Today is the last day of May. Tomorrow the counting of days begins in earnest as the month of June rolls around -- that magic month when we are to set off on our odyssey-to-be. June was many distant months away when the planning (fantasizing is a better word) first began, now it is only hours away as I write this.
Tomorrow is the first of June and the first day we can approach the pharmacy in our HMO for a four-months' supply of our standing prescriptions. We are ordinarily restricted to purchasing pills in one-month amounts. I knew we'd have to prepare for this in advance and I was sure I knew the proper procedure, having done this before for other trips. However, I was not expecting to be told when we went to the pharmacy today that the maximum amount that could be supplied was three-month's worth, not four. More than three-months' worth will require the OK of someone in the HMO's administration. This means a doctor's visit for a full four-months' set of prescriptions for each of the meds in question, a copy of our round-the-world ticket, and the administrative OK. When we bring all these to the pharmacy they'll count out the pills.
Sheesh. What were we thinking when we set our sights on a four-month trip? Three months would have been so much less "outside-the-box" as far as travel insurance providers and health service providers are concerned.
A word of warning to anyone in our age category [we bracket 60 above and below by a year or two]: consider being less ambitious than we are being. Too much adventure makes others looking out for your health nervous. We are being as cautious and sensible at two "old people" can be. But they are looking at actuarial tables.
The pharmacists were very encouraging, though. They saw the list of pills we'll need and said, "These pills are so commonly prescribed you'll have no problem getting this list approved within 24 hours. It'll be all right. You'll see. Besides, you have lots of time before you leave." We're counting on this to be true as we count down the days.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Playing Our Cards Right
After posting yesterday's blog entry I called our travel agent to ask when we might conceivably see our passports again. She said they would probably be back that day or the following day (meaning today). Well, this morning I received the good news that the passports have indeed returned, with the visas to India in them. Relieved to hear this, I eagerly went and collected them. With passage to India and beyond now guaranteed, I can rest assured that this trip can really -- I mean really -- go forth. There are still a few flight details to work out once we get to Hawai'i (the island-hopping shuttle flight plans are not solidified, but that doesn't seem critical, I hope; we'll nail that aspect down in a few more days); other than that, all the transportation links are in place.
We have gone over the numbers a number of times. Financing this trip and having the funds in the right places at the right times and having access to them at all times has been a great exercise in strategic money management. The right balance of travelers' checks (how many, if any?) cash (yes, but how much and in which currencies?) and backing for our credit card purchases throughout the duration of this trip have seen us enter the hallowed halls of our bank numerous times. We have collected horror stories from fellow travelers who have told us that they've had their wallets stolen, their possessions stolen and -- even worse -- their identities stolen. One of my friends returned from a trip a month ago and only now, weeks after his return, did he get a call from his bank informing him that someone that day had just made a series of large purchases within the span of 15 minutes before the credit card company managed to cancel his card. The card was no longer good and the stolen money will be restored to him soon, he was told, but at least my friend was home when this happened. Our credit cards will be the only conduit we have through which to draw on our funds the whole time we are away from home. Were a similar thing to happen to us during our trip we would be choked off until new cards could be issued. To cover this contingency we have made a point to have our bank issue us more than one credit card. We've never carried more than one credit card each, so this is new for us. We also raised the limits on each card so that any one card can sustain us until the other card(s) is(are) replaced. We also will be able to monitor our banking activity on-line to watch for purchases we didn't make so we can report any unauthorized activity immediately. Can't be too careful, you know. We want to avoid grief by playing our cards right.
