I intend to use this to chronicle my trip through Europe and the planning that comes prior. After that I’m hoping the blog will give a vehicle to share, and motivation to take, photographs more regularly.

So in terms of my Europe timeline we’re currently 58 days from departure (eek, it’s the first time I’ve looked at it that way). So that means my flights were booked on date T minus 60. Concept for the trip was probably conceived somewhere around T minus 80 days, just to give you an idea of the kind of timeline I’m working on.

So who is this guy and what’s this all about? (i.e. the intro)
A New Zealander (Kiwi) with a bit of a photography hobby. I’m approaching 30 and looking to pop to the other side of the globe just so I can come back and further appreciate the awesomeness that is the New Zealand landscape, lifestyle and climate. And there’s plenty to appreciate, even right in my own backyard – this view is a 20 minute jog from home:

At this point the fuzzy concept of “Let’s go to Europe” has firmed up to taking the 1st of April though to the 1st of May off work and focusing on a small area of the continent rather than trying to “tick off” a massive list of countries. Thanks to a suggestion from Dave over on the Canon Digital Photography Forums I’ve decided to EuroLease a car and take the 29ish days I’m over there to make my way from Paris down to Rome.

Progess to date
Book Flights – into Paris, out of Rome. Flight Center
Acquire the Lonely Planet – Europe on a Shoestring. Fishpond.co.nz

Still to come…
Plenty I still need to sort out, but here’s some of the current stuff…
Final confirmation of the Peugeot EuroLease. This is some sort of crazy deal where you “buy” a brand new Peugeot, use it for between 17 days and 6 months and then have Peugeot buy it back from you. Seems like damn good bang for your buck.
International Driving Permit don’t need one for most of Europe, but Italy is the exception so I’ll be getting that paperwork underway.
Send the camera gear away for a service before I go abroad (IS is playing up on the 17-55 f2.8 and there’s some dust on the sensor of the 40D that I can’t seem to clean off myself)
Storage and backup for digital photos – shooting RAW at approx 12 mb per image I’m going to chew card space fast… Tossing up between something like the Hyperdrive (basically an LCD equipped hard drive and card reader) or a netbook like the Dell Inspiron Mini 12
Travel insurance
and maybe a loan phone from old Telescum for roaming.

…and the rest – I’ve got a shedload of things collected in my Evernote database.