So what to bring....

As you might imagine, taking off for 10 months without seeing home makes you decide what's really important and what isn't.  You can't carry the cars, the TV's, the boats, and all those other possessions you just "had" to have on your back.  Our first stop in Costa Rico has a stop at a place called Tortuguero National Park.  To get there you have to boat in on a skiff.  They have a weight limit of 25lbs per person.  We know we probably won't make that and will have to leave stuff at some hotel in San Juan but our goal is to come very close - with our day packs at least!

Clothes:
The fact that we are staying close to the equator for most of the trip (the exception being 3 days in NYC and 4 months in Europe in April, May, June and July) means we are just packing summer clothes.  We know we'll freeze in NYC in late October but we really don't feel like dragging fall/winter clothes around with us us all year.  We did learn that we need to take 14 pairs of underwear so we aren't tied to a sink....  a few pairs of shorts, long pants, sweater, rain jackets and shirts... and LOTS of socks, 2 pairs of shoes (hiking/walking and running).

Backpacks:
We did spend some money on good traveller back packs.  They are different than the hiking ones in that the whole back opens up like a suitcase when you lay it down on the frame - rather than little openings at the top which cause you to dump everything out to get at something on the bottom.  Each of us are different sizes, so we ended up with 4 completely different packs.  Two Asolo Navigators (a 75 for me and a 55 for Jen), an  Osprey Atmos 5 for Shawn and a small North Face Alteo 35 for  Rachel.   The fit was very important to us even though we don't plan on walking for several hours in them.  Its amazing how many different types there are  and how different they all fit.

Lights/Drugs/"Perfumes":
Next we bought headlights (bright LED powered flashlights on headbands) as we know we'll be doing some night hikes on Safari and many of the places we'll be staying at don't have reliable power - or shut down the generator at night to reduce noise!  We each have 30% DEET mosquito repellant (except for Rachel who's limited to 12%).  We're hoping that if she sticks close enough to us, we'll shield her!  We don't plan on catching Malaria and have both Malarone for the adults ($5/day each) and Mefloquine ($5/week) for the kids who are less susceptible to the side-effects.  We also had to get Yellow Fever shots because Tanzania won't let anyone in who doesn't have it - Tanzania isn't a Yellow Fever endemic zone and I guess they intend on keeping it that way!  We ended up with a host of other drugs and shots (Hep A/B, Polio, etc.) so that the travel doctor (Dr. Mark Wise who gave us a handy book he wrote as well) ended up being a material part of the overall budget!  We didn't really expect that when we first thought of this!  The "pharmacy" will consume about 1/2 of one of our packs (guess who's?).

Cameras:
We hemmed and hawed about getting a new fancy SLR (Nikon 5100 with wide and telephoto zoom lenses) but at the end of it convinced ourselves that our trusty Panasonic Lumix 14MP with a 16x zoom would do the trick and was less likely to get us unwanted attention.    We did buy a handful of 16GB SD cards (in addition to the ones we already had) and then I picked up an 8MP Eye-Fi card.  This thing automatically uploads your pictures from your camera to the cloud (Picasa or Facebook) when ever you get within range of a WIFI signal.  The idea of the "cloud" being the repository of our photo's and videos makes us feel comfortable that even if we do get robbed at some point, we only lose the camera.... not the entire collection.    Finally, I picked up one of those great Gorilla mini-tripods.  You can wrap them around tree's, bend them into pretty much any shape to take family pictures.  For $20...  well worth it.

Electronics:
We are taking two BlackBerry PlayBooks (7" tablet computers).  These things will double as cameras (both still and HD video), video players (plays 1080p HD video), Music (they have fantastic speakers), Video conferencing (built in HD webcam's), Internet, computers and eBook readers all for something that weighs about 2lbs.   I'm also taking my trusty BlackBerry Torch phone.  I plan on picking up pay as you go SD cards where I can so I can get internet access for the PlayBook's through the local cell network instead of constantly having to hunt down WiFi hotspots.   I had intended for this to be it, but Jen (reasonably) pointed out that since we weren't carrying our usual half bag full of books, we'd need something for each of us to read on... not wanting to spend $1000 for more PlayBooks, I picked up a Kindle ($139) and a HP NetBook ($199).  I really hadn't planned on bringing a computer but there were a few things that are yet impossible/difficult to do on the PlayBook (like reading SD cards), configuring the router using Apple's special software, and Rachel's Nancy Drew games that I figured what the hey...  it's not that much bigger than a PlayBook.    I've also got a small Apple Airport Express router that plugs into the wall and provides wifi signals so if we do end up in a room with internet by wire, we can get it to the electronics.  This will be one wired family... but then did you expect any the less knowing me? :-D  Shawn wants to learn Python and C while we are gone so we'll see if that works for him.  He sure won't be playing Minecraft!

Books:
We aren't taking much in the way of hard copy books but do have some text books for the kids education as well as some French lesson's (in addition to the ones I've got downloaded on line).

That's it for now...  If we end up with anything else, I'll be sure to tag this later.