Leonard Family Around the World Adventure

January 04-11, 2008 Jan 04 Arr Delhi Evening arrive into the capital city of India, New Delhi. Fri Upon arrival and after clearing immigrations and customs you will be met and transferred to THE CLARIDGES Jan 05 Delhi Full day tour of Old and New Delhi. Sat Jan 06 Delhi/ Morning your private van with driver will drive you to Agra Sun Agra (5 hours). (B) Upon arrival transfer to TRIDENT HILTON Afternoon tour of Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. Jan 07 Agra/ Morning your private van with driver will drive you to Mon Ranthambore Bharatpur rail station (1.5 hours) visiting en route Fatehpur (BLD) Sikri Dep: Bharatpur at 10:45am by Golden Temple Mail Arr : Sawai Madhopur at 01:05pm Upon arrival transfer to DEVVILAS Afternoon game drive into the Park by park vehicle. Jan 08 Ranthambore/ Morning game drive into the Park by Park vehicle. Tue Jaipur (B) Afternoon your private van with drive will drive you to Jaipur (4-5 hours) Upon arrival transfer to TRIDENT HILTON Overnight at the Hotel. Jan 09 Jaipur

Leonard Egypt Tour Itinerary Jan 11-18, 2007 8 Day Egypt with 3 Day Nile River cruise Cairo, Luxor, Edfu, Aswan – * 1 night Novotel Heliopolis, Cairo * 3 nights King of Thebes, Nile cruise * 3 nights Sofitel Le Sphinx, Cairo * Services of an English-speaking Egyptologist escort/manager Special Features: * Aswan High Dam * Valley of the Kings & Queens, Luxor * Visit the Temples of Karnak & Luxor DAY 1, Fri Jan 11 Arrive and transfer to your hotel in the Heliopolis area. Balance of the day at leisure in Cairo: CAIRO DAY 2, Sat Jan 12 Transfer to the airport for your flight to Luxor. Upon arrival, transfer to board your Nile cruise ship and "hotel" for the next three nights. Sail to the West Bank of the Nile to visit the Necropolis of Thebes, the Colossi of Memnon, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the Valley of the Kings, and the Valley of the Queens. Continue to visit Luxor Temple and the famous Avenue of Sphinxes. This evening, enjoy an optional Sound and Light Show (B,

Dec 4 - Dec 12: New Zealand Dec 13- Dec 21: Australia Dec 22- Jan 4: Thailand Jan 4 - Jan 10: India http://leonardrtw.blogspot.com/2007/11/india-itinerary.html Jan 11 - Jan 18: Egypt http://leonardrtw.blogspot.com/2007/11/egypt-itinerary.html Jan 19 - Feb 14: Italy/Croatia Feb 14- Mar 1: France Mar 2 -Mar 10: New York/Washington DC Here is a link to the calendar: http://www.google.com/calendar/render?tab=wc&pli=1

How did we pick our itinerary? As a family we spent time reading atlases, talking about countries that interested us, we watched the news (I read the state Deprtment Travel Advisories ), we talked to people. We wanted to keep the number of destinations to a minimum while provideg an ecelectic smapleing of systems of government, religious beliefs and standards of living while also visiting as many of the historical sites of humanity. We eventually arrived at a long list which we narrowed to New Zealand Australia Thailand India Egypt Italy France New York Washington DC Some countries we removed from our long list: China - too cold during our scheduled travel. Japan - small and very expensive UAE - not a very good representative sample of Arab stests - it really is a tourist destination. Israel - Complicated by unrest, security. England - Too cold - on a future trip we will focus on Englnd, Ireland, and other Eurpoean destinations. Amsterdam - same as above. Spain - This was a tough one

How:Our planning process. 1. Time Off - just had to ask for the time - it was a little nerve wracking but easier than anticipated. 2. Money – it sounds like a lot of money but I expect it will equate to what we would pay for a vehicle -of course there are the lost wages to account for. This is also likely to affect my retirement – but I would rather take this trip now when I am relatively healthy and my children can accompany me then retiring earlier and hoping I am healthy enough to travel and my children are available. Itinerary: Packing list: I am very caught up in optimum packing, limiting the amount of stuff we have to carry while also supporting the needs around educating our children, my desire to capture the experience using technology, My thoughts on technology:These continue to evolve but I obviously will use some blogging technology, Photo sharing, I read an article in wired that started me thinking about leveraging GPS and Google earth to capture information including where

The most important reason is to create a record of our adventures for us to review at any time – hopefully in my old age. I hope we can capture the record during the actual journey while memories are fresh and will have my children posting regularly as we travel. Although a diary would suffice, we would like to give friends, family and interested individuals the opportunity to track our progress in real-time if they so desire. I know if I could find a trip in progress I would be following it now. Finally this record might be of inspiration or assistance to anyone else thinking about a similar undertaking – it is amazing as we discuss our plans with people most of them share dreams or desires of a undertaking a similar adventure.

    My wife and I have talked about doing this for the last 13 years - each conversation was always in the context of sometime in the future, usually we imagined our oldest being in high school and our youngest about to enter high school.       In January of this year I was talking to a mother with high school age children and she was describing how involved her children were in activities both during the school year and summer break and how devastating it could be academically, and socially, to miss any significant period of time.    This conversation reinforced some similar fears I was having, as my eldest has entered her teenage years the realization that she could easily decide that the trip is not of interest to her and should we make her undertake it she has demonstrated the ability to make life uncomfortable for those around her. This ability could easily make a trip unbearable if she had to leave her friends or activities for too long. Even now I have some concerns although

Why I am undertaking this: There are a number of reasons and I am having a difficulty actually ranking them so here they are in no particular order I want to travel and see the world. The last few years have been an awakening for me – I haven't always focused on very internal or selfish pursuits – and recently I have realized that I am ignorant of many things. I have finalized on a position regarding the belief in god only recently. I want a break from work that is significant enough to actually stop thinking about work I worry that something might happen to myself, Pam or one of the girls and we might never have an opportunity I want the family to bond – spend some quality time together I want to create a memory that will last our children entire lives (and mine too) I want to expose our children to different cultures, religions and standards of living. I want them to learn the scale of the world and our minority position within it. I want them to see the uniqueness