For a long while now, my wife, Chanel, and I have wanted to go back to Europe. We visited the U.K. and Italy in the summer of 2006 and feel the need to go back... for a much longer time.We like America and feel that it has a great significance in our life. After all, we both served in the Air Force for over six years. The manner of the people, food, architecture, and art are all different aspects of Europe that interest us. Also, we are best friends and enjoy each other's company to no end. We are very lucky to have met and married.
01 August 2009 is the date that my nine year career as a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force will be concluded. After this date, we plan to head to Europe to experience the culture in nine countries during eleven months. We will stay for a month, on average, in each country.
While we travel, we will be working on the endeavors we have dreamed of for years. Chanel will graduate from the University of Texas at San Antonio in May of this year with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English with an Emphasis on Professional Writing. She plans to write her first two to three novels whilst we travel. Her interests focus on romance (how could they not, being married to me =) and fiction/fantasy (ooooohhh, dang). Chanel has learned some Russian, French, and Japanese in the past and has extensive studies in Spanish. These skills always come in handy when traveling.
My degree will be completed in May and is a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Park University. In addition to the computer science degree, I hold an Associate of Communications Applications Technology from the Community College of the Air Force and an Associate of Arts Degree in Spanish. While Chanel writes about the fictional romance in our marriage, I will be creating Apple iPhone and web applications. This vocabulary may be a bit foreign to some people. Take for example this blog website or Facebook.com. These are known as web applications in the programming world because they are programs run on the web. With access to the Internet, this type of work can be done from any part of the world. These careers fall into place nicely with our life dreams of traveling.
There is a great deal of planning to be done before we leave for Europe. Thus far, we have picked the countries we wish to visit and created a rough time line of when we will be in each country. Here is our current plan:
Travel Itinerary: 21 Jan 2009
| Arrival Date | Location: # of weeks in country |
| 3-Aug-09 | UK: 3 weeks |
| 23-Aug-09 | France: 7 weeks |
| 11-Oct-09 | Montenegro: 4 weeks |
| 8-Nov-09 | Czech: 2 weeks |
| 22-Nov-09 | Netherlands: 2 weeks |
| 6-Dec-09 | Spain: 4 weeks |
| 3-Jan-10 | Switzerland: 4 weeks |
| 31-Jan-10 | Austria: 8 weeks |
| 28-Mar-10 | Italy: 10 weeks |
| 6-Jun-10 | UK: 2 weeks |
| 20-Jun-10 | Home |
The purpose of this blog is to document the planning, experiences, and our work as we travel. Family, friends, and onlookers are more than welcome to comment and help out. I will have a separate blog to detail my programming experiences for those who are interested and I'll see if I can get Chanel to do the same for her writings. Hopefully, this blog will assist others in planning similar excursions and inspire people to chase the world and experience all it has to offer you.
Regards,
Kevin
P.S. The picture is of Chanel and Kevin in Positano, Italy May 2006
