My next trip

I decided tonight that I'm going to travel for 6 months after my next trip to Palestine in August. I thought about everything I saw while in Palestine. All the history, all the things I learned, all the things I experienced, all the pictures, all the people I met walking around and seeing things.

I'll just have to REALLY save money during this season, which shouldn't be hard since I've paid off most of my debt, I'm not moving, there aren't too many crisis' going on. Should be possible over the 6 months of the season to save enough for my ticket to get to Palestine and then enough to slum it around several countries. I also want to try and go see my uncle in Bulgaria. He's my dad's brother and he's the only one I haven't met yet. Plus, I'll have finished my book already AND hopefully it'll be on it's way if not published already and there will be some money from that.

So maybe mid-August to mid Feb or something and I'll be back in time for the season to start up again so I'll have work.

So I think this is what I want to do:

Start in Palestine and see more things there. My brother and sister should be coming with me in August to see the fam for a couple weeks and once they go back to NYC, I'll head down to Egypt for a few weeks and see all the pyramids and ancient sites and go see some of the artists, writers, poets and hip hop folks there, then come back up to Palestine and see the northern part of the country that I didn't get to see a lot of while I was there, like Haifa, Nablus, and Nazareth. Then head up to Lebanon (if it's safe enough) and then head over to Turkey. If Lebanon isn't safe enough, I might fly to Turkey. I'll travel through Turkey and check out the sites and after Istanbul, I'll head over to Bulgaria and see my uncle for a couple weeks. After Bulgaria, it might be up the air. I could either head south and go to Greece or head North to Romania or Serbia. I think though I'd prefer to check out Greece because there are some amazing things in Athens and Patra. If I go to Greece first, I can head up to Macedonia, then to Serbia (traveling through Kosovo) and maybe up to Hungary and then to check out Budapest after that. OR After Macedonia, I could fly to Italy since it's sort of around the corner, but would be far to just walk to across the land. Southern Italy shares water with Albania which is right next to Patra, so it would be close from there too.

I would actually love to after Egypt to go south into the rest of Africa, but if I'm traveling alone, I don't know how safe it is to try and go all the way down to South Africa especially since Chad and Sudan are right there. The rest of Africa would be so amazing to see though. It would be just as special as Palestine for me. But maybe going back north After Egypt would be best. I could always travel again later on and go south.

So if I make it through all of that and want to go by Italy after Greece, I might (depending on how long all of this takes me) go to France. It's right there and I think it would be fun. If I go up to Paris, I might head to London after. If I go south, I'd probably hit up Spain. I think I would probably do the Spain thing because then I could go to Morocco after, kind of doing a half circle and ending back up in Northern Africa. By then I think 6 months may have passed. If not, I might go through to Northern Algeria, Tunisia and Libya since they're there and I'd end up back in Egypt if I wanted or could leave from one of those other places and come back home. Or go back to Palestine to say by to my family and head back to NY. Of course I'd have to decide before hand where I'd be flying back from.

Whew!

I know it's a very ambitious trip. People backpack all across Europe all the time. This is pretty similar I think. Or maybe it's just insane. Maybe it's too much. Maybe. Or maybe it'll be the most amazing time of my life. I know people in Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria, France and of course Palestine. I can make some friends in other places before I go there through friends there who do international work in those countries. All I need is a backpack with my stuff and my camera. I'll do all the research I need to do to research it. I'll sublet my apartment while I'm gone. I'll make sure I have enough medication and know where all the hospitals are. I'll bring my laptop to keep in touch with people. Find out where the small hotels are or find friends to stay with. I don't know if there's anyone I could find to go with me, BUT I think it'll be amazing. Maybe 6 months is too long. Maybe 2 or 3 months. I'll be back to write while I'm away. See history.

I think it would be something great and amazing to do after I turn a quarter century old :). We'll see what I can make happen. We'll see where the world is in August. We'll see where my life is in several months as well.

I've been writing. I'll be writing more on here soon.

Much love