We have gone over the numbers a number of times. Financing this trip and having the funds in the right places at the right times and having access to them at all times has been a great exercise in strategic money management. The right balance of travelers' checks (how many, if any?) cash (yes, but how much and in which currencies?) and backing for our credit card purchases throughout the duration of this trip have seen us enter the hallowed halls of our bank numerous times. We have collected horror stories from fellow travelers who have told us that they've had their wallets stolen, their possessions stolen and -- even worse -- their identities stolen. One of my friends returned from a trip a month ago and only now, weeks after his return, did he get a call from his bank informing him that someone that day had just made a series of large purchases within the span of 15 minutes before the credit card company managed to cancel his card. The card was no longer good and the stolen money will be restored to him soon, he was told, but at least my friend was home when this happened. Our credit cards will be the only conduit we have through which to draw on our funds the whole time we are away from home. Were a similar thing to happen to us during our trip we would be choked off until new cards could be issued. To cover this contingency we have made a point to have our bank issue us more than one credit card. We've never carried more than one credit card each, so this is new for us. We also raised the limits on each card so that any one card can sustain us until the other card(s) is(are) replaced. We also will be able to monitor our banking activity on-line to watch for purchases we didn't make so we can report any unauthorized activity immediately. Can't be too careful, you know. We want to avoid grief by playing our cards right.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Sweating the Details
Even now, 3 weeks to the day before our flight into fantasy, we are not certain that we have all the pieces to the puzzle. So many details had to be dealt with and are still being dealt with. Many a night I did not sleep well as I dwelled on a stubborn aspect that couldn't be resolved. Many of the components of the trip had to be paid for in advance, or at least required a non-refundable deposit. At what point should we just shut our eyes and take a leap of faith that this trip is really really going to happen and then pay a tidy sum that may not be retrievable if the plan falls apart? We are past most of the hurdles and won't be looking back, but resolving some of those stubborn details took a lot of perseverance.
Razelle and I had to first agree on which destinations we would visit and how long we would spend at each of them. This took a lot of time and deliberation between us to work it out. Once that was resolved we had to put together a ticket that would take us to these places. Several different consortia of airlines have formed associations for round-the-world tickets. A single multi-destination ticket is written and you are passed from one airline to the next in that particular association as you progress around the world in one direction until you return to your starting point. One association takes you to a set of cities it flies to while another association takes you to a different set of cities. After all our compromising we still had to redo the list because the cities on it were covered by different associations.
Next, we had to get visas, vaccinations and travel insurance. All of these had to wait until a short period before our flight date. The travel insurance was the biggest headache. Because of our ages and our pre-existing medical conditions (her rod; my ring) we couldn't for the life of us (literally) find an insurance company here in Israel or anywhere overseas that would insure us for more than 90 days. Our trip is 121 days. This looked like a deal breaker. I never anticipated this. It looked like the whole trip would implode. A mere soap-bubble pipe dream. <POP>. Then we learned that because Razelle is a university employee, their group insurance would cover us for the entire trip. [Sigh of relief]. So the trip was back on.
We will visit two countries along the way that require entry visas: India and Australia. The Australian visa is simpler than simple to acquire over the Internet. Done. The Indian visa has still not arrived. In order to get it, we had to submit our Israeli passports to our travel agent who sent them to the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv. Because we are duel US-Israel citizens they next asked to have our US passports sent as well. Furthermore, because Razelle's Israeli passport was very recently issued they also asked to have her expired Israeli passport sent to them. Then they even called me on the phone to ask me (very pleasantly) some more background questions. I hope they are happy with us. We are only planning to be in Mumbai for 3 days. I hope against hope that our passports are returned to us within the remaining 3 weeks before we fly. Without them we can't go anywhere. It's details like these that make me sweat.
Razelle and I had to first agree on which destinations we would visit and how long we would spend at each of them. This took a lot of time and deliberation between us to work it out. Once that was resolved we had to put together a ticket that would take us to these places. Several different consortia of airlines have formed associations for round-the-world tickets. A single multi-destination ticket is written and you are passed from one airline to the next in that particular association as you progress around the world in one direction until you return to your starting point. One association takes you to a set of cities it flies to while another association takes you to a different set of cities. After all our compromising we still had to redo the list because the cities on it were covered by different associations.
Next, we had to get visas, vaccinations and travel insurance. All of these had to wait until a short period before our flight date. The travel insurance was the biggest headache. Because of our ages and our pre-existing medical conditions (her rod; my ring) we couldn't for the life of us (literally) find an insurance company here in Israel or anywhere overseas that would insure us for more than 90 days. Our trip is 121 days. This looked like a deal breaker. I never anticipated this. It looked like the whole trip would implode. A mere soap-bubble pipe dream. <POP>. Then we learned that because Razelle is a university employee, their group insurance would cover us for the entire trip. [Sigh of relief]. So the trip was back on.
