All of our gadgets and tech unpacked when we got home!

I know what you’re thinking… didn’t you venture out into the world to get away from it all? Didn’t you successfully cut the electronic cord, shedding all the distractions to engage in daily debates, conversation and non-electrified noble pursuits? The short answer is, no! The behind-the-scenes reality of our journey, and the ability to leave home for a year, given educational priorities, career aspirations, visions of blogging grandeur and an obsession with photography demanded tools of the trade… times seven!

No one has ever accused us of traveling light, and the Trip Around the World kept our reputation intact. There was probably over 300 pounds of equipment that we carried and divided between our seven suitcases – all referred to as Troop Gear. Each time we moved locations, troop gear was assembled and divided up between each of us. This gear represented at least 50% of the weight carried across the world by us, including all of the technology, gadgets and the 35 pounds of text books the three older kids required to stay in educationally good graces. Most of it turned out to be useful; some not as necessary. Did we really need an electronic scale? No, Wescott, we probably did not. Did each member of our team need a personal iPad Mini? A resounding absolutely from all of us. Can you rely just on iPads, and leave your laptop behind? No, not if school work, travel booking, blogging and business planning are part of your agenda. Did everyone need their own camera? Maybe not, but the 80K + images will be with us forever!

For those of you contemplating a similar journey, here are a few tips from us:

Only have one cell phone with a US contract. We figured out half way through the trip that it was a lot more economical to buy a cell phone that you could swap out the SIM card in each country for a local phone number and plan. Skype was going to be our main go-to communication system to talk to people back home. However we realized that in many places, the WIFI just isn’t strong enough to support consistent connections. Lisa and I were fairly regularly on conference calls to places across the globe, and eventually we realized that having people call us on our local cell number was a much more reliable communications technology than relying on the Internet. In those first few months of travel, when we still relied on our AT&T iPhones for reliable connections, we had some horrendous cell bills!

Tech Check is Your Friend. While there were many things we probably didn’t get right on the trip, we did a great job at Tech Check, which we credit to coming home with all of the devices we left with. Almost every day that we would venture out into the village, city or countryside of the resident country, Lisa or I would yell the familiar “Tech Check!” call. That meant all iPads, computers, cameras, lenses, hard drives and phones needed to be collected and deposited into a designated suitcase, which was locked up. After a couple of countries, we realized that since all of our suitcases were cloth, it would be pretty easy to cut into our technology booty. So we ditched one of the bags and bought a hard suit case with built in locks, upgrading our security. Really tech check was more about keeping track of items and not leaving them scattered about for an easy poach than a highly secure vault; and the results kept us theft free for the entire year.

Be wary of Cellular Internet Service. When we arrived in Seville, Spain, we settled into our awesome apartment and reveled in the speed and power of the most awesome Internet service. With 7 iPads humming, YouTube videos, Skype calls and iTunes downloads abounded in the first 24 hours. And then, the pipe ran dry! Like a cripple trying to climb Everest, downloading an email took 10 minutes. The video player and Skype laughed at the mere click of intention. It was like cement was poured into the digital river of ones and zeroes keeping us connected. It tuned out that the house had a cellular modem, which only had 3 GB of data allocated a month. And, there was pretty much no way to get more bandwidth allocated! So much for productivity at the apartment. Wescott needed connectivity for online high school, and I was trying to speak to YouTube Creators around the globe. We spent a lot of time at a cafe in our neighborhood that offered unlimited WIFI. Actually, that turned out to work in our favor, as we met a wonderful friend named Julian, who took us under his wing for the 2 weeks we spent in Seville. We also ended up renting a room at local hostel in order to do Skype calls from midnight to 3 am, since the cafe was closed!

Sleeper Device that was Awesome: LED projector. On a whim, I purchased a tiny LED projector that measured 6″ x 5″ x 2.5″ so we could watch movies as a family. This turned out to be such a fun addition to the trip. We watched Khan Academy videos about art history, movies from iTunes and documentaries about a given location on whatever wall  that worked in our current home. We didn’t use it every week, but it turned out to be a fun event we all enjoyed, and I would definitely take it again.

Bring a Couple of External Hard Drives. We live in a data-intensive world. Our phones shoot HD video. Our cameras create large files for each image. When you’re traveling, pictures and videos eat gigabytes like a legion of ants defoliating a jungle. That GoPro camera you think would be fun to use? It is fun, but just that one device required 300GB of storage per country! Luckily, external hard drives are tiny, light and packed with storage. We used 3 individual terabyte drives to support the 3 computer hard drives on our laptops. Luckily, we had no major crashes; but we needed almost every ounce of storage space.

