May 15: Preparing for Departure

Today is my last full day in the US. I'm in Jackson today putting things in order and running some last minutes errands before I leave for Nairobi, Kenya tomorrow morning at 4:00 am. The route from Jackson to Nairobi is: Jackson, Charlotte, Boston, Zurich, Nairobi. The trip is about 29 hours and covers 8 time zones. I'll leave Jackson at 6:15am on Wednesday and arrive Nairobi at 6:15 pm on Thursday (5/17/07) where I'll meet my friend Rhett. Layovers are minimal but the route definitely makes up for it in connections.

The trip that's about to begin will cover 4 continents, 2.5 months, and over 35,000 miles. Thanks to a Star Alliance 'Around the World Ticket' and the strength of the US dollar in the 3rd world, the trip will be relatively inexpensive ($15-$20 per day in most places). The places and cities that we are planning on visiting include:

• Nairobi, Kenya
• Cape Town, South Africa
• Johannesburg, South Africa
• Kathmandu, Nepal
• Delhi, India
• Mumbai, India
• Bangkok, Thailand
• Cambodia
• Laos
• Vietnam
• Shanghai, China
• Beijing, China

We'll also be using short local flights, trains, buses, boats and other forms of transportation to move between some of these cities and the surrounding areas.

I'll be following the trip through this blog and through my flickr gallery. Some of the previous posts on this site are from a trip I took this February to India as part of a business school program, which focused on alleviating poverty through development.

If you have any recommendations for these places or the surrounding areas, please leave them in the comments section or send me an email. I've received a lot of help and suggestions already. This help is greatly appreciated.