If you have navigated to this blog, you know I leave Oct. 2 on my National Geographic Expedition: Around the world on a private jet.  If you just haphazardly stumbled upon this blog – consider yourself fortunate you haven’t had to listen to me bore you for the past year as I’ve counted down the months, then weeks, and now just dayszzzzzzzzzzz (sorry, wake up!) before departure.

Here is a handy map. I start in Washington DC, head south, then circle the globe west – Peru, Easter Island, Samoa, Australia, Cambodia, China, Tibet, India, Tanzania, Jordan, Morocco, and home. That’s a lot of geography in 24 days, so pretty much limited to only seeing the coolest thing they have. India? Taj Mahal. Cambodia? Angkor Wat.

Sorry, but there will be no wandering off the beaten track and getting lost in some obscure village where I have a profound charming/authentic/bizarre Paul Theroux experience.  On the plus side, I won’t be kidnapped by pirates.

I haven’t slept in a week.

I have a pretty intense fear of flying that I (barely) control with a combination of xanax, booze, and hysterics. I am leaving behind a beloved dog, two children knee deep in the murky bog of wedding planning (not to each other, we are not THAT family), a rental property renovation mid-demolition stage, and my first novel (a labor of many years) has just been submitted by my agent to the publishers that can give it life, or snuff it out.

It is the best time to go, it is the worst time to go.