Will you really be doing this for a year?
YES!
LOL, at least for as much of the year as we can.
Where is all your stuff?
For now, it is in the house we are renting in Louisville. The lease is up in August and we’ll see what lays ahead for us.
My stuff is wherever my wife puts it.
Where are all your animals?
We lost Eris to cancer this past Fall, and our world got really small. Since Dakota moved out, he has his girls with him now. Dylan is staying at our house taking care of Titus and Squeakerton and Wha ChuChu, and his kitty, Mercury.
What she said.
Are you both working?
I am still working. I am currently teaching two courses online for UofL, doing course design and teaching an online course for the University of Maryland’s Global Campus.
I am a full-time graduate student at UofL. And I am trying to avoid working as much as possible for now.
How did you choose the font colors?
They are the colors of our toothbrushes.
Are you being sponsored? Lots of travel bloggers have sponsors.
Your tax dollars at work—thanks for the retirement.
We are not sponsored. No free flights, no free hotels, no free meals.
How can you afford to travel for a year?
Flying-We will fly military Space A as much as possible.
Logistically difficult, but cheap. It’s an earned privilege for all those difficult years.
Housing/Lodging-It’s cheaper overseas. If you want to live in Rome, that’s going to be expensive. Our first trip is to a small town in Tuscany, 25 minutes by train south of Firenze (Florence). It’s a small studio loft apartment but we’ve rented it for six weeks and it’s less than $800 for the entire stay. That includes utilities and internet!
We plan to keep a budget that we’ll share. If Jason wants to do that work because I don’t do numbers. English major—give it to me in words, per favore.
Are you worried about not knowing the language where you go?
I am a little. But, in my experience most of the languages where we will go peaople speak some English and sometime their words sound similar.
Not worried. I’ve been to many countries and have not known the language. Besides, a genuine smile speaks all languages.
I thought you guys were moving to Italy?
That’s still in the plans. In fact, our first trip is to Italy to look at some apartments. We are sure we will qualify for the Elective Residency Visa with the military pension so one plan is to sign a lease, apply for the visa, and use Italy as a home base.
It would be easier to travel the world with Italy as a base—and more economical.
Where would you like to travel on your year of wandering?
Back to Scotland for an extended stay. In Europe to do a WWII battlefield exploration. Back to Italy—near the coast.
Marrakesh. Casablanca. Tangiers. Croatia. Albania. England. These are places we’d like to stay for at least a month each. It’s not meant to be a year-long vacation. If we decide not to pursue the visa, we’ll add some places outside the Schengen Area, and some places in North America.
With the current situation, we’ve been answering questions about the coronavirus threat in Italy. Our thoughts:
I have been, and we have talked about it, having problems connecting the true threat based off of my thoughts versus what is being reported.
What do you mean?
My gut instinct, even though thousands have it, it is still a small percentage who are truly threatened by the virus. I don’t feel threatened by that. And the news is so sketchy.
You mean like the news story a few hours ago about the port authority of New York and New Jersey having the virus with no details.
Right. How did he get it? In his everyday activity or did he travel to a threat zone? It’s difficult to pick out the truth in the reports.
Not even the truth, but the lack of details keep people from making decisions for themselves. Instead, the government issues warnings and threat levels when they should be explaining the logical connection between the spread of the virus and the actions they are taking to prevent it.
We’ll go, but be smart about things.
Agreed. If we were going on a 10 day vacation to Italy, we should probably consider it. But, we aren’t on vacation. We can quaratine when we get there if need be. And, if the threat is what they say it is, then it’s coming to the US with or without our trip.
If you have any questions for us, we are happy to answer them in the blog. Email us at
SHE AND HE WANDER 