So here we are, 150 days on the road and we haven't even left our first continent yet. We originally had planned for 3-4 months in South America. We're now 5 months in and don't plan to leave until December 1st. We've travelled slower than expected, but really enjoyed ourselves.
We've also just booked a cruise to Antarctica (which includes the Falklands and South Georgia Island). This is extending our stay in South America and eating a big chunk of our trip savings. However, we're really excited and can't wait to see some amazing things.
Given the time we've spent in South America, we had to choose between Antarctica (not originally in our plan), Africa, and Asia. Asia is really something we can't miss, and as you know now, we're headed to Antarctica… so we gave Africa a miss. We're pretty unhappy about missing the opportunity to trek with Gorillas, see herds of elephants, and all the other amazing stuff in Africa. We've promised ourselves that we'll get there some day.
We've done a pretty good job keeping up with the blog, we've had 42 total posts since Firsts from Colombia with an average of 1 post every 3-4 days. The blog has grown as well. In January of this year, we received a whopping 5 visits! In the last month, we've had nearly 1000 visits from 616 unique people. Sixty-six people get our posts in their inbox.
I think we can reasonably call our budget a failure. We've averaged just over $99/day to this point. We'll keep our $80/day target in place, just as a reminder that we were wrong. We also have hopes that South East Asia will drive our average down.
We've expended 24.8% of our budget in 150 days. Basic math says we should have about 450 days remaining on the trip. When I account for the cost of Antarctica and travel expenses to/around Europe I expect that the reality is more like 300 days remaining. That would put us on the road for a total just under 1.5 years, something we're happy with.
Jordan has a new favorite past time, checking the Google Analytics on the blog for fun search terms. For those unacquainted with this tool, we can see what someone searched for when they click a link from a Google search result page. Some of our favorites in the last month:
- "best places in zanesville to have a picnic" - I'd have to recommend Zane Landing
- "cholitas mud wrestling" - totally worth it, make sure you're in La Paz on a Sunday (although there is no mud involved)
- "honey oak kitchen cabinets before and after" - this is from a 3 year old post that Jordan did on our kitchen updates, it gets traffic every single month…
- "irofino.me" - whoever you are, this is your public shaming for not knowing how to spell our last name, but just know, we still love you
- "sweaty face and large pupils and passing out" - LOL
- "y shaped brigde in jordon" - Turns out there is a bridge in Jordan with Y-Shaped towers, but I'm happy to report that our Jordan does not have a Y-Shaped bridge in her.
Finally, we made a couple "forward looking statements" in the three month update. I've failed to update my packing list, but Jordan did not. Perhaps after I'll get to mine at some point. We also did update the Ice Cream page and it should be getting more regular updates now.