Online High School is a Really Deceiving Name. The University of Nebraska offered a great solution for Wescott to complete his sophomore year of high school while traveling around the globe through their online course offering. While assignments, projects and tests were submitted online, all of the course materials took the form of workbooks… 35 pounds of workbooks! Given our spotty Internet connections, good old print and paper remained a relevant technology that allowed for theoretically consistent studying… if only there was a solution for procrastination…then we may have been able to shed pounds sooner in the trip as Wescott completed each class!

For you shoppers out there, here is a list of the technology and devices we took across the globe:

• (7) Apple iPad Minis
• (4) MacBooks – we started with one 11-inch MacAir thinking we could all share, which lasted about a month before we realized that wouldn’t work; then added a 13-inch MacBook Air that Mouni brought to Vietnam for Wescott as he needed a dedicated machine for school; then added a MacBook Pro for Cliff when he traveled back to North America for work; then added our other MacBook from home when we got to Carmel for Otto to code!
• (6) cameras including a Leica film camera, a Cannon 5D SLR, (3) waterproof Lumix point and shoots, and a GoPro Hero 3
• (1) mini tripod (never used it!)
• (5) SLR lenses
• (5) iPods
• (2) iPhones
• (2) Samsung phone with local SIM cards
• (2) wireless keyboards for the iPads
• (1) electronic weigh scale
• (15) Apple charging cords
• (7) Binoculars for safari
• (3) Headphone splitters
• (14) sets of headphones, thinking we’d lose some, which amazingly, we didn’t!
• (1) Jambox speaker for dance parties and movie watching
• (1) Optoma LED mini projector
• (7) headlamps / flashlights
• (1) solar charger (never used it!)
• (3) USB Memory sticks
• (3) 1 Terabyte external hard drives
• (2) sets of International electrical adaptors
• (300) Kodak T-Max 100 B&W film
• (14) Workbooks for University of Nebraska
• (4) Math textbooks
• (1) Literature textbook

Find your rocks.

Tuck and a quoot stray dog collecting the rocks on the beach.

To start out, we need a few rocks (minimum weight of fifty pounds each). If you haven’t already completed this step then simply rent a crappy car and get going to the nearest beach in Santorini. However, I do recommend doing a little research before hand because you don’t want to wind up in a beach like Perivolos; no big rocks, tons of big sweaty nude people. Now if you’re reading this and thinking, “Huh. At first this whole thing sounded kind of fun, but spending money on cars, research, ludicrous lollygaggers struttin’ around in their birthday suit! I’m just not so sure anymore.” Then you always have the option of snagging a few volcanic boulders off the neighbors’ stone palisade. (Note that this is your decision to make and author, Wescott Sharples, does not condone any of your actions.) My parents decided to top out at twenty rocks, but let’s draw the line at eighteen because twenty seems a bit excessive.

Once you have your rocks make sure to rent the car one extra day. This way you can store the stones in the musty trunk while you plan your next course of action. By the way, your next move should be this: round up your three older kids. (If you don’t have any kids over the age of eight, you can always grab a few husky-looking kids off the Santorini streets.) Once you have successfully amassed assistants bring them to your rental car. (And if you got kids off the street, I suggest proceeding with step in a slightly less sketchy way then, “Hey kids! Come help me get these heavy rocks out of my car parked way down there!” Or you might possibly face criminal charges.)

Make everybody load up their bags, shirts, and arms with all the rocks they can carry. It’s funny how heavy eighty pounds feels on your back, and how much lighter it sounds when your dad describes the mission on the way to the car! In addition to struggling under the shear weight of the stones, I suggest you schedule something very important to take place twenty minutes from this exact moment; we went with a professional painter located in Fira because we like to keep things classy. Of course there was nothing classy about the way we were sprinting down the narrow stairways of Oia, sweating, stumbling, and bumping into complete strangers. But hey, even the guy riding on the donkeys got a good laugh as we half sprawled half sprinted by him. Once you finally make it back to the house with your kids, rocks, and remainder of self-esteem, start the second half of your relay race with the rest of your family to the bus stop–because there is no way your missing a meeting with the best artist in Santorini after all that!

Mom and Dad washing rocks and getting tipsy!

