When?
We chose September 9, 2009 as our date of departure (at 9:09, of course) for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Marijana is done with school by then, which spells sweet, blissful freedom for the both of us. Then there's the fact that Brian will have passed (and hopefully met) all of his major deadlines. And, of course, we had to factor in the time it would take to sell off all of our belongings and prepare for the trip. That alone could easily take the better part of a year. Finally, we realized that, if we started in the late summer and headed south, we could stay warm for a full year. Since we don't have the luxury of space on this trip, it's for more than just comfort that we are trying to occupy the sunny spots of the globe: It's expensive and heavy to carry all-weather gear around.