One month until starting on "The Road Less Traded"

Welcome to "The Road Less Traded". This is one of two blogs on which I hope to document one "trip of a lifetime", currently planned a mostly overland (mostly rail and boat) trip through many of the countries whose markets I have been trading from computer terminals and phones in New York, London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong over the past 5 years, but where I felt this year would be an especially good time to go see "on the ground" and get an idea of how life is really like in these places, how things work differently in these "emerging markets".

Compared with the other blog on this planned trip, I plan to use this one more for day-to-day details of the plan, traveling, and experiences, including e-mail updates, while the other one is planned at first to be more reflective. That is, this will be more the "what/how/where/when" blog, while the other will be more of the "why" of the trip.

I have been somewhat influenced to do this trip by Jim Rogers' Adventure Capitalist and Investment Biker, but foresee several key differences that should make this trip more valuable to me and those that know me than just reading these books:
1. I am far younger and less financially secure than Jim was on either of those trips.
2. My trip is also planned as mostly overground, but Jim used a motorbike and later a modified yellow Mercedes, while I plan to use mostly "public" transportation (trains, ferries, buses mostly).
3. Jim's trips were 2-year all the way around the world, while for now most of my plans start out only 3-9 months, entirely in Eurasia until about December. This is largely to stick to places with well-traveled rail lines and infrastructure, and for now is limited to "emerging" rather than "frontier" markets.
4. I am traveling with a family of three, including a spouse with an Indian passport (read: more excitement applying for many more visas) and the youngest passenger starting the trip at 1 1/2 years of age.
5. Of course the biggest difference is that I will be taking the trip myself and plan to see these places and experiences with my own eyes - hopefully to come out a different and better person, and a uniquely experienced practitioner of quantitative global finance.

Please stay tuned and feel free to comment on details of the plan and trip.