The laptop is a bit of a hassle but I dunno if a tablet can handle the things I want to do in a reasonable manner due to processor issues and ergonomic considerations. Maybe it can, haven't looked at tablets in a few years. Not really looking forward to lugging a 5lb/2.2kg laptop around. Zero interest in using a Mac of any kind tho I agree they are super light.

As far as the tent goes, I figure it will be a non issue for the first month or two in South Africa & Namibia, and if it becomes a hassle post-Malawai, I can always just give it away.

Johannesburg is where the plane lands, but I don't intend to stay for more than a day or two. Pretty much everything I've read indicates that it is terribad. Opposite for Capetown tho.

Merrell Moabs were on my short list of potential shoes given their universal acclaim, hadn't looked at their slip on mocs but they also seem to be getting a lot of props.

Zimbabwe switched to the US dollar, but they also introduced a new reserve note that they pegged at 1:1 against the dollar. It's a newer version of their currency, not the same as the old 10 billion dollar bills. I will be picking up some of the latter as a sweet souvenir obv. From what I've been reading there are at least three different prices for things these days depending on how you pay - card payment price, reserve note price, and USD price.

Had read about the tshirt trade thing somewhere else, nice to see it independently confirmed. Unlikely I'll be able to take advantage as I plan to pack super light.


de cap - No need to be envious, obv you are welcome to join up with me at any point in the trip for as long as you wish if you feel like a change of scenery any time over the next year. I'd also be down for assisting with a Canaries -> St Lucia 2018 delivery as well, otherwise I'm just going to find some randoms to sail back with next November.


Today was:

- updating my carte jaune aka Yellow Card with my current vaccinations, realizing the one for typhoid runs out in March and that I still need the one for meningitis. Probably also wouldn't hurt to get the polio booster as well.

- verifying my stupid credit cards are still lolUSA#1 chip & signature rather than chip & pin like the rest of the world uses

- getting the international driver's permit form so I don't have to hand over my actual license when I get faked stopped and shaken down for a bribe

- locating my spare passport photos for visas

- printing off a few recent bank statements to show proof of ability to support self to border control agents

- gave away my National Parks Pass

- cleaned up the beater Corolla a little bit since I'll be selling it next week. Serviced the brakes (well, brake, only really needed to do one) a few days ago, replaced the wipers, air filter, oil, etc. Today was just cosmetic.

- verified my auto insurance company is still going to charge me like $150 to have a non-owner, non-operator policy good only in USA#1 for the year that I will not be in USA#1 and thus never need or use the policy. lol continuity of coverage.

- freaked my sister out by telling her I don't intend to take prophylactic anti-malarial meds and instead carry a few of the finer prick diagnosis kits and the curative meds instead.

- ordered a South African power plug adapter since obv they use their own that no one else except Lesotho, Swaziland, and parts of Namibia & Botswana use.




lolwat



Was reading something about how while there are many euro brands and asian brands in the supermarkets in South Africa, there are very few USA#1 brands. I am confirmed excite. Love me a foreign supermarket.

when I saw the word "prophylactic", I was thinking, "yeah, I'd def end up with the super aids too, always had an easy time with these baby blue eyes", then I realized I probably need to go to bed.

I and many others I'm sure will be living through your updates soon, make lots of good memories.

and take lots of pictures of the local females.

Chop has no fear of the hiv, he's white

For a budget compromise, consider replacing your laptop hard drive with an SSD if you haven't already. Also consider getting a small solar charging panel so you're not always hunting for an outlet.

If you stick your toe in the ocean at Cape Town is that considered the Antarctic Ocean? Will the water north of Somalia be officially the Indian Ocean?

I agree that mac is annoying but there are PC 's that are comparable to the air in size and weight. Also chrome books are pretty cheap I think and should satisfy your minimum computing demands.

Merrells and Keens are great shoes.

Microsoft Surface?

Antarctic Ocean?

Scale arrived from Amazon.

