So here ’tis – I am 24 hours out from boarding a flight out of Sydney to Milan via Dubai that will kick start our round the world journey that’ll span 12 months.. well 12 months at minimum; if we happen to discover the magic behind sustainable travel, that period could well go beyond the planned 12!
As I sit on my much loved lazy boy recliner at my folk’s place (god bless their kind soul for housing us over the last 2 weeks), there’s a whole gamut of emotions that are running through me,

I have done what many would have seemed was unthinkable – packed my bags with more than 3 hours out from my departure. Those who know me will testify that organisational skills is not at the forefront of my vast skills repertoire, but procrastination certainly is!
Packing for a whole year away was a 5-day event for which I took a whole week off work. Well, not entirely, but that’s definitely what I told the folks at work to get off work earlier. Making sure I had warm weather gear, cold weather gear, photographic gear, showering gear, underwear gear (if there is such a term) was a herculean effort and as you can see below it was no easy task deciding what went into my travel companion for the next 12 months – my so far trusted Blackwolf Cuba 90L backpack.

A key factor that determined the timing of our travels was the age of our dogs – Sasha & Zaara. They are 8 and 7 respectively now and we always wanted to ensure that we were there around them in Sydney during their pensioner years which would be in another year or so from now. Sasha always seems to know when a member of the family is going away on holidays as she plants herself on their luggage bags on in my case my backpack. She’s sniffed it a few million times and has religiously guarded it for the last week. Right on the top of the list of things I am going to miss about home are these 2 beauties, and on that note, I shall sign off this post with a photo of how they emoted when I told them I am going away for a year!