Please excuse the retro formatting.
This page was created back in early days when raw HTML was the norm, for those of us who actually made web pages back then.
I haven't bothered to modernize it, figuring it's the content that actually counts.

The Aiken/Widom Family Year Off



Travelogs
Hotels and Outfitters
Post-Trip Slideshow in 13.5MB pdf or 18MB PowerPoint

We're a family that loves to travel (see our family travel page) so we finally went for broke -- excused ourselves from work and school for a full year to travel the world. When we started, Tim was almost 12 years old and Emily was a few months past 10.

We divided the 14 months from mid-June 2007 to mid-August 2008 into four separate adventures. We came home for about a month of regrouping -- and a little bit of catching-up with school and work -- between each one.

WhenWhereWhat
Part 1
mid-June 2007 through September 2007		 Greece to Morocco in a counterclockwise arc
(3.5 months)
  • Island-hopping in Greece
  • Italy south-to-north from Pompeii to the Dolomites
  • Alps, including the Mont Blanc Circuit
  • En route to Morocco: South of France, Pyrenees, a bit of Spain
  • Morocco: trekking, touring, and the obligatory camel safari
  • Europe miscellany: Paris & London; Germany's Black Forest & Lake Constance
Part 2
November 2007 to mid-January 2008		 Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia
(2.5 months)
  • Travel by rented motorhome from Andean Roads with mountain bikes in tow
  • Counterclockwise loop starting and ending in Buenos Aires, circling a good portion of the Argentine and Chilean Andes with a small side-trip to Bolivia
Part 3
mid-February 2008 through May 2008		 Andaman Sea and Southeast Asia
(3.5 months)
  • Plunk down in Phuket, Thailand for a week to get the kids scuba-trained
  • Two-month "bareboat" charter of Cyrene, a terrific catamaran that we rented for a short trip once before
  • Sail around Thailand's Similan and Surin Islands, Myanmar's Mergui Archipelago, and an out and back to India's Andaman Islands
  • Land travel in Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam
Part 4
July 2008 to mid-August 2008		 High Sierras
(1.5 months)

Alex and Jennifer