Beyond picking my first destination (Lima, Peru), there kind of isn’t one. I have given things some thought, though.
What’s the point?
Actually, see the “About” page for more info on this.
Who’s going?
Just me. I’ve previously traveled as a group, with one friend, and by myself. I feel that traveling alone will afford me the ability to truly do whatever I want, however I want to do it. There’s a built-in excitement and openness to new people and experiences that comes with traveling solo. If you’re sitting in a bar by yourself, it’s probably not going to get much more interesting if you don’t smile at some people and go over to say “Hi.”
Where do I plan to go?
I have a rough idea of some places I’d like to spend time in. Once I get to a place, I’ll stay as long or as briefly as I feel like it. If I like a place and want to rent an apartment there for a month, great; I don’t want to limit time spent in a locale by a self-imposed mandate that I must keep moving constantly. As my email friend Max Robbins advised,
“One small piece of advice. Don’t move simply to move. If you find a place you like, take your time and hang out. I generally do a minimum of 2 months in a place now and lately much longer.”
On the other hand, if I get somewhere and it doesn’t sit well, the bag gets packed and onward I go to wherever I feel like going next. Basically, anything about this could change depending on my whim and discretion on the road.
- Mexico: Mexico City (Mexico is out of the mix now. Starting in Lima.)
- Peru: Lima
- Colombia: Bogata, Cali
- Argentina, Paraguay
- Brazil: Rio, Sao Paulo, Salvador da Baía
- Turkey: Istanbul
- Eastern Europe: Latvia, Lithuania
- Russia: St. Petersburg, Moscow
- India: ??
- South East Asia: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia
Where have I actually gone?
I haven’t stuck to the list above list. Here’s a map of where I’ve actually gone as of April 7, 2009:
What to take?
Not much. It’s all gonna go in this one carry-on-sized bag, which took a good bit of thinking to decide on.
In the bag, I’ll have:
- Clothes
- Laptop
- Camera
How to get there?
Cheaply. I’ll be flying to my first destination in Lima, Peru. Because I’ve got time on my hands, I can save money by taking long bus or train rides instead of airplanes. Though it was initially appealing, I’ve pointedly decided not to get a ’round-the-world airfare ticket. (You can save some money on airfare if you buy one big trip ‘o destinations at once from a company like AirTreks with an RTW ticket. It’s fairly popular.) As explained above, I don’t want to presume to know where I’ll want to go or how long I’ll want to stay there before I’ve even left, which I would need to do to book an around the world ticket.
Reading, Resources, and Research:
Ah, the three “R”s that have been my life in the planning stage of this trip. I’ve done a whole lot of reading travel books, blogs, and forums online. It’s been a great way to keep my excitement level up as I finish out my bid at work and quite informative, too.
I’ve almost come to the point where I’m developing a personal backlash against too much information before I leave, though. I don’t want to really influence my perceptions of a place or what it should be like based on someone else’s opinion. For that reason, I’ve stayed away from guidebooks like Lonely Planet guides that tend to tell the reader what to do and where to go. I’m trying to keep it more to narratives now.
Reading
I’ve read a lot of travel books before leaving on this trip. If I had to recommend only one to you, get Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, by Rolf Potts. This book opened up a world of thought about travel to me that I hadn’t considered before. It’s the first one I read and it’s quite inspirational.
Other books I found interesting and useful were the Bluelist series by Lonely Planet. They’re good for inspiration and are written as a “Best of Travel” list for each respective year. I haven’t actually spent much time with these beyond flipping through them, but they provide nice snapshots of places and got me thinking about some destinations I wouldn’t have considered.
There are plenty of other ones, such as the travel writer’s Chuck Thompson’s very funny industry expose, Smile When You’re Lying and Tim Leffel’s Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune: The Contrarian Traveler’s Guide to Getting More for Less.
Research & Resources
As far as research and resources go, the internets are stupidly and almost overwhelmingly useful for this sort of thing. Specifically, though, I’ve spent time reading:
Online travel “magazines”:
News o’ the world:
- - BBC News & CNN
Yeah. It’s news. - - The Economist
News with in-depth analysis. - - Global Voices
Global Voices is cool because they translate blogs and other online discourse from around the world into English.
Forums & Online Communities:
- Lonely Planet’s Thorntree forums
- ExpatPeru’s forums
- PoorButHappy’s Colombia forum
There’s good information on here if you search through it enough.
This entire site has been a great resource about Peru and has served to keep me excited about it. The forums are great and the regular posters are helpful and even courteous.
This forum seems a bit weak on the signal-to-noise ratio. The forum itself is poorly designed and the people on there seem to waste a good bit of time flaming each other. However, it’s a bunch of Colombian’s and expats talking about Colombia, quite candidly at times. Dig it.
Travel Blogs:
Though these haven’t been regular reads like the links above, I’ve spent time on them at one point or other as I’ve thought about the trip.
- Max Robbins
Max travels as a way of life. He runs his business through the internet. I read through his entire blog in one sitting and he became a bit of a personal hero afterwards. - Vagabonding.com
As Mike explains on his site: “Vagabonding is a round-the- world travelogue created by Mike Pugh, an optimist from Chicago. Mike traveled on his own through Asia and East Africa from October 2002 – November 2003 and updated this site from the road.” - ThirteenMonths.com
A recently married couple from San Francisco takes a ’round-the-world trip instead of a honeymoon. (good idea, guys.) I found their Gear & Cost page to be particularly informative. - The Lost Girls
It’s a bit on the New York Girl side for me, but this is one of the first ’round-the-world trip blogs I read. Some good information, if a