long term travel memoires, episode 1: 365 underpants

Well, as mentioned in my introductory post, I like traveling. I've been doing it for over 20 years together with my wife now, and I really want to share one of the best experiences I ever had here as well. It's to remember a travel from Istanbul to Indonesia, trying not to fly. We did not succeed 100%, but we were close :). The first one has only a few pictures, but stay tuned... there will be vids and images in next episodes.

It's always the same, and as a human being, we should be prepared: the last mile is the longest one. Although we organized everything pretty well, a lot of things happen at the last possible moment. Some are nice, such as a champaign-breakfast on our friends - thanks a lot. Others are less pleasant, such as a broken window in one of our doors -and no, not because we had a fight. But with one mer Belgium day in front of us, we can say we're ready. Just some cleaning, checking if we don't have too much luggage and for the last time in about a year: real Belgian french fries with a steak.

That luggage... that has cause quite a stir in many: what the hell doe you take with you for a whole year? Light travel, that's the well-meant advice you get on fora and in other self-proclaimed hiking guides. Traveling light is not obvious if we will be huffing and puffing at 50°C in the desert and shivering somewhere in the Himalaya at freezing temperatures. And that thing about these ease, light, paper underpants - we didn't even know these existed, until recently - well, we preferred to avoid these. No paper on our ass, except toilet paper (although in some, or rather many, countries, our left hand, we suppose). We opted for 10 under pants... and we will wash them, just for clarity... and this is supposedly the only household chore for the next year!

For who's not really interested, look at the pictures and behold our luggage for one year. For the people who like a little game, you may try to guess what we have with us based on the pictures... I'll post the full luggage list in a few days :).

It should be enough for one year... we hope it is. We succeeded to add it all in our backpack, within acceptable weight limits. 38kg, bags inclusive.