We will visit two countries along the way that require entry visas: India and Australia. The Australian visa is simpler than simple to acquire over the Internet. Done. The Indian visa has still not arrived. In order to get it, we had to submit our Israeli passports to our travel agent who sent them to the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv. Because we are duel US-Israel citizens they next asked to have our US passports sent as well. Furthermore, because Razelle's Israeli passport was very recently issued they also asked to have her expired Israeli passport sent to them. Then they even called me on the phone to ask me (very pleasantly) some more background questions. I hope they are happy with us. We are only planning to be in Mumbai for 3 days. I hope against hope that our passports are returned to us within the remaining 3 weeks before we fly. Without them we can't go anywhere. It's details like these that make me sweat.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
The Itinerary
Getting to Hawai'i being the established goal, the rest of the itinerary then was built around getting there and then going on to complete the circle. Getting to Hawai'i by flying east means flying over a lot of destinations in Asia that many of my friends, family and acquaintances have visited and recommended we also visit. For us, though, the logistics of traveling with our personal restrictions formed the route we have ultimately build -- more of an outside-the-box itinerary. Razelle has a lot of orthopedic considerations to accommodate. Her first requirement is that we not be in flight more than 8 hours at a time. Her second proviso (stated with humor) is no air travel on the Sabbath. As she puts it, "We don't want to be flying through the heavens so close to God on the day of rest." Since we drive on Shabbat here, land travel will be OK on Saturday, but not air travel.
Although I'm the one with the ring around my stomach, Razelle is the one whose menu is limited -- food allergies. And keeping kosher is another dietary challenge we will have to meet. So neither of us are interested in the culinary experiences that other travelers go in for. We will pass ourselves off as vegetarians when we are offered things we can't or won't eat. But, don't worry about what to feed us if we show up on your doorstep; we've never had a problem finding things we like to eat wherever we go.
Putting these factors together, the route we have strung together from flights available in the round-the-world package we've booked includes stops in Amman, Mumbai, Singapore, Perth, Alice Springs, Sydney and Fiji on the way to Hawai'i. More details will follow in future blog entries about how long we will spend at each of these destinations and what we have planned. I will say here that the bulk of our time down under in Australia will be spent living out of a camper van, experiencing winter weather in July, driving on the opposite side of the road (in other words: upside down, mirror image, and meteorologically-disoriented). Should be lots of fun. The zodiac constellations we will see in the night sky in the outback really will appear upside down compared to how they look in the northern hemisphere. I'm told that swirling water going down the drain in Australia swirls in the opposite direction too. I'll have to try that out while I'm there.
After Hawai'i, the rest of the itinerary will include a massive road trip of the continental United States and Canada. We've rented another camper van that is waiting for us in Agoura Hills, California, near Los Angeles. We will criss-cross the US and Canada in this "portable motel" for 74 days visiting everyone and everything we can manage to during that time. I have a provisional map in my head of the path we will take across the continent from west to east, ultimately returning the rented camper van at the New Jersey franchise of the rental agency (located near New York City). This mental map basically involves going from southern California, to Arizona, to New Mexico, back through Colorado, Utah and Nevada, to northern California, up the west coast to Seattle and Vancouver, across to Banff, back into the US to see Old Faithful and Mount Rushmore, onward to Minnesota, Upper Michigan into Ontario as far as Toronto, back into the States again at Niagara Falls to reach northern Ohio, then to Kentucky and along the Ohio River Valley westward to Missouri, southward to Arkansas and Louisiana, along the Gulf Coast all the way to Alligator Alley to reach southeastern Florida, then, turning north, through Georgia, the Carolinas, the remaining Atlantic Seaboard States and on into New England, finally ending the road trip in New Jersey.
That's the provisional plan of the North American segment. I imagine as it unfolds it will dictate to us which parts of this plan are doable and which are not. As you can see, wherever you live along this proposed course, if you recognize yourself along this route it is because you are one of our planned destinations. We will have to pace ourselves and maybe this is too ambitious for a 74-day road trip but we won't know that until we try.
I've been to many of these North American destinations before, but this time I want to show them to Razelle. Correct that. This time I want to share them with Razelle. And I want to share these experiences with you -- through this blog (and in person wherever possible).
Although I'm the one with the ring around my stomach, Razelle is the one whose menu is limited -- food allergies. And keeping kosher is another dietary challenge we will have to meet. So neither of us are interested in the culinary experiences that other travelers go in for. We will pass ourselves off as vegetarians when we are offered things we can't or won't eat. But, don't worry about what to feed us if we show up on your doorstep; we've never had a problem finding things we like to eat wherever we go.