The T420 thinkpad that I have now (which has an SSD) weighs in at a whopping 5.4lb/2.46kg including the adapter. Add a .21lb/.01kg mouse and we're now up to 5.6lb/2.47kg. Did a little research on chromebooks, which I haven't looked at in a few years. Looks like they are no longer complete bricks when offline, support offline Google Sheets usage, and that they are now starting to support a lot of Android apps. Been browsing /r/chromeos and finding a few people discussing using them for backpacking, looks like the R11 is well reviewed. Weighs in at 2.8lb/1.3kg. Not sure how much weight the adapter adds, probably .5lb/.2kg, so call it 3.3lb/1.5kg.

Now I just need to decide if dropping 2lb/.9kg is worth the reduced functionality.

and the above has been sitting in the window for a while and I now have an Acer Chromebook R11 on the way, should arrive on the 28th. 4GB RAM, 32GB SSD, quad core N3150 processor. It has consistently solid reviews in /r/chromeos for travel usage and ruggedness, and will weigh just over half of what the Thinkpad weighs. Will be sad to leave the Thinkpad behind, but it just weighs so damn much. Thanks for pointing me toward the chromebooks, 5 south.

Solar chargers now on the list to look into.

Looked briefly at Surfaces but they have lots of pretty poor travel reviews.

The water at Cape Town is not the Antarctic Ocean. Cape Point is where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, tho. The Indian ocean is pretty much all the water on the east side of the African continent.

Probably going to end up with the Merrel Moabs or Mocs that de cap linked. Going to go try some on first and see what's up.

Blonde hair and blue eyes confirmed GOAT for chatting with the ladies. Does that even make sense from a genetic selection approach, given both are recessive genes? I guess from a genetic diversity perspective it does, but humans usually fall under the genetic assortive mating umbrella.

Been going nuts with that postal scale from Amazon, weighing everything. My toothbrush weighs 16g. Going to log the weights of everything and keep them in a spreadsheet as an improved packing list. Type M power adapter (that one in the previous photo) weighing in at a lol 64g. Ditching the el bees and going full metric from here on out.

Tent choices are getting narrowed down to something along the lines of:
North Face Stormbreak 1
Luxe Tempo Ultralight 1
ALPS Mountaineering Lynx 1-Person Tent

Time to start narrowing down the sleeping bags & sleeping pads.

Almost certainly going with the Merrells, either one of their hiking shoes/boots like the Moab or the moccasins that de cap linked to.

Also just found out that my ATM cards definitely won't work in Zimbabwe due to it being on the OFAC sanctions list. Unfortunately, Lebanon is on there too.

Have you considered a camping hammock instead of a tent? They're lighter and you don't need a pad. I had a Hennessy and was pretty impressed with it. Only real downside is you gotta have two appropriately spaced tree-like things.

I like the idea of a hammock but that's a pretty restrictive downside.

Fwiw I've found the Merrells run large.

Have you shortened the handle on your toothbrush yet?

Eta:

Don't forget to cut the tags out of your underwear and shirts.

I seriously love my Hennessy hammock, but its not as versatile as a tent in lots of places and its probably not much smaller than a good 1-2 person tent.

I don't really get the tent choice though. Chop, where are you planning on using it?

What's wrong with the choices, other than one being out of stock? I'd probably set it up even if I was staying in a hotel, to keep the skeeters away.

I love camping, but the thought of sleeping in a tent where there might be lions, hyenas, leopards, hippos etc roaming around... yikes!

That's why a tent is better than a hammock. None of those critters can work a zipper.

The hammocks we're talking about are enclosed, often with zippers.

A hammock also puts you up in the sky where the birds can get you.

Now 2 of those tents I listed are out of stock, what did I do to myself here lol. Guess I better jump on that Luxe asap.

