On Nov. 4, 2003, Milla Tonkonogy and Ben Hartner left Pittsburgh to travel around the world in 10 months. They thought it would cure their wanderlust. It has not.

Ben Hartner Ben Hartner and Milla Tonkonogy with Mount Everest in the background. Click photo for larger image.

Almost a year after their return, the former Pittsburghers, who now live in New York City, are feeling the urge to be off again.

Believing this to be a time of rapid cultural change, Tonkonogy, 30, and Hartner, 29, plan to revisit some of their favorite places and also seek out the new.

For their initial trip, the couple first traveled to London using frequent-flier miles. At OneWorld, they bought around-the-world tickets for $3,000 each, about half what they would have paid in the States. Having decided to travel West because of weather, they returned to Pittsburgh and set off from here for their odyssey. The couple carried $2,000 in cash and used ATM and credit cards along the way. In the course of 10 months, they spent an extra $2,000 each on additional stops, bringing their total air fare to $10,000. The countries visited included Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, China, Tibet, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, India, Mongolia and Russia.

Along the way, the only consistent negative for Tonkonogy were the toilets. She confesses to bursting into tears when having to use some of the "noxious smelling holes in the ground."

Of the couple's most memorable adventures, it seems that the greater the struggle, the more intense the reward.

In Katmandu, for instance, Hartner and Tonkonogy observed a struggle between the Nepalese monarchy and the Maoists. Although the couple felt relatively safe from harm, they ran into one skirmish on their way back to the airport. Their taxi driver, alarmed by the fighting on the streets, refused to drive any further -- leaving them to carry 150 pounds of trekking gear the final 4 miles to the airport. From Katmandu they flew to Lukla, the city from where they started the exhausting trek to Everest Base Camp.

"It took 12 days of hiking four to eight hours a day, with a Sherpa guide, on yak trails," says Hartner.

On landing in Tibet at an elevation of 11,154 feet, the couple suffered three days of altitude sickness: nausea, headaches, and an inability to sleep. Upon recovery, Tonkonogy and Hartner spent time in the capital, Lhasa -- among the friendliest people they had ever met -- and in a circle they made around the countryside.

While visiting Tibet's remote Drigung monastery, the travellers were invited to witness a sky-burial, which they see as perhaps the most exotic experience of their trip. According to ritual, monks in billowing saffron robes place the body of the deceased on a slab, hacked it to pieces with axes, and offered it to the vultures who had assembled. Their wings beating rhythmically, the birds pulled at the flesh and left only bones, which the monks then smashed and sprinkled with barley flour. The returning vultures carried the remains off in minutes.

Patagonia, Chile, made Tonkonogy and Hartner's list of most memorable destinations, in part because of the changing weather. Each day seemed to cycle through four seasons: a rainy spring, a summer's warmth, giving way to fall winds and finally winter's chill. Tonkonogy believes that the hardest work she's ever done was the five days of hiking in Torres del Paine National Park. She and Hartner did the trek called "W" and also climbed Volcan Villarica, an active, smoldering ice-capped volcano.

Hartner and Tonkonogy describe India as offering "constant complications" -- they say that even buying a train ticket required hours of entanglement -- but that every effort was worth the reward. The wonder of India is that each area is so different. Friends, of course, want to know about the Taj Mahal. "Incredibly beautiful," the couple agree.

When advised that a purchased pre-planned tour might reduce their travel frustrations, the pair agree that such a suggestion is heresy.

"No way," says one.

"Tours are inflexible," says the other. Both insist that some of their best experiences occurred when things didn't work out as planned.

Estimated total cost of this 10-month tour around the world for two: $36,000, which comes out to $60 a day for each.