It all started with a book... A friend of mine had recommended that I read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. So I read it and early on it has a section where it talks about imagining the end of your life and looking back. What do you want to see? I've always wanted adventure and travel. I knew that somewhere in there I would want to see "The Big Trip", or perhaps one of many. It would however, take some planning.
So Nadim and I got to talking and we decided that we should do a "Big Trip". Through work I could do a self-funded leave, where I set aside a quarter of my salary for three years and then the fourth year take a leave of absence and live off of the savings. So in 2005 we started saving and dreaming about what the trip would be like.
