PRE-TRIP PREPARATION: MAY 25, 1999-SEPTEMBER 24, 1999
SOUTH AMERICA: SEPTEMBER 25, 1999-NOVEMBER 9, 1999
USA: NOVEMBER 9, 1999-NOVEMBER 16, 1999
CENTRAL AMERICA: NOVEMBER 16, 1999-DECEMBER 20, 1999
USA II (Home for Holidays): DECEMBER 21,
1999-JANUARY 11, 2000
SOUTHEAST ASIA: JANUARY 12,
2000-MARCH
3, 2000
CENTRAL ASIA: MARCH
4, 2000-APRIL 17, 2000
THE MIDDLE EAST: APRIL 18-JUNE
22, 2000
EUROPE: JUNE 23, 2000-OCTOBER 26, 2000
AFRICA: OCTOBER 27, 2000-NOVEMBER 30, 2000
SOUTHEAST ASIA II:
DECEMBER 6, 2000 - DECEMBER 30,2000
USA: JANUARY - FEBRURARY, 2001
CENTRAL AMERICA: FEBRUARY, 2001
WESTERN USA: MARCH 5 -
2 GO GLOBAL GOES HOME: END OF MARCH 2001
To see on the road travelogues just click on one of the buttons
above. Thanks for reading about our adventures!
Tuesday, May 25, 1999
Hi. My name is Kelly Willis and I am
taking a trip around the world with my husband and best friend, Rich Willis. Actually, we have been planning this trip our
entire lives in our minds. We both love to travel. Correction. WE LIVE TO
TRAVEL. My traveling days started when I was a little tot. My parents
would load all seven children into our van and we would go camping in northern
Michigan and Canada. They were also brave enough to take us on an annual
trip to sunny Florida. Rich is the travel planner. He is really good at
it. He actually has been training for this trip for a long time. When he was
younger, he and his parents traveled out west and east to his father's home town
in Scranton, PA. He also was involved with many road trips as a crazy
college student. He and his buddies traveled out west to ski, and also to such
cities as Chicago, New Orleans and Washington D.C. Rich and I met at the
end of our college careers on May 6, 1989. We dated through law school,
and in 1992 moved to Atlanta to begin our law careers. In the Spring of 1994 we
bought our first home and got married.
Rich and I have seen a lot of the world
together. Together, we have visited many of the states, including: Ohio,
Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Florida, Washington state, Washington D.C., Oregon, Virginia,
Pennsylvania and Utah. We have back packed through Europe twice. First,
after law school and the bar exam for a month and second with our good friends
Bill and Ginger during the Summer of 1997. We also escaped on two long weekend
excursions to Europe. The first one was 2/97: Germany/France/ Switzerland. The
second one was 1/98: Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We spent our Honeymoon in
Australia and New Zealand. We have also spent time in Toronto and Ottawa,
Canada.
When we
started to talk about taking time off to travel the world. Neither of us took
this topic too seriously. Now, it is becoming a serious reality. We have
sold our house, told our parents, told our closest friends and Rich has told his
employer. I plan to tell my employer within the week. Rich has purchased
approximately 50 travel books (I am not joking). We have purchased the computer
that I am typing on right now. We are now big fans of the Travel Channel. I have
visited my doctors to make sure that I am physically fit for such a journey (I
still have the dreaded physical in June). Finally, we have started the
vaccinations. We are committed. There is no turning back. I feel that I have not
been too much help yet. I think that I have been concentrating too much on my
job and life in Atlanta, Georgia.
Well, today, May 25, 1999 is the day
that Kelly starts adding a lot of value to the TRIP. By the way, the TRIP has
been the code name for our adventure. However, we have recently learned that
many others have referred to their RTW (travelers’ acronym for "round the
world") trips as the TRIP. So we are in the process of finding a cool,
catchy and captivating name for our TRIP and the company that we are creating to
organize our trip and the writing that we will be doing and hopefully publishing
both during and after the trip. Some ideas include: "Two for the Road"
"Two for the World" "Two-Go-Global". We shall see.
Saturday, September 11, 1999
It seems like eons since I wrote that
message on May 25th. When, in all actuality, it has only been less
than four months. Since that time, I have told my boss that I am leaving
and traveling around the world, and he was extremely understanding and
supportive (Thank you Danny!). We have told our parents that we
are leaving our jobs and traveling around the world, and they too have taken the
news very well. Additionally, we climbed Mt. Rainier, we sold
our house and put most of our valuables in storage, we are now actually
unemployed (as of September 3, 1999) and we have only ten days before we leave.
It is now 12:02 am or 00:02 hours, and I am pretty tired. I am sitting up in
what we like to call our cat’s cradle. It is the plush, newly renovated
upstairs master suite in our buddy, Lou’s home. Yes, we are official
freeloaders. Even though it is pretty late, and I am pretty tired, I wanted to
take a second to say how fortunate we are. We have such great lives. Our
families are so wonderful. They have been extremely understanding and supportive
about this crazy adventure. Our friends have been incredible too. The people in
the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office gave me a going away luncheon
which included several songs and a cheer by the famous "Go with the
Deputy" men’s choir. My friends, Julie Frisbey and Mike Biglow gave us a
going away party and so many wonderful people came to that. We just came home
from Jennifer and Wayne Bradley’s home where we were treated to a fancy and
delicious dinner and showered with gifts from our friends, which included a book
about 365 great things about Atlanta, Meals to Go (military meals where you just
add water) and a toothbrush!! So many other friends have cooked us great dinners
and given us great gifts. We do not deserve all of this attention. We should be
doing it for them!!
Final Pre-Departure Note:
Well, the last week leading up to the day of
departure was crazy. Within the week, we had the web site up and working,
we moved out of Lou's house and into Donny and Emily's (Rich's brother and his
wife). We sold my car. We tried to get all of our affairs in
order. The last few days we barely slept, ate or bathed. In fact, at
noon on September 24, 1999 the day we were going to leave, we decided to change
the flight again to the next day. This was a very good decision, because
even after moving it back one day...we still were attending to last minute
details just hours before our flight! So if you are planning to take a
trip around the world for one year, expect to be pretty busy those last few
weeks. Trust me though, it may be a lot of work, but it is really fun too!
