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

Cliff: ” My camera because I have had so much fun using it.”

Yve: ” My pajamas because I often end up using them as pants.”

Yve and Dad cruising around Ubud…Yve is wearing her PJ bottoms

Tuck: “Broccoli!”

Tuck and Broccoli in Santorini, Greece!

Wescott: ” My Lacoste shoes.”

Jones: “My Barbie!” …what else is new?

Lisa: “My Mophie iPhone charger because my cellphone/camera would have never lasted the entire day on its battery power alone.”

For me, it is my flip-flops which I almost didn’t bring. I am sure you are wondering why I love my flip-flops so much. First of all, I adore the luxury of slipping on a shoe with no need to bend down to tie or adjust the tongue.  Also, they are outrageously comfy so it’s never bad to have the bottom of my foot cushioned by the bed of my rider flip-flops.

But one day in Bali, my left flip-flop suffered from a brutal injury on it’s toe thong, after stubbing it on an uneven side walk crack (let’s just say the sidewalks in Bali need a touch-up.) So, it was a trip back from the Monkey Forest bare footed that day.  I plan to repair them at our local shoe repair up the street on Mercer Island but for now, I had to buy new ones  I’ve owned those flip flops for 3 years and I’m not ready to lose them to the trip!

Check out my bottom treads!

Did you know that on average we spend 80% of our lives wearing the same type of underwear? Weather you care about how fast your boxers dry or not, I think I found the pair that all of us will want to spend the next 100% of our lives in. The Exofficio Give-n-Go Boxer is, put simply, awesome. Awesomely comfortable, awesomely stylish, and awesomely, without going into to much detail, water resistant (think about it, it’s a plus)!

I know what your probably pondering at the moment, and the answer is “yes.” Yes, this bog post is over and yes, once we leave for our trip my blog posts will drastically improve (I’m still in summer mode)!

In anticipation of our blowout event tomorrow night, they put each tomato in individual dixie cups as their contribution to the party’s appetizers!

You can’t exactly commit to a safari in Africa and then cheap out and not give everyone binoculars.  I can just imagine the sibling rivalry that would ensue when the guide says “over there is a lion!” and we only have 3 pairs to share between the 7 of us!

Luckily we figured this out before we left for the trip, but procuring 7 pairs of binoculars is not easy.  We searched our camping gear and house and found 1 sandy pair of binoculars we use for surfing that are impossible to focus and a pair of bird binoculars that were scratched L

I turned to my absolute FAVORITE outdoor brand to save the day, LLBean.  Sure I like REI, but as someone who spent my college years in Brunswick, Maine, I absolutely LOVE LLBean!  I went to their website, ordered 1 pair of the Discovery Binoculars made by Bushnell.  I thought they were a good deal at $50.  Then, I took my new LLBean binoculars to the flagship REI in Seattle and asked if they had anything the same or better for a same or better price.  The clerk looked at them and defeated, said “no.”  So I ordered another 6 pairs.  Binoculars are now done!

Binocular Testing Team!

As for safari, we used Safaris.com which is headquartered in Bainbridge Island, WA!  They came highly recommended by several people we spoke to. We went to Bainbridge to visit John Davies, you runs safaris.com and he was great at helping us plan!  Can’t wait!  Going on safari is definitely on my bucket list so I am excited to experience the Serengeti with the kids and my parents!!!

One thing that has been really fun about preparing for this trip is purging a ton of stuff!  Aside from the two cars, we have used the opportunity to cut our stuffed animal collection in half, give away the two toddler beds to our pal Heidi from CVDS and weed out a ridiculous amount of clothes.  Any piece of clothing that isn’t going on the trip we know won’t fit the kids when we come back, so we might as well drop off at the Mercer Island Thrift Shop now! 

Taking the Beetle for one last spin early this morning before Gail picks it up!

For anyone that has tried to “unsubscribe” from random catalogs and junk mail, you know how frustrating this is!  It doesn’t matter what you do…it is still mailed to you!  I have called the companies as well as gone online and “unchecked” all the check boxes in an effort to scream “STOP MAILING ME STUFF” but they keep mailing.  They say it takes at least 2 weeks to get off the list but I have been at this now for over 6 months and it is still not working. Finally,  I did find an App that has helped with cutting down on junk mail!  It is “PAPERKARMA.”  You just take pictures of your junk mail and hit unsubscribe.  They contact the company and unsubscribe for you and send you updates! PAPERKARMA is awesome!!!!

As for closets, this trip really hit me as **REAL** two weeks ago when I packed my cowboy boots!  WOW!  We are really going!

