In 1968 my grandmother Joan, recently divorced and offered a sabbatical year after 10 years teaching in the Philadelphia Public Schools, decided to take two of her sons on a trip around the world. She wrote and self-published a memoir about it, available as a kindle book here: https://a.co/d/fNGnDYW

For my father Adam, who turned 15 on the trip, it was a life-changing, truly formative experience. When my older sister was born, he started saving money & vacation time so that one day he could give a similar experience to each of his children. In 1989 he took my sister; in 1994, when I was 16, it was my turn: an ancient-internet version of my diary is still viewable thanks to the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20070206200439/http://ugcs.caltech.edu/~miles/trip/Trip.html

I’ve always wanted to do the same for my kids, and now that day has come. Over 90 days this summer, we’ll visit Scotland, England, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Tanzania, India, Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan, before returning home via Hawaii & California.