Not having taken a gap year before uni, Sara and I both felt like we'd like a little rest from the brain stuff once we'd graduated. So a couple of summers ago, while sitting on the edge of a dock, swinging our dusty bare feet over the water and watching dusk fall on the sleepy inlets and saltmarshes of Wachapreague, Virginia, we had one of those casual conversations that lead to big things. We decided to take a gap year after uni and go backpacking, seeing some of the world as we tried to make up our minds about what to do next in life.

Seventeen months later and we're nearly ready to embark on our adventures. After graduation we planned where we wanted to go, booked our round-the-world flight tickets, and then spent the summer and following months earning money and taking care of details like visas. We've spent Christmas at home, enjoying the novelty of not having to think about revising for exams and working on dissertations, and are about to set off on six months of travel, seeing some countries we've always longed to visit.

Our plans are quite flexible - we have an idea of what we'd like to see in each country but are deliberately keeping our plans quite loose. In fact, we plan to pretty much make it up as we go along, with only a rough idea of where we'll go and when. That way, should we fall in with other groups of travellers or hear about something totally amazing we'll be able to strike off in a diffrent direction at the drop of a hat. We're going to India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, with a brief stop in LA on the way home. It's going to be the trip of a lifetime, but one of many to come we hope.

So to all our friends and family who look at this site, we hope you enjoy the sights and don't worry about us too much. If you miss us that much, why not come and join us for a leg of the trip? The more the merrier we say! But six months will pass by quite quickly (probably too quickly for our liking), and we'll see you soon with lots of photos to show and stories to tell. In the meantime, here's a little taster of what we're experiencing...