Starting in July of this year, my husband, our son and I will be embarking on an “adventure of a lifetime”. We will be spending 12 months living in 12 different countries for one month each. Our goal is to experience what’s it’s like to live like a local in each country. This means that we don’t want to travel around the whole month. Instead, we wish to rent an apartment, buy our food where the locals shop and learn some of the local language/culture. In addition, we hope to volunteer our time with a local non-profit organization as a way to connect with the local people and culture.

I am turning to you, the Flyertalk community, for any guidance you can offer in our journey. We need help deciding in which city to live and any ideas on non-profits we can work with. Finally I’d love some suggestions on “not to miss” sites and activities for that country.

We’ve got the air travel all worked out. We currently have a Oneworld 6DONE RTW ticket that gets us close to each country. We’ll be buying separate small jump tickets to get us exactly where we need to go.

We have chosen the 12 countries:
July 2010: Scotland
Aug 2010: Turkey
Sept 2010: South Africa
Oct 2010: Madagascar
Nov 2010: Vietnam
Dec 2010: Thailand
Jan 2011: India
Feb 2011: Australia
Mar 2011: New Zealand
Apr 2011: Argentina
May 2011: Chile
Jun 2011: Colombia

So here are the questions?
1. Where should we stay for the month?
2. Any non-profits you know of that we can work with?
3. Any sites/activities that we should do while in that country?

Here are our current thoughts on each country:
SCOTLAND:
We think we want to live in Edinburgh. It looks like a happening city.

TURKEY:
Our thought is to get a flat in Istanbul. I’m worried about two gays and their kid too far out in the country.

SOUTH AFRICA:
I’ve got family there and we go often so this country is easy for us. Most of the time will be spent in Llandudno, south of Cape Town.

MADAGASCAR:
We fly into TNR but would like to get out of there as soon as possible. I would prefer to live somewhere on the coast. I’ve found a couple of leads on places but still wide open.

VIETNAM:
Our dear friends are living there so we have to live in Ho Chi Mihn. We have a deaf school that we might work with there.

THAILAND:
As rock climbers, we want to be somewhere near Krabi. Phuket is a possible option for a flat.

INDIA:
Current thoughts are Goa or Cochin. Any other ideas? I would prefer the coast to inland.

AUSTRALIA:
Melbourne is our choice. We might rent an RV for two weeks and travel around Tasmania as a mini-vacation.

NEW ZEALAND:
A friend has a house in the mountains of the north island so I think we’ve got that worked out. I can’t wait to go caving in NZ!

ARGENTINA:
I love Buenos Aires so that’s where we’re going to stay. I have a lead on an organization promoting gay marriage there but am open to other non-profits.

CHILE:
Our original thought was to spend the month on Easter Island. The issue is finding a place to rent! With only 3600 inhabitants, they don’t have a thriving rental market. But it would still be fun to be there. I’d love to help replant all the trees that have been cut down.

Other Chile ideas are Valparaiso. Once again, love to live on the coast after two years here in Munich.

COLOMBIA:
We have chosen Cartagena. But where should we live there?

So those are the plans so far! We have tentatively named the year “Fifth Grade Around The World” since our son will be in the 5th grade. We’ll be homeschooling him the entire time and using the world as our classroom.

Have any ideas to share with us?