The days of the pioneering explorer, traveling with nothing but a local guide and all the supplies they could carry are clearly over.  With technology marching forward at a constant pace the modern traveler has unlimited access to information about any location on the planet, and low cost gadgets to record their adventures and to bridge the distance back to wherever home may be.

Our trip to Asia will certainly not be the pioneering adventure of the past – traveling with a collection of high-tech gadgets will allow us to be well informed about where we are, where the local amenities are, and will also allow us to keep our friends and family entertained and updated with tales of our experiences.  Part of this need for some gadgetry is because I will be working part of the time while I am there.  One of the great things about my job is the ability to telecommute, and with my developers spread out across the globe, other than dealing with the timezone issues, working from a different location should not be too different from what we are already used to.

I started looking at the things we would like to take, and while there are tons of cool gadgets available for the traveler, we have to think carefully about how much things weigh and how much space they occupy – it will be plenty hot and humid enough there without me having to carry a backpack full of gadgets around!!  Also, we need to keep in mind that the power is different there (240v vs 120v), so many of our battery powered gadgets will need to be charged either via a USB charger off a laptop or via a 240v compatible charger.  Some of the things we are going to be taking are:

1. A couple of laptops – my trusty MacBook Pro and Laurie’s IBM Thinkpad.  I need my laptop for work, and between the 2 laptops we should be able to keep up with email, blogging, and instant messaging back to work and family.
2. Digital camera’s – these are so small and inexpensive that we will likely have more than we need 🙂 We have a couple of Casio’s and a Nikon that will be making the trip, and with a few extra SD memory cards and my laptop to upload photos to, we should have a great photo record of the whole trip.  With any luck we will be able to upload some of them as we go to our website.
3. GPS Datalogger – something that is getting more common in the digital photo world is geotagging, this allows you to record the GPS location of where a photo was taken and then attach the photos to a map, or to a ‘track’ of your journey.  A datalogger records your GPS position every 30 seconds or so and then at a later time merges the data into your photos based on the timestamps of the records.  I picked up an iBlue 747A+ from Semsons.com – about the size of a box of wooden matches, it just clips to your belt or pack and records away.  For about $70 it will be an interesting experiment and really cool once I get it all setup.
4. VoIP phone – I will need to make calls for work from time to time, but the rate to call from Thailand to the US/Canada would make long calls cost prohibitive, but I picked up a Linksys WIP310 wifi VoIP phone.  This should allow me to make calls through our office phone system to people at the office, customers, and back home.

The good news is that so far all of the stuff we are planning to take will all work with the power there in terms of recharging, and other than the laptops it will all fit in a small day pack.  So if we are able to stay fairly close to spots with good internet connectivity and working power it will be almost like being at home 😉

Now that we have booked the tickets, and know the when, the next step is to figure out the where.  Our current plan is to try and avoid a fixed schedule as much as possible – this should allow us first of all to not have to figure out hotel reservations and such for 7 weeks all from here, but with the side benefits of not being stuck in a specific hotel if we arrive and find out it does not match the web description, or of we decide that a particular area is more interesting than expected and which to stay longer.

That said, we do have to try and figure out roughly the areas we want to see so that we can have a general plan.  Thailand is roughly the size of Spain in land area, but with the long tail going down towards Malaysia it is more spread out, so even with about 7 weeks ‘in country’ there is no way to see it all without doing some sort of very stressful power tour – and this trip is all about the slow casual pace, so power touring is out!

There are about 65 Million people in Thailand, and 10 Million of those live in Bangkok, so for those of you that know me, you will understand that a lot of time there is not high on my list 🙂  We are told by others that have been there and some of the travel guides we have been reading that there are a few things worth actually seeing there and so we will try and spend 2 or 3 days there either at the start of our trip or right at the end.

So far we are talking about spending a little time in the northern part of the country, staying in Chiang Mai (towards the north-west corner) and taking day trips to see the sights.  The north is all inland and mountainous, but is where a lot of the things that Thailand is known for come from.  Much of the manufacturing is done in this region, so if you are sitting at your teak patio furniture this summer and it was made in Thailand, there is a good chance it was made in or around Chaing Mai.  This city also seems to be a focal point for learning Thai cooking, something both Jackie and I are interested in, so schedule permitting we may take some time to learn a few dishes for when we come home.  The inland part of the country is also where much of the traditional Thai crops are grown – Thailand is the world’s largest producer of rice – and it would be interesting to see some rice paddies in full production, and show the kids that it does not actually come from a bag at the supermarket.

