Travel Blog: Part 1 - Around the World, and Under the Sea

A change of pace - literally and figuratively this month.

We're going to approach the speed of sound, fly miles above the earth, circumnavigate the globe, and explore it's depths.  We'll be moving under our own power, and in the largest & longest commercial airplanes made.  The thoroughly modern to the most basic and back again. By the way, I say 'we' here as we'll be doing it together.

Our journey starts with an explanation.  It's a slow time at work, and I had an airplane ticket sitting on the shelf that was due to expire.  I could use it up to it's full value, and even travel quite comfortably doing so, to go almost anywhere.  All good.  So I had a lottery-winner kind of challenge - where to go to leverage this situation. I did some research on a new-found hobby:diving.  I found that there isn't a single list of the best dive locations in the world, a geographic bias always creeps into a "10 best" list, based on relative ease of access.  But one place repeatedly made everyone's various assemblies of dream dive sites - and that was a tiny pacific nation called Palau.

Now, like many of you who read this I had to consult a globe to find Palau, as while I thought I knew roughly where to look, it was give or take a few thousand miles. I found it, just as I'll encourage you to do, and at once it became clear how it's location must impact everything.  There are doubtless more remote places on earth, but this is certainly in the top few.  Palau has come to prominence a few times - recently I'm lead to believe one of the Survivor reality TV series was filmed there, and in WWII, it was the site of many excruciatingly hard fought battles between Allied and Axis forces.  Happily, I was going to Palau for neither of those reasons - my rationale lay under the waters where pacific currents meet and wildlife and wrecks make the water a diving paradise.

My trip to Palau will take me 12,132 miles / 19,530 kms in the air visiting Europe and Asia, and cover 40 hours in four aircraft on two airlines. And that's just to get there.  In the end, I'll have circumnavigated the globe (albeit all high in the northern hemisphere).  I'll admit some creative wish-fulfilment in my routing choice as in addition to being a budding dive enthusiast, I'm also an avid fan of commercial aircraft.  My time is my own on this trip, so this is one vacation that starts when I leave my house.

I'll aim to write and post while on the road, and again when back.  Fingers crossed that it will reflect a sense of curiosity and adventure that I can carry vicariously for you all. Let's get going.