(Click on our picture to see us closer and learn where we are)

"Wanderlust," "itchy feet," a "hankering to see, learn, taste and feel the world beneath our legs." These are a few of the reasons George (about to turn 50, yikes!), Salli (just 48, thank you very much) and their daughters Samantha (age 14, as if that mattered!) and Cassidy (age 7, a prime number to match her prime style) have decided to take a one-year sabbatical and travel around this whirling rock we call "earth."

Marco Polo, Magellan, Captain Cook, Charles Darwin, Owney, Joshua Slocum, Walter Stohl and so many others have circumnavigated the globe--and now we hope to join their ranks. We leave our home in Anchorage, Alaska in October 1996, and head west, chasing the sunsets and visiting noted science and animal centers, people, and historical sites on five continents. Each of us will file reports in our Travel Journal, publishing photos and sounds, facts and trivia, interviews and stories, recipes and games, what we learn, taste and discover. And we'd love to have you join us in this adventure...

Anyway you look at it, this is an adventure.

We're not really certain what we're getting ourselves into... but we do know we'll be visiting inside a volcano, viewing distant galaxies, working with rare animals, exploring the intricate history of China, hanging out with canibals in the South Pacific, messing about with crocodiles, chasing Indian tigers, working with lepers, traipsing about Africa with lions, collecting olives in Greece, and kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland. Besides these assurances, we don't know what surprises the world, our world, your world will spring on us.

We've sold much of what we own, given away or stored the rest, have agreed as a family to take "The Big Risk" and see if we can do this, see if we can really live on a "shoestring and Swiss Army knife" and go around the world--while sharing the discoveries and experiences with those who are online. We like to think of it as a modern day adventure...

"...of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the Cloak of many Cares and the Slavery of Home, one feels once more Happy, the blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood.... A journey, in fact, appeals to Imagination, to Memory, to Hope -- the three Sister Graces of our moral being." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton