What does "TwinF" stand for?

TwinF is an acronym for the name and addess of the site: The World Is Not Flat. If you're curious, it has nothing to do with the Tom Friedman book The World is Flat.  We reserved the address before the book was published.

 
When did you leave? 

We left Seattle in mid-December, 2005 to see family in North Carolina and Hawaii and then left the US (from Hawaii) in the first week of January, 2006

Where did you go?
Mostly Asia and Europe.  We visited 29 countries from New Zealand to India, Japan, Russia and Italy, to name a few.  Check out the itinerary to see the complete list.

How long was the trip?
We were away from home for 366 days.

 
How did it turn out?

We had a wonderful time on the trip.  We found that travel was more worry free and easy than we expected.  We never felt unsafe (at least not by surprise).  

 
What would you do differently?

We would have bought a video camera earlier on the trip for one example.  We have no regrets really.

Are you different now?

Wow. It's hard to say really.  Maybe you should ask our friends.  Really though, I think we each changed in small ways, but we're not taking a new direction in life or anything.  Lee says that he is now more patience.

Why now?
The question is: why not now? We are big believers in the power of good timing. This was perhaps the only opportunity in our lives to pull this off without a ton of repercussions. No kids, money saved, no one in school, etc.

How did you travel?
We used a wide variety of transportation options.  To give you an idea, we took 40 flights, 32 trains and 19 boats during the year. Check out our post TwinF by the Numbers for more.

What about your jobs?
We're taking some risks to do this. Sachi quit her job and my consulting was put on hold.  Over the course of the trip, we decided that Sachi would join me in working on Common Craft.

What did you do about your house in Seattle?
We got lucky on this count. We originally figured that we would have to move out and then move back in. Luckily though, Sachi's brother Mark got a job in Seattle, so he rented our house for the year. It was sooo nice to have a house to come home to.

What about your dog?
Leaving our 11 year old dog Amos was the hardest part by far. He stayed with Mark at home while we were gone.

Why did you it?
We wanted to learn. We wanted to experience. We wanted to appreciate what we have. We wanted to get a new perspective on what it's like to be an American. We wanted to be changed a by the trip and I think, for the most part, we accomplished these things.

Did you create this website yourselves?
This overall site was designed by me (Lee). I have a consulting practice called Common Craft and I work with businesses to create similar sites for working with customers.
I designed the site to be a model for cheap and easy methods of collecting information related to accomplishing a specific goal, in this case- to accumulate first-hand travel information.
The site is built on the Drupal platform and hosted by Bryght. The guys at Bryght have been a tremendous help.  Rain City Studios did the graphic design and I highly recommend them.

How much does a trip like this cost?
For the two of us to travel a step above the comfort level of the typical backpacker, it cost us about $75,000 for the year, all inclusive.

How do we contact you?
Please use the contact form.

What sort of gadgetry will you have?
We took a Palm Treo 650, A small Sony Vaio, a Pentax Optio WP and a Sony Handycam.

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