200 feet high! 

Those are just some of the highlights... We will be really busy! I won't alway have internet on the trip, but when I do I'll be posting to this website. We hope you read this blog, like the pictures, and feel like you're right there with us! In the meantime... Back to packing!!!