You’ve asked for it, so here it is! With great excitement we’re thrilled to announce the preliminary itinerary for the Global Hug Tour. (Please keep in mind our itinerary will have some tweaks until the local details are finalized.)

We depart Boulder, CO on Friday, May 1st, 2009 and head north to Canada. We anticipate a few days at each stop along the tour, returning the 3rd week of September. We’ve put a great deal of thought into the itinerary so that we could maximize safety, as we do want to come back home.

I looked at this with a much higher degree of respect when we found data that showed the number of people who have flown a small prop plane around the world. Want to guess? Only 21 women and 256 men have ever done this! Wow! This trip is more “Indiana Jones” than I thought it would be!

We have a certain window to be flying in a small plane in specific geographic areas. We want to avoid snow for the Pacific and Atlantic crossings, as well as monsoons, cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes, etc. in other parts of the world.When you have to plan a trip around ten different versions of “we can’t be here during in July” and “we have to cross this area in May”, it makes planning just a bit more challenging.

We originally thought we’d head east, but after careful consideration of weather factors, we’re heading west. Here’s the “final” itinerary, of course, subject to change:

May 2009
Vancouver, Canada
Juneau, Alaska
Anchorage, Alaska
Adak, Alaska (fuel stop on the Pacific crossing)
Petropavlovsk, Russia (first point of land we get to!)
Sapporo, Japan
Osaka/Kyoto, Japan
Hiroshima, Japan
Seoul, South Korea
Shanghai, China
Hong Kong, China
Ho Chi Minh, Viet Nam
Singapore, Singapore
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

June 2009
Chaing Mai, Thailand
Katmandu, Nepal
Agra, India
Chennai, India
Mumbai, India
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Al Manamah, Bahrain
Amman, Jordan
Jerusalem, Israel (if the airport is reopened for private planes)
Haifa, Israel
Antalya, Turkey
Athens, Greece
Pristina, Kosovo

July 2009
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Vienna, Austria
Prague, Czech Republic
Berlin, Germany
Warsaw, Poland
Riga, Latvia
St. Petersburg, Russia
Helsinki, Finland
Stockholm, Sweden
Copenhagen, Denmark

August 2009
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Brussels, Belgium
Geneva, Switzerland
Rome, Italy
Barcelona, Spain
Lisbon, Portugal
Paris, France
London, England
Cardiff, Wales
Dublin, Ireland
Glasgow, Scotland
Reykjavik, Iceland

September 2009
Kangerlussuaq, Greenland
Gander, Newfoundland, Canada
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
New York, New York
Chicago, Illinois
Boulder, Colorado

We need your help with these three main things in each location:

1) Hug Tribe leaders to be our local liaison

2) Introductions to the most inspirational people in the area to interview and feature as Luminaries on InspireMeToday.com.

3) Important causes in the area to financially support through Hug Sponsorship, including clean water, health, education, children and women’s issues.

If you live in one of these cities and want to be involved, please email me directly at gail@inspiremetoday.com. If you are somewhere else and still want to play, this project is global and we have plenty of opportunity for anyone who wants to be involved. Just email me. We welcome you to share your talents with us!

Thank you for your support of our tour. We couldn’t do this without you! We know it will make a difference, and we’re excited to go! Only 4 months and a few days remaining until it’s time for wheels up! We’ll keep you posted as we progress with the planning.

In the meantime, if you haven’t reserved your hug yet, please do so today. You’re supporting a great cause.

Thank you and Woohoo!!!

Big hugs,

Gail

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 20th, 2008 at 1:25 am and is filed under Gail's Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.