MKE-IAH-SCL

After months – more than a year – of planning, it’s a bit surreal to have left home knowing that we will not return for three months.  Getting a boarding pass for a flight to Santiago, Chile, feels a bit dreamlike.  We arrived in Santiago today before a flight tomorrow to Calama, one of the northernmost cities in Chile.  We’ll be staying in San Pedro de Atacama, which is very close to the border with Bolivia, for three nights.  Our full itinerary is below, but we’ll check in again soon to let you know how the first couple days have gone.

Christmas Day Staging

It's Christmas Day 2018 and we are four days out from our departure to Santiago.  With everything that Santa dropped off last night and the exception of the clothes we need to wear the next few days, we have bought or borrowed and set out in the office everything we need.

Off camera in this photo is a large, rolling duffel filled with all the camping gear. Other than that, we're packing two 65L backpacks and a smaller, checkable backpack for each of us.

Max

Happy Holidays!

Greetings!

As many of you know, the four of us will be departing for a three-month adventure on December 29 - a little over three weeks from today.  Our journey - our austral foray, I should say - will take us from the Atacama Desert to Tierra del Fuego in Chile and from the Bay of Islands to the Fjordlands in New Zealand.

We primarily will use this blog and Instagram (@australforay) to report on and post photos during our travels.  This site will also be the place where Cameron and Wesley post their reports back to their 5th grade and kindergarten classrooms.  We would love to hear from all of you, so please subscribe, follow along, and send us comments, questions, and messages.

In the meantime, we hope that everyone has a happy holiday season.  Stay tuned for more!

Love,

The Welsh Family