…begins at home. This blog will follow Josh and me on what is turning out to be a spontaneous trip around the world.

We really didn’t plan this more than 2 months in advance. One day I said, “Josh do you want to live in Bamberg for a while?”

And Josh said yes.

Living in Bamberg has been a strong desire of mine since first visiting about 5 years ago. I fell in love instantly as the town made me feel peaceful and of course–the BEER. Oh the beer!

All in all we will be traveling for almost a year. We leave May 27, 2009.

We start with 3 months in Europe (mostly Bamberg, Franconia), a few weeks in North Africa (Tunisia), and about 5 months in Vietnam (plus side trips to Cambodia and Laos) before heading to Vancouver-Seattle-Portland.

En route to Bamberg we will be stopping in Dublin, Paris, and Brussels, where we will be attending one of the beer festivals of my dreams: The Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation. That means two days of traditional lambics, drunk in their region of origin Payottenland on May 30 and 31. Then we spend one day in Brugges before taking an overnight bus to Nuremberg, where we will transfer immediately to a train to Amberg.

Amberg is the starting point for our virgin sojourn into the land of Zoigl! Ever since reading about Zoigl on Fred Waltman’s enormously helpful and thorough compendium beer guide (http://www.franconiabeerguide.com/) I have dreamed of doing this. Can’t tell you how excited I am about all this.

Josh is a more experienced blogger than I, so expect most of the entries to be his. However, I hope to contribute a few tweets here and there. The blog should offer something for everyone: short reads and photos for the concentration-challenged and longer posts for people who have time. Non-beer lovers might find a little to chew on in between the beer porn.

Oh, I want to give this blog its own Facebook page, so that Facebook users can receive tidbits, photos, and links to the blog posts in their live news feed.