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Day -8: It probably wasn’t until Kate’s folks came back from Egypt that I was really sold on the idea of including it on my list of places to go this trip. In 2005, Roger and Roz embarked on their own multi-month globetrot which took them past the statues of Easter Island, the Aztec ruins of Maccha Pichu and the Hindu pilgramige site of Anaradnapura in Sri Lanka, among other places. But the country that left them the greatest impression, for the sheer scale of the monumental achievements of its ancient civilizations, was Egypt.

We’ll have about three weeks to get around Egypt - time enough to see the pyramids outside Cairo, take a cruise down the Nile to Luxor, and make it all the way to Abu Simbel, which is noteworthy not just for its structures but for the fact that in 1967, with the assistance of UNICEF, the entire structure was moved brick by brick to higher ground, when it was threatened with flooding from the newly formed Lake Nasser.

I’ve had a number of friends also recommend Egypt’s scuba diving as some of the best in the world.