Starting Price Sheet In an effort to actually help other people plan their own travels around the world I d really like to do my best to keep up with the prices of various components This is the first effort at that World travel isn t nearly as expensive as people think it is at least it doesn t have to be Some of that is based on experience of knowing what needs to be booked in advance and what can be booked on the fly The rest of it generally comes down to flexibility If you only have a specific window for vacation or the like it falls on the high season and you re dead set on that specific location then there s a good chance it s going to be pricier On the other hand if you can mitigate any of those factors then it can be much more affordable strong Travel Expenses strong One way train seat between Kansas City and Chicago Amtrak 61 20 Round trip flight between Chicago O Hare and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi EVA Airlines 679 26 One way flight from Chicago Midway to Kansas City Southwest Airlines 78 98 One way flight from Austin to Barcelona Condor Airlines 539 87 em Total travel expenses 1 359 31 em strong Medical Expenses strong Base cost of travel clinic 55 00 Malarone malaria prevention medication 248 00 Azithromycin traveler s diarrhea medication 4 50 Doxycycline leptospirosis prevention 6 00 em Total medical expenses 313 50 em strong Equipment Expenses strong Lonely Planet SE Asia 20 18 New baseball cap 35 00 Underwater case for iPhone 6 99 International travel plug adapter 12 99 Mosquito coils 14 95 Sport Chaco sandals 104 00 Microfiber quick dry towel 9 88 Earth pak dry bag 18 99 em Total equipment expenses 222 98 em I ll create additional posts for price matches as I make my way

My Retirement Video Dave and I were messing around with his amazingly badass new drone in his backyard and happened to shoot this quick video After adding some Simon and Garfunkle to it I realized that it pretty perfectly encapsulated the beginning of my mid life pre world adventure retirement It may also resemble the ending of a Wes Anderson movie unclear iframe width 521 height 293 src https www youtube com embed J5UAlMkmnFg frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe

Round the World Map I put together this little map of the trips that I m planning to take over the next many months If you click on the map and then view the original you ll be able to see some of the country and city labels that I ve added photo 629529 740 0 center A map of the world as I plan to travel it a href http www kevinludlow com photos download 4eecfb16a4cb1c801092441081d01f17 full screen view a photo br style clear both The short of it is that the first phase of my trip involves a 6 week expedition to Southeast Asia Specifically I am planning to visit Thailand Vietnam Singapore Cambodia and Laos I d like to visit Malaysia and Burma too but I m not sure I ll have the time to do all of that Upon returning home from that trip I will be departing for Barcelona Spain to join my dear friend Ben He and I will be flying to M laga Spain and then driving to Gibraltar sailing across the Straight of Gibraltar into Morocco and then driving most of Morocco I then fly from Marakesh to India then from India to Nepal and then hopefully will make a short stopover in Istanbul before returning home for the American holidays For the third phase of my trip I am planning a camper van tour of western and eastern Europe For the fourth phase of my trip I will be doing the same kind of expedition throughout South America The final expedition will involve a number of island nations that I have wanted to visit and with any luck will include cruises to both Alaska and Antarctica I think if I can pull all of that off within a year or so I will have pretty successfully seen the vast majority of the world tasted the best of the world s cuisines and made the most of my mid life retirement

Why PropB Won t Fix our Homeless Camps If you re wondering how to vote on Austin s PropB this May I can t help you with that But if you re wanting to get a deeper perspective as to why the homeless camps have continued to run as they have then look no further iframe width 521 height 391 src https www youtube com embed SyV9r_Admus frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe

Herman Sourdough photo 1232062 1232786 0 right Herman Sourdough just after I took it out of the oven photo So this is basically the holy grail of sourdough breads It s a complex process and as I ve baked many dozens of breads over the past several months I naturally wanted to give the most difficult bread a go And I couldn t be happier that I did While it was a tedious process that took 15 full days just to prepare the dough it was well worth it Herman Sourdough is still a sourdough and so it still uses a starter that has that unique sour smell to it like a beer tap but the twist with Herman is that it s much sweeter The starter is a careful blend of sugar milk and flour And unlike a typical sourdough starter that specifically requires a warm environment in which to thrive Herman lives in the fridge It s an extremely unique bread and has an absolutely delicious flavor profile I recorded a few videos shortly after I ate my first slice of it and I ll just go ahead and leave them below iframe width 521 height 391 src https youtube com embed 1ddpBnIsN3w frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe iframe width 521 height 391 src https youtube com embed 82Sh2O13ZTs frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe