Date: 2018-08-01

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A 6 months journey should be well-prepared. A lot of things must be organized.

Well the first thing is to develop a travel plan. My first thing coming into my mind was China. Well big country, lot of people and a very interesting culture. Always wanted to see big wall, forbidden city, terracotta army and feel how it might be living there. Well the next thought was flying to china would be long and boring. So are there other ways and every train nerd like me immediately knows yes there is one of the last really amazing train dreams of going to china by the transibirian railway. Well I then decided not to do the trans-mongolian which would lead me directly to Beijing. I found it better to go all way till Vladivostok and then go to china through Harbin. The main reason was that I don’t want to handle the big town Beijing right at the start of my China adventure.

Well the rest filled up during the planning process. So I decided to stay 60 days in China – as tourist it is the longest visa you might get easily. Well Russia only gives 30 days tourist visa. Then after a while I found out that at beginning of August there is the World Orienteering Championship in Latvia. Well this is what I needed for a great start. Well I am not that good in orienteering that Austrian National Coach might ever call me in the national team, but around this event there is as well the Latvia-O-Week. So I will run my own competitions and see what the real cracks do in their races at the championship. What a perfect first highlight for my journey.

So plan got adapted again.

The next thing is getting 6 months free time. Well my first thought was of just quitting the job, but this has some administrative implications, but I was lucky that my boss understood that this is an important thing to do for me and supported me on getting a leave of absence for the 6 months. So thumbs up: I will have a job when I am back in Berlin.

Well I am not that good at preparing things long term, so I am doing things right at the spot and sometimes a bit late. But well I did some trekking tours in the last years, so I know which things are important.

• First …. Go to a dentist: I had to break up a hiking tour in Ladakh in 2016, so that was a must do
• Second … Go and get all vaccinations. This was a thing I really was postponing until it was nearly too late. So I had a tough vaccination plan to do in the last two weeks.
• Second … (well it is equally important) getting all visas needed. Well getting a 60 days Chinese visa is not that easy, but worth an own post perhaps later.
• Third … getting the flat subleased to have more money for the journey (well not so really done yet but still hoping it might get done in next days)
• Forth … clean up the flat and store your stuff somewhere, so others can live there.
• Fifth … get all things packed. Well I have an 80 litre backpack. But I definitely have packed in too much and not well enough. So at my first stop I repacked it with the help of my friend Claudia. Thanks a lot for supporting me!
• And well First … say goodbye to your friends. Well and because I met someone very special recently this was the toughest part – ❤ you.

So I went off leaving 6 years in Berlin behind and hoping for an amazing journey.