So sad to pack up all the cowboy boots but just not practical for the trip :)

Conventional wisdom says that you need to move to keep clutter so a minimum and since we haven’t moved for 9 years, my closet was starting to be ridiculous.  And to be honest, I haven’t missed any of it over the last two weeks!  Maybe I will just drop it all off at the Mercer Island Thrift Shop when I get back!  All of it but the cowboy boots of course

One of the great challenges of international travel is power cords, battery life, global AC adapters and power supply.  Sure, you can purge all devices and practice “electronic nudity” which would be awesome, but unfortunately, not practical for the 7 of us on this trip.  So instead, we are challenged to try and minimize adapters, cords and weight while trying to maximize battery life and storage.

Here are some things we are trying that may or may not work:

1. Storing photos in the cloud using iCloud.  Each of us have our own iCloud account that will sync photos stored on an i-device on a regular basis.
2. Storing documents, contacts and calendar in the cloud using Google docs, Google Calendar, etc.
3. Standardizing as many devices as possible on the same adapter.  The iPhone 5 adapter. iPad mini and nano use the same adapter as iPhone 5.
4. Solar charger. We have a Solio Bolt Solar Charger that can power different iDevices.  Not perfect but definitely better than nothing if we are in need.
5. 1 terabyte hard drive.. .LaCie Rugged Mini….just in case the iCloud storage doesn’t work
6. Mophie Juice Pack for the iPhone 5. It makes my phone a lot heavier but it extends its battery power twice as long.  Since I really should call it my “camera that’s a phone” rather than the other way around, I decided I needed to make sure it was charged!  Thanks Mouni and Kim for the tip!

Trying out the Solio solar power supply for iDevices in the garden…if it works with the Seattle sun, it should work well in Tanzania!

So how are we doing toward this goal? So far, all the kids are packed and Cliff and I have not really started J This is partly because Eagle Creek has the slowest return policy known to mankind so Cliff and I are still waiting for our backpacks. (See earlier post on luggage.)

The kids have their large bags packed, their daypacks for the plane packed and have even put what they will wear on the plane in a separate bag.

For the twins, we returned the small Eagle Creek bag ($250) and opted for the more affordable roller suitcase from Target ($30.)  Since there was NO CHANCE Tuck and Jones were ever going to be using the backpack feature, we decided not to waste money on fancy luggage engineering.  Jones got one with purple polka dots and Tuck got camo….perfect!

Tuck and Jones with their suitcases packed and ready to go!

As we packed, we took advantage of two great technologies, packing cubes and zip locks!  Ziplocks are the absolute BEST for storing things that may never get used.  Like the micro-down jackets…we may use them everyday… or never…who knows!  The kids had fun helping to sit on the ziplocks to get all the air out.  Who needs compression bags?

Jones thought squishing all his stuff in ziplocks was the best part of packing….it’s like playing with a whoopie cushion!

After reading how much the Roaming Jones worshiped their packing cubes, we decided to use packing cubes too for everyday items like pants and shirts.  And here is what I learned about packing cubes….they are really expensive, relatively speaking! Considering it is just a small nylon bag, it is pretty ridiculous.  Luckily, I spotted packing cubes at IKEA when I was there two weeks ago.  You can get a set of 4 packing cubes for less than half the price of one cube at REI.  I got each person their own set and bought a silver Sharpie so everyone could put their name on theirs.  They certainly make packing and unpacking much easier!  Thank you Roaming Jones!

Ikea packing cubes!

So Cliff and I have 24 hours to pack so we can catch up to the kids and stay on schedule…wish us luck!

We finally settled on “wheeled backpacks”….an unusual piece of luggage but awesome for this sort of trip.  Believe it or not, Cliff and I bought two of them over 12 years ago when we circled the globe in 2001 with Wescott in tow.  They were perfect!  So we dug out our now “vintage” wheeled backpacks from the garage… see mom, it does pay off to save everything … and VOILA! …Yve and Otto have wheeled backpacks for the trip.

For Cliff, Wescott and me, we settled on the newest Eagle Creek version…The Flip Switch…bigger than the original (and therefore heavier once it is packed) but a great bag.  We ordered one to make sure it was right and had everyone try it out.  We also ordered the smaller version but it was too big for Tuck and Jones so we are returning it.  What will Tuck and Jones use?  Not sure!  I am going to go check out the sale at REI!  Stay tuned!

Tuck trying on the smaller Eagle Creek wheeled backpack for size! It is too big for his body but too small for his personality!

Yve modeling the large Eagle Creek Wheeled Backpack

*****

P.S. If you are thinking of buying this bag I recommend getting it through eBags.com rather than directly from Eagle Creek.  Eagle Creek’s customer service has been super lame considering how much money we have spent with them and eBags has always been terrific to buy from!