BENGARLAND!com

So Laura and I have a plan.

We’re going to travel the world for a year when I graduate grad school in May 2009. Not sure exactly where yet. We’ll probably fly to London and go over land from there through Europe, then maybe to northern Africa, India, Thailand. Who knows. You can’t really plan these things, because you can never be sure where your travels will take you. But we’re doing research and coming up with a list of “must see/do’s” for the places that we’ll be near.

To prepare, we bought a few books:

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

Traveler’s Took Kit

Rough Guide to First Time Around The World

Our goal is to save up at least $10,000 each over the next two years. I’ve already got about $3k stashed away (since selling the bike) and should have another $4k to add to that by the end of the year.

To save money, I’m going to basically live out of my tent the entire time I’m in grad school, cook the cheapest meals possible with a camp stove (and go dumpster diving for “expired” food), and pretty much not buy anything I don’t need. I figure, my tuition is paid for and with that I get office space for my computer and books, and free showers at the gym. All I really need to pay for is laundry at a laundromat. Why pay $400 a month for rent and utilities? Ridiculous.

After world traveling for a while, we plan to join the Peace Corps for 2 years, save up more money, travel again, etc etc etc. Maybe teach English in China for a few months. Travel more. At least for a half dozen years or so.

Fun!!!