The bulk of the time we intend to spend in the south, in the costal areas – no point in going to the tropics without staying near the beach!!  Our thinking is to hop our way down the coast and some of the islands and spend a week or so in each of several places.  Spots that have made the short list so far include: Hua Hin, Koh Samet, and Koh Samui on the Gulf of Thailand side, and Krabi, Koh Phi Phi Don (pictured) and Phuket on the Andaman Sea side.  (Phuket itself is an island about the size of O’ahu in Hawaii and consists of a dozen or so beach towns that you could easily spend a handful of days in each town.)

With already 6 or 7 places on the list it looks like it is time to do some more research……

Well, let me jump right in to some responses to some questions and feedback we have gotten so far, and some more info we have found about what to expect while we are there.

1) Is the country unstable?  We have been watching the events that are appearing on the news lately and keeping an eye on the political situation there.  So far the US State Department has issued no travel warnings or advisories on travel to Thailand (unlike the recent advisory they issued for Mexico).

Thailand seems to have a long history of governmental change – in the last 60 years or so years they have gone through almost 40 coups or changes in government, almost always peaceful and with little unrest.  The recent protests have been focused in Bangkok (where we plan to spend little or no time at all) and have for the most part been fairly peaceful.  Given the impact this tends to have on the Thai economy, most people expect things to get sorted out fairly quickly and for the political climate to settle down again until the next cycle of change.

On a positive note, this sort of press tends to hit the tourism industry a bit and people expect prices to sink even more for rooms, flights, etc. in the coming months – we are already seeing huge price drops on Air Asia for flights in and out of Thailand (for example a return ticket to Bali, Indonesia – about the same as a trip from Seattle to New York – is currently going for the sum of $150 US return).  So worst case scenario, we get to Bangkok on our current tickets and fly off to another location in SE Asia 🙂

2) Yes you can come with us – however, you will need your own tickets as most of you exceed the 50lb limit that the airlines place on checked bags.  Seriously though, should anyone be in the mood for some tropical relaxation we have no fixed agenda for our time there so feel free to ‘pop in’ for a week or 2.  In fact we already have our first potential visitor!  Our cousin Russill – who has come to visit us almost every summer since we moved to the US – is going to come and join us for a couple of weeks of our journey.

Things to expect should you decide to journey that way in the summer months (July/August):

• temperatures will be fairly consistent in the upper 20s to low 30s (C) – in the 80s (F) for those on the Imperial system
• it is the ‘low’ season in terms of their tourist industry (Dec – March is high season) so prices for rooms, tours, etc drop by about 50% or more.  We are planning to stay in 4 star type hotels and are seeing rates around $25 per night for that including breakfast.  (and of course don’t forget the ever popular $8 1 hour massage – I am hoping this drops to the $6 range for the off season 😉 )
• it is the rainy season in SE Asia, this means that it could rain about every other day.  However rain there mostly implies that it comes down like an Georgia rain storm for about an hour or so and then clears away.

As we do more and more research we are coming up with more information about how to get there, documentation required etc. and will be posting some of that over the coming weeks.  We are also finding lots of interesting things to do while we are there, so while it seems like a long vacation we sometimes feel like it will not be long enough – so much to see, so little time.

PS: A special shout out to our friend Vicki who we will miss dearly while we are gone.  When you decided to stay close to home this summer for swim-meets and such we understand, and figured we would just be in your way 😛  We won’t have any fun, this is just an educational trip – honest….

In reality, this will be a very differnet summer – we normally have a fairly busy summer schedule including lots of trips and activities with local friends and neighbors, and those adventures will be missed.  We will try our best to make up for it when we get back though 🙂

Well, it’s done.  We booked the tickets!!

For those of you just tuning in, let me bring you up to speed.

We have been talking about doing something different this year for our summer vacation.  Our kids are getting older and are better able to appreciate different experiences (vs just going to Disneyland and such) and our oldest is soon going to be headed to college so we feel like our opportunities to do something off the beaten path as a family are coming to an end.

We talked about various places we might go and things we might do and narrowed the list down to travel to a foreign place (Costa Rica, Caribbean, Thailand), or RV around America.  Given that the kids have not traveled much outside the US and Canada we decided to find a foreign location and go abroad.

Our final destination:  Thailand!!

Thanks to the nature of my job and my ability to telecommute, our plan is to spend about 7 weeks in South-East Asia, and Thailand in particular, moving around a bit and seeing as much as we can of the country and the culture and also have some relaxing family time.  I will be working part of the time along the way, but that should give Laurie and the girls a good chance to browse the shops without the grumpy old guy along.

Our plan is to fly in and out of Bangkok, leaving on June 24th and returning on Aug 10th.

We will miss our usual Oregon beach vacation with our neighborhood freinds, but with the travel costs down the way they are now seems like the perfect time.  We plan to update this blog as our travel plans evolve, and of course while we are away, so if you want to follow our adventures this is the spot.