Who - Presumably everyone visiting the blog knows who I am, but in the event there are any random folks that stumble across it, I'm Rob. I'm 29. I grew up in Charleston, SC, but most recently lived in Newport Beach, CA, where I worked as an attorney for a large law firm.
What - I'm planning to travel around the world over the course of many months and thought this blog would be a good way to document it and keep in touch.
Why - Why not? I worked for almost 4 years in a large law firm with a lot of great people and learned how to be a lawyer (for those non-lawyers: they don't actually teach that in law school, despite the 6-figure price tag). But it was hard work, long hours, and quite stressful (like many jobs). Knowing that I eventually wanted to do something else, I decided that my best opportunity to do some traveling would be between that job and my next one. So in June 2011, I quit my job and decided to take a couple of years off to travel around the world, and enjoy life for a bit, figuring the opportunity might not present itself again.
When - Though I quit in June 2011, I spent a little bit of time enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery of Newport Beach and some of the surrounding areas, and then some time on a very roundabout cross-country trip, that included stops in San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Yellowstone, Chicago and DC before returning to South Carolina. (A few photos of the trip (mostly from Vancouver, Yellowstone and Chicago) can be found here) I then spent some time in my hometown of Charleston, catching up with many friends and celebrated the holidays with family. After a quick 48-hour layover in Southern California that allowed me to catch up with some good friends in Orange County, I jumped on a flight to Fiji on January 21, and I'm not sure when I'll return to the U.S., though I'd at least like to be home by Thanksgiving.
*Special thanks to Mike Scott, the Hambeltons, Erin Favell, the Parkers, Tiffany Miller, the Luhns/Smiths, Kayte Randazzo, Alex Hoggan and my parents for being such gracious hosts over the last 4 months
Where - When I started out, I had this grand plan to see Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, most of SE Asia, Japan, Nepal, India, most of Europe, a large portion of sub-saharan Africa, and South America all in a span of about 10 months. It took about 2 days of talking to other travelers at my first destination to realize that was kind of an absurd plan, and way too much for that amount of time. So South America quickly got moved to 2013. Then Africa got bumped to a later time. Then I spent way too long in SE Asia, and Japan, India and Nepal fell by the wayside. I´m still hoping to see most of Europe by November, but even that doesn´t seem feasible at this point.
Updated Actual Itinerary (I'll update this as I travel and make firm plans):
Jan 23 - Feb 2: Fiji
Feb 2 - Mar 2: New Zealand
Mar 2 - Apr 9: Australia
Apr 9 - Apr 12: Indonesia (Bali)
Apr 12 - May 11: Southern Thailand & Bangkok
May 11 - May 18: Malaysia
May 18 - May 22: Singapore
May 22 - May 31: Northern Thailand
May 31 - June 10: Laos
Jun 10 - June 24: Vietnam
June 24 - June 30: Cambodia
June 30 - July 5: Bangkok
July 5 - July 7: UAE (Dubai)
July 8 - July 11: Denmark
July 11 - July 15: Norway
July 15 - July 17: Sweden
July 18 - July 19: Finland
July 20 - July 22: Estonia
July 22 - July 25: Latvia
July 25 - July 27: Lithuania
July 27 - Aug 3: Poland
Aug 3 - Aug 6: Slovakia
Aug 6 - Aug 10: Hungary
Aug 10 - Aug 16: Slovenia
Aug 16 - Aug 26: Croatia
Aug 26 - Aug 28: Montenegro
Aug 28 - Sept 2: Albania
Sept 2 - Sept 12: Greece
Sept 12 - Sept 19: Turkey
Sept 19 - Sept 21: Germany (Berlin)
Sept 21 - Sept 27: Czech Republic
Sept 27 - Sept 28: Austria
Sept 18 - Oct 2: Germany (Munich)
Oct 2 - Oct 6: Switzerland
Oct 6 - Oct 8: France
Oct 8 - Oct 22: Spain
Oct 22 - Oct 25: France (Paris)
Oct 25 - Nov 1: UK (London)
Nov 1 - Nov 6: Iceland
Nov 6 - Return to the good ol' USA
Spring 2013 - South America?