Now that you have returned home, your rocks probably look better than they did before–after all the work you have done!  So there you stand, nothing between these lava rocks and your featured home decor but shipping laws, TSA box checker people, and the deliveryman. It’s time to strategize! You could send them via the local Oia post office, but seeing how this option would put a sizable dent in your budget and has a high probability of failure, I advise against it. The second option is to pass the collection of rocks off as a sculpture. We considered this for a great deal of time and my dad even used his hidden sculpting talent to assemble the rocks in an extraordinarily artistic way. He made a brochure and we even had a receipt authenticating the purchase of the fictional sculpture.

Yet after all that, we also excluded this option, because although it was an intriguing art project, it really didn’t eliminate any of the major issues pertaining to option number one. This leaves you with option number three: find KiKi. Kiki was our exceptionally nice neighbor and caretaker in Oia. If you explain the situation enough times and establish that you do in fact want to send just the rocks and nothing else to Athens, she will be more than happy to help! She knows a guy who knows a guy who transports goods from Oia to Athens with his dinky motorboat. He was more than willing to throw our rocks onto his vessel for a mere thirty euro. Sounded somewhat unreliable, but unless you have a better idea, I would just go with it!

At this time you probably just arrived in Athens, sick of Greek food after two weeks of eating the same meals every day, and exhausted after waking up at five in the morning to catch your flight. But despite all these disparities, surprise and delight will flicker across your face when you receive the phone call from the front desk warily explaining that five heavy boxes just arrived at the hotel front door addressed to you. “I can’t believe they actually made it!” You’ll exclaim to your nonchalant children as you put down the phone and put on your shoes. Even though this feeling is rewarding your journey with the two hundred and fifty pounds of rock is far from over.

Your next mission is getting them from Athens, Greece to Mercer Island, Washington–a slightly more daunting task than the first. Since Athens is a little less laid back than the diminutive island of Santorini, you only have two choices as far as shipping goes. Send them by air or sea. We originally leaned towards sea because we assumed it would be the cheaper and slower option, and since we were not getting home any time soon, the speed of travel didn’t bother us. Well, we were right about one of thing: it was going to be slow, but in terms of pricing, we were not expecting three thousand euro! So again we were left with one option: air. From your Athenian hotel, hail a taxi and load it up with your heavyweight boxes, and word to the wise, ask your concierge if he can give directions to the cab driver, or else you are in for a long and convoluted discussion in Greeklish (Greek and English mixed together, but mostly Greek).

Once you finally arrive at the post office, your going to want to explain the situation and package contents without sounding like a deceptive terrorist. (Something about somebody willing to ship two hundred pounds of rock for three hundred euro sets off some red flags in the shipping department.) Yes, apparently transporting rocks by high-speed jumbo jet is 1/10 the amount of sending something via the slow ship freight. We were willing to take the deal, just as you should! However let’s be realistic, two hundred and fifty pounds of lava rock is a little bit too expensive, how about you dump fifty pounds and we call it good.

We decided on abandoning our surplus stones a block away from our hotel. We placed them artfully in front of a cruise agency, in hopes that they might adopt our newly found orphans.

Otto and I abandoning our beloved rocks.

This step feels wrong for a number of reasons. Mostly because it’s kind of like you just kidnapped some kids and are now abandoning them in some foreign sketchy neighborhood. In addition, it looks like your dropping off a bomb, so that doesn’t help.

Congratulations you too have officially mastered the art of irrationality! Now that you have unearthed, shipped, and deserted your boulders, there is only one thing left to do: wait. Although the Athenian economy doesn’t instill much confidence, have faith that they will eventually arrive at your front doorstep. Our first box of rocks just recently arrived and Mouni sent us this picture.

Safe and sound.

Through this experience I have learned that although venturing off of the beaten path may prove challenging and tedious, it does make for some killer memories!

But phone calling is more complicated.  Using the AT&T plan globally on our iPhones is out of the question!  It is CRAZY expensive.  So we signed up for a Skype Premium Account which was a great suggestion we got from The Roaming Jones Family!

What is Skype Premium? Skype Premium allows us to do unlimited calling from any country to any country and also allows us to receive calls and voicemail.  This means that if for any reason you guys want to call us, you can! 206-792-9772  Use it just like you would any other Seattle phone number.

Call us anytime and if we are at our computer, we can answer, otherwise, leave a VM and we can listen to it when we get back to our computer and we will call you back!  Pretty cool, huh?  Gotta love technology!