Travels in a Tin Can

as an easy place to cut our travellers’ teeth. Although as it turned out we
understood the language and culture only about 50% of the time.
13 weeks was to be our travelling time, not due to an obsession with
this unlucky number, but for a far more practical reason. Travel to the USA
without a visa is only possible for 90 days, so we went for 89. The longest
holiday we had been on before had been a three-week camping trip to France
to celebrate the end of our undergraduate degrees, so 13 weeks was a
serious step up from this. But then becoming a doctor warranted a little bit
more of a celebration – and a big bit more recuperation.
Of course 13 weeks also required a lot more than the customary four-
week allowance of annual leave. Now if Emma and I had been teachers then
this would not have been a problem (as teachers get about half the year off,
don’t they?) In fact finding 13 weeks of holiday was not a problem for Emma,
former student and currently unemployed. For me there were two options
available by which to secure a three-month holiday. Get a sabbatical from
work, or hand in my notice. Amazingly I was granted my request for an unpaid
sabbatical, and promptly handed in my notice a few days later. It’s a
complicated story, but basically I already had a new job lined up, due to start
three and a half months later. Having made sure that we both had time off to
go travelling, all we needed to do was organise the trip. ‘All’ being the
operative word.
Before we left England in November 2003 we organised our
accommodation for the first week, mapped out a route and secured our
transport for the entire adventure. Almost everything else we would book as
we went along. Although this sounds risky it was not really hazardous