Details, Details and More Details

First let me say thank you to all our supporters. It really means a lot to us to know that we’ll have our friends following our journey. That’s the amazing part about the times we live in, being able to stay connected. Certainly different from when I made my first trek around the world and I was cut off for the most part from any communications. Once in a while I would receive a letter from my family that had been sent in care of General Post or American Express. But that was a rare occurrence. Now we’ll be able to not only stay in touch but share images and videos as we move along. Amazing times for sure.

As you can imagine there are a million details to think about planning a three-month trip around the world. Our first task was to find all our subjects and then come up with a schedule that would not only accommodate our nine subjects’ schedules on 5 continents but to make them jive with our airline tickets, schedules and routing that would fit within the guidelines of a Round The World Award Ticket – no easy feat but I got through it.

Then we needed to research which vaccinations and visas we would need. Between the two of us we got 14 vaccinations and prescriptions for malaria pills and Imodium. I’ve been heading into and out of New York City dropping our passports off at various consulates to obtain visas. My husband Tom really helped in moving the passports from one consulate to the next as I’ve been on the road giving seminars for ASMP.

In addition to facilitating the Round the World Reward ticket, I had to secure additional reward tickets to and from South America along with seven revenue tickets between Istanbul, Warsaw and Moscow, Delhi to Katmandu, Nepal, Katmandu to Surkhet, Nepal, Bangkok to Chiang Rai, Thailand, Melbourne to Sydney, Australia and Lima to and from Iquitos, Peru, which was costly.

I’ve had to arrange for 99 nights of accommodations and we’ve made all types of arrangements – staying with our subjects and local families, using hotel award points or Amex points and bartering with hotels for services exchanged.

I’m still trying to determine my mobile phone and service needs. I’ve set up Skype on both laptops – yes 2 laptops because when you’re shooting tape less you are totally dependent on a computer and a back up if one fails. I’ll most likely upgrade my Blackberry because it’s been two years and that’s light-years in the tech world of communications. And I need to activate travel/medical emergency insurance as well as register my equipment with US Customs and add new gear to my business insurance policy.

I still haven’t even thought about my personal needs and/or our personal luggage. So many details to still work out.

All those things are necessary in order to make the trip as far as travel logistics are concerned, but I also needed to think of my needs in terms of producing and shooting still images and video for a feature length documentary. Most people have no idea of how much really goes into planning for even the simplest films. My biggest job was to come up with the right mix of gear that would enable me to shoot both still images and video in a high-end way, yet remaining to be portable and lean as far as what we would be bringing with us. That can be an overwhelming task – but the more I break it down and prepare for it with a Plan A, B and C – the more confident and relaxed I feel as our departure date nears.

Please watch my video podcast about the gear I’m bringing.

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