Testing The Roundness Of The World: 2016

Nobody believes me when I say that the 80 days thing is a coincidence. But it is.

We leave the day after Isabel's last exam and return the day before the first full day of school. 80 days.

Actually from take off to touch down at Winnipeg International is 79 days and 20 hours, but door to door from our house... precisely 80 days.

And a bit about the backstory. In 1993 after three years in veterinary practice Lorraine and I quit our jobs and backpacked around the world for eight months, doing everything from living in a cave in Greece (a very nice cave mind you) to camel trekking across the Rajastani desert to celebrating Christmas in Hong Kong to island hopping in Thailand to volcano climbing in Indonesia to living with a family in Samoa to... well, the list does go on and on. Everyone said, "Wow, that was the trip of a lifetime!" To which we responded, "Nooo! It can't be the only time we do that! It just can't be." We swore we would do something similar again when we had kids. It's 22 years later. Isabel is 13. Alexander is 10.

It's time.

Monday, July 11, 2016

In Print

This blog's long silence has ended. but only long enough to announce the publication of a book based on it!

I filled in a number of gaps so it has about 25% "new material" and the printing process only permits black & white so I used a different selection.

It's on the shelf at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg in their "armchair travel" section:

It's also available online at:

http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9781772800432/philipp-schott/testing-the-roundness-of-the-world?blnBKM=1#.V4PInPkrLcs

The meager profits will be donated to the Wild Foundation (www.wild.org), an organisation founded in Africa which runs conservation projects that also address the needs of local communities. Wild Foundation has a top Charity Navigator rating.