Planning on using the tent in the following scenarios:
- no reasonable hotel options available
- cheap hotel with poor mosquito-proofing
- game preserves & parks
- at some of the expensive lodges
- when hostels/hotels are full but will allow pitching a tent in the yard
- when I get mugged and have no money, credit cards, or phone left

If I were planning on having a car past South Africa, I'd probably invest in a nicer tent and plan to also stay at a bunch of campsites as well to maximize the outdoors experience. As it is, I may get a car in Namibia and do that there for about a month, but I don't see myself having a car anywhere past that point, which means minimal campsite camping outside of places like the lake in Malawai.

Tried on a pair of Merrells (the Moab II waterproof mid hiking boots) the other day, I can see why people love them so much. Very comfortable, much more so than the Keen Targhee iis that I compared them with. Their waterproofness seems to be in question on the reviews section of Merrell's site, tho.

Picked up an International Driving Permit today from AAA. Never bothered with one before but decided to set $20 on fire this time. She forgot to include a motorcycle endorsement, and when I pointed that out, she stamped the section for "motor vehicles used for the transport of goods exceeding 3,500kg". When I pointed that out, she shrugged and stamped the motorcycle section so now I have a freeroll on transporting goods exceeding 3,500kg.

Have pretty much decided to stick with my existing Thermarest Prolite air pad. Did some research on the average low temperatures for the countries I'll be going thru and am considering just bringing a poncho liner with an SOL Escape Bivvy as backup instead of dealing with a sleeping bag.

One week left, time is getting short. In pretty good shape tho. Will put the car up on clist to sell it this weekend, get a few more things off Amazon, and then it's mostly just logistical/organizational tasks like setting up the initial car hire, clearing up space on the phone for photos, a couple of vaccines, getting a little more good condition small USD, etc.

Should be ready to become a hyena snack in no time.

I realize I'm probably breaking some rule, but I'm curious what the budget for something like this is...

like, plane tickets, items you're buying this week, hotels, etc.

maybe like a wide-range minimum to maximum $$ amount?

I threw my dog, a backpack full of clothes and my disc golf bag in my car and took off for ~3 weeks this summer with no real destination in mind. I was just kinda gonna be alone until I decided I wanted to come home. that said, I never really got far enough away that I couldn't get back in a day or two and several had fillups, so I wasn't real concerned with keeping an eye on my spending.

anyway, if that's being too nosey, just accept my jealousy and have a safe, picture-filled trip.

There is no such thing as a skeeter-proof hotel. The time I got hammered the worst was in Vegas, at the Rio, on the 24th floor. That's about the last place you'd expect skeeters. That little bastid must have rode up in the elevator and flew all the way down the hall to my room. He got me so bad I had half a dozen bites on one hand and could hardly move my fingers they were so swolen. He was flying in slow motion because he was so full of blood, easy to squish.

*she

wiper - Not sure how to effectively answer that. It depends on who you are, what you have, what's important to you, and when/how you travel. Someone who couchsurfs, makes their own food, and only takes public transit will be spending a lot less than someone who only stays in nice hotels, eats at nice restaurants, and always hires a vehicle.

In my case, I'm somewhere in between and have no fixed or target budget. I doubt my numbers would be relevant for anyone that's not me, as my approach to travel is atypical at best.

subbed, good travels.

Chop, how do you plan to get your toe into the Antarctic, or has it already been? Might be a good opportunity being as you'll be relatively close.

Hasn't been yet.

I met a USA#1 woman in Thailand who works in Antarctica every year. She was interested in experiencing sailing. We agreed to exchange info, and I met up with her when de cap and I sailed into Seattle from Honolulu. Spent about a month hanging out with her in the PNW, then referred a crewing position to her that someone had approached me with. She did the same Seattle -> Honolulu run. When I'm ready to head to Antarctica (probably end of 2019), she's going to help me through the process and hopefully I'll lock up a slot down there for one of the 3 month contracts. There is a lot of competition for the slots, but I imagine knowing someone who knows everyone down there will help.

I could go down there as a tourist but I'd rather spend at least a week or two if I can, and that pretty much limits the options to doing a contracting gig unless I want to pay some insane amount for an extended private tour.

Have a great trip, chop.

Yer doin it wrong