Most of our friends and Gilles colleagues kept asking the same questions: 1) What was the trip like? 2) Which were our favorite places? 3) How much did it cost? 4) Will we organize a DiaShow?

Let’s try to answer them …

1) The first one is the hardest to answer. How do you explain that what we experienced exceeded all our expectations? That it was the best decision we took in our life? It is difficult to communicate that within one year (!) we encountered just a few minor problems, Heidi’s moneyless purse being snatched at a bus station, Gilles suffering from a cold. Any of these inconveniences could have happened to us in Vienna. What also makes it difficult to talk about the “overall experience” is that so few days after our return, the true dimension of our impressions has not really sunken in. Usually, it is in the course of the longer conservation that this or that experience pops up, although we are cautious not to bombard people with our stories.

2) Our favorite places? First of all, we truly loved and enjoyed all countries we visited but some more than others. Argentina will always rank first, for its incredible scenery, wildlife and above all its people. Bolivia we found irresistible because its “Indegina” culture and lifestyle is so prevalent. On the other hand, these were the two countries where we stayed longer than in any other. Is it because we liked them so much, or do we prefer them over others because we dug a little deeper?

Generally, we believe that we experienced the countries in Latino America in a more authentic way, because we both spoke Spanish and thus could talk to ANYBODY, whereas in Asia the common language was English, which limited our contact to people in the tourist industry.

China surprised us in a very positive way. Experienced “China hands” joked that we got to know only the “non-Chinese” region, the Southwest, since this area is the home of many of China’s minorities. They still cling on to their tradition, language, dresses, architecture etc... On top of that, the area is extremely scenic. Apart from all that we were full of admiration of how the country coped with a human tragedy of mind-boggling dimension, the Sichuan earthquake. It was also the country where we moved in an environment where very few, often zero people spoke English, but we still managed somehow.

3) Costs? We spent a little more than 20.000 Euro per person on transport, accommodation, food and activities, basically everything except shopping for souvenirs in one year. For those who are shocked by the figures, we freely admit the trip could be done a lot cheaper, especially in terms of accommodation & food. But we never stayed in dormitories, except on mountain huts or on boats. Also, towards the end of the trip, we chose more upscale accommodations, compared to places we stayed in South America. Maybe because we knew we had not run out of money! Apart from that, we ate well most of the time. In the so expensive Pacific region - Easter Island, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands and New Zealand - we cooked each individual meal ourselves.

4) How about a DiaShow? Of course we will be more than happy to present our best photos to friends and colleagues with stories & comments … Just give us a little time to prepare it!

Our advice… Anybody who has the chance to take a year off and do such a trip - DO IT!!!

Tired of traveling?

Within a few days after our return, Gilles had booked four trips to Paris in the course of the next few months. Heidi soon found herself booking a flight to Paris for mid August to take her niece to Eurodisney. After that, she plans a week of fasting in a monastery in northern Austria. And in the meantime, we are answering requests for a home exchange in Moscow over Xmas and New Year.

Beginning of September, we are traveling to San Francisco for six days to attend the wedding of Gilles cousin. In order for the whole Barbier family to stay in comfort, Heidi had arranged a home exchange with a family in Palo Alto, California.

It looks very much as we are infected by a traveling bug!

The best part of coming back has been meeting friends and family who are genuinely happy to see us again. Gilles colleagues even organized a surprise “welcome home party” which we enjoyed tremendously. Heidi keeps meeting her friends individually and each time she is excited and truly looking forward to these animated chats and exchanges.

Of course our first days were busy with rearranging the apartment. The content of our two backpacks, eight boxes stored in the basement and six more boxes that we had shipped with art / souvenirs needed to find a place in our already cramped apartment. Not an easy task! What will we do with the colorful sturdy piece of clothes used by women in the Andes to carry their firewood, children, shopping? Maybe leave it in the cupboard next to the blanket we purchased in a Masai village in Tanzania…

Faster than we had imagined, we were back doing things we had done a thousand times before. Before our trip such everyday chores were a necessity that we never questioned, but this now seems a tedious routine. Idle thoughts we know, but this is how we feel these first few days. After a year of discovering new places every day, such activities seem terribly repetitious. Telephone lines had to be connected, mails sorted out, Heidi’s lost credit cards and driver license replaced, nothing terribly exciting…

Luckily, after a few days of rain, the weather was at its best and we enjoyed the quietness of our cabin on the Danube. Heidi loved to stroll through the city watching tourists. Being a local for once after such a long time was quiet exciting! But generally she felt rather restless, unable to find meaningful occupation.

Gilles went back to work only 5 days after we returned and had less time to think about such frivolity. The first two days on the job, he was totally disorientated, but reality caught up with him very, very fast!

Heidi had planned to enjoy our cabin on “Alte Donau” during the month of August, since she only starts working on September 1st. Well, this plan quickly changed!

After traveling approx. 107.000 km in 362 days, we landed in Vienna on Wednesday July 23rd, 2008 in heavy rain and with temperatures around 12 degrees Celsius. A shock! Actually not, the cool and fresh air was something we had not experienced since we left New Zealand in early April.

No more wondering where we would spend the night - we frequented 177 different places that year - and how we would move on.

We often ask ourselves if it was really a year that we were gone… It seems to have passed so awfully quickly!

We have been dreaming about it in the last years and been preparing it in the last 10 to 12 months … And it now has turned into reality: we are leaving Vienna for one year!

We finished our last preparations the evening before our departure on Saturday, July 28th. A few plans didn’t materialize - for instance studying the manual for our new camera or Heidi’s ambition to brush up her Spanish had to be taken off the ToDo-list!

Looking back what took up most of our time preparing the trip was the “administrative stuff” in Austria: selling the car, renting the two flats, with a tenant cancelling the lease two weeks before the departures, organizing our financial matters, getting our mail rerouted, cancelling subscriptions, health checks of all sorts, ...

The trip itself was actually relatively easy to plan, especially because we only booked the first leg of our travel - Vienna - Caracas to guarantee maximum flexibility

There is one point where we clearly missed our target: traveling light! When we packed the backpacks, it turned out that we actually had much more luggage than we would have liked to have. So, at least in the beginning, we will be carrying not less that twice as much as what we had planed or hoped, which already brought Heidi to complain about how heavy the whole stuff was!

It is really difficult to imagine that we are leaving for a full year! Will we indeed visit about 14 countries in the 12 months to come? We hardly can imagine what it really means. We think we will need a few days to work it out and to slow down, for the pace in the last 3 weeks has been relentless.

So we are now on the plane … And the first leg was a very special plane ride! Firstly, because someone had brought his dog along, the poor thing was squeaking in a shrill, nerve-raking manner most of the flight. Secondly and most important, because one of Heidi´s Friends organized that Gilles was able to access the cockpit at least for the approach and landing. A fantastic and very impressive experience, especially because it turned out to be a rather shaky approach, something Gilles will surely never forget!