In 2014, just after shipping our Landcruiser back from South America, we got an email from our web host telling us that our blog had been hacked. Why somebody would bother hacking an unknown page that nobody reads in the vast inter webs I still don’t really understand, but in the end we had to take down our page and we lost most of our posts and pretty much all of the pictures that were in the posts (yes, we should have had it backed up and yes we learned some lessons).

This little blog of ours has gone through some ups and downs throughout the course of our travels. When we were planning our South America trip back in 2008, we thought it would be a great way to document our travels for our friends and family back home. We didn’t realize until starting out how much work it would actually require. I have a ton of respect for travelers who manage to keep an updated blog, let alone a good updated blog, knowing now what goes into it. Add to the work of writing and sorting photos, there is the problem of finding fast enough internet to actually upload said writing and photos. This may not seem like something so hard to find in this day and age, but surprisingly enough, while internet can pretty much be found in all corners of the globe, reliable internet that doesn’t take an entire day to upload one post and a handful of photos can be harder to find than you think. I once spent an entire day in Bolivia trying to upload one post only to have it crash over and over again. Come to think of it, that might have been the end of our South America blog. Anyway, the point of this diatribe is that because of all this our blog has gone from being updated regularly in some countries to having almost nothing at all in others. We actually quit posting anything at all for close to a year in South America. It seems like it was, and continues to be, a constant conversation between us about whether to blog, or not to blog. So, when our blog was hacked last year and we were forced to take it down, I have to admit to a certain amount of relief. The question was finally over. Not to blog.

As we began traveling again last year in Europe, the blogging question was still nagging at me. Then, while trying to decide what to do with our remaining South America content, I began to read through our old posts. I realized that we do a much better job of documenting our travels through blog posts than any other form. And while I would like to believe my memory is impeccable and I’ll always remember every detail and impression of every place I visit, I know this is very much not the case. In fact, reading through some of our old posts, I realized there is so much I have already forgotten. For this reason, if for no other, our blog has become important to me again. Now, instead of writing for friends and family to follow along, I’m writing for my 70 year old self; to remind myself of all the amazing places I’ve visited and experiences I’ve had, and yes maybe even some of the not so amazing.

So, for the time being at least, we are going to try to keep this little blog going. I can’t guarantee it will be actually updated regularly, and we might end up skipping around a bit, sharing those places we particularly liked from last year, or we might not. We’ll see how it goes. We do have to send a special shout out to our friend Chris, who helped us salvage what was left of our poor little blog and get it back up again. Without him, lostworldexpedition.com would just be a blank page in the vast inter webs.

Maybe it’s time for a little catch up. In January 2014 we put the Landcruiser on a ship in Buenos Aires bound for the US and came back to California to work and plan for the next phase. Last year in February 2015, we arrived in Barcelona, Spain with our backpacks and a vague idea of buying a van and touring Europe. It took a little longer, and was a little more difficult than we expected, but with a little help from our friends we ended up with Wanda VanD, our trusty little sprinter van. (I plan to post a detailed write up later about the buying experience).

From Germany we headed east through the Balkan countries to Turkey, where we were blown away by the amazing country. We ended up spending three amazing weeks with new friends in Istanbul, and three amazing months doing a circuit of the country, from the beautiful beaches and ruins of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, to the fantasy world landscapes of the Cappadocia region, to the amazing welcoming culture of the eastern Kurdish region and back along the Black Sea Coast. We really fell in love with this country.

Heading back to Europe we explored a little of southern Germany and made some new friends there, then took our time in the Provence region of France, finally ending up back in Spain where we parked Wanda near Barcelona while we went back to the US to work. We arrived back in Spain in March, picked up Wanda and hit the road again. We are super excited to see what the next 7 months brings as we travel through Europe, Morocco, and the U.K. Hopefully we’ll do a little better at keeping up to date on the blog, but well, we’ve said that before. Although this time my 70 year old self is providing a little more motivation 🙂