Putting these factors together, the route we have strung together from flights available in the round-the-world package we've booked includes stops in Amman, Mumbai, Singapore, Perth, Alice Springs, Sydney and Fiji on the way to Hawai'i. More details will follow in future blog entries about how long we will spend at each of these destinations and what we have planned. I will say here that the bulk of our time down under in Australia will be spent living out of a camper van, experiencing winter weather in July, driving on the opposite side of the road (in other words: upside down, mirror image, and meteorologically-disoriented). Should be lots of fun. The zodiac constellations we will see in the night sky in the outback really will appear upside down compared to how they look in the northern hemisphere. I'm told that swirling water going down the drain in Australia swirls in the opposite direction too. I'll have to try that out while I'm there.
After Hawai'i, the rest of the itinerary will include a massive road trip of the continental United States and Canada. We've rented another camper van that is waiting for us in Agoura Hills, California, near Los Angeles. We will criss-cross the US and Canada in this "portable motel" for 74 days visiting everyone and everything we can manage to during that time. I have a provisional map in my head of the path we will take across the continent from west to east, ultimately returning the rented camper van at the New Jersey franchise of the rental agency (located near New York City). This mental map basically involves going from southern California, to Arizona, to New Mexico, back through Colorado, Utah and Nevada, to northern California, up the west coast to Seattle and Vancouver, across to Banff, back into the US to see Old Faithful and Mount Rushmore, onward to Minnesota, Upper Michigan into Ontario as far as Toronto, back into the States again at Niagara Falls to reach northern Ohio, then to Kentucky and along the Ohio River Valley westward to Missouri, southward to Arkansas and Louisiana, along the Gulf Coast all the way to Alligator Alley to reach southeastern Florida, then, turning north, through Georgia, the Carolinas, the remaining Atlantic Seaboard States and on into New England, finally ending the road trip in New Jersey.
That's the provisional plan of the North American segment. I imagine as it unfolds it will dictate to us which parts of this plan are doable and which are not. As you can see, wherever you live along this proposed course, if you recognize yourself along this route it is because you are one of our planned destinations. We will have to pace ourselves and maybe this is too ambitious for a 74-day road trip but we won't know that until we try.
I've been to many of these North American destinations before, but this time I want to show them to Razelle. Correct that. This time I want to share them with Razelle. And I want to share these experiences with you -- through this blog (and in person wherever possible).
Friday, May 27, 2011
Trip Inception
The whole idea of traveling around the world began with a simple plan to be north of the Arctic Circle this summer in Norway to experience the Midnight Sun. That lost its appeal when Norway censured Israel for something political and Razelle didn't feel comfortable going there. She said, "Aaron, you've always wanted to visit Hawai'i so you can finally claim to have visited all 50 States. How about we travel to Hawai'i instead?" I mentioned this to my friend David. The question arose, "Which is the best way to get to Hawai'i? It's half way around the world from here. Whether we go east or west, it's pretty much the same distance." David said, "In that case, why go half way around the world and come back the same way when you can go ALL the way around the world and fulfill another one of your "bucket list" fantasies?" Thus was planted the seed that has become this trip-in-the-making.
We got home last night after spending time babysitting Noga our granddaughter. When I opened my email I found a confirmation letter for our room in Hilo, Hawai'i. This location will be the "gemstone" in our ring around the world. It is somewhere near the trip's midpoint; it is the kernel from which the whole idea of setting forth sprouted. Apropos to the whole trip, it is called (I kid you not) "Aaron's Cottage."
We got home last night after spending time babysitting Noga our granddaughter. When I opened my email I found a confirmation letter for our room in Hilo, Hawai'i. This location will be the "gemstone" in our ring around the world. It is somewhere near the trip's midpoint; it is the kernel from which the whole idea of setting forth sprouted. Apropos to the whole trip, it is called (I kid you not) "Aaron's Cottage."
Thursday, May 26, 2011
First Post
These are the first words of a blog that will chronicle our trip around the world. We are the Rod and the Ring. Razelle is "the Rod" because she has a titanium rod implanted in her right thigh and I am "the Ring" because I have a ring around my stomach. These implants should make our experiences unique as we travel around the world, accommodating them as we go. Razelle has limited mobility because of her rod and I have a limited capacity to eat because of my ring. Where we go and what we do there will be directly related to these "bionic" features of ours. Sit back and follow us as we travel to distant lands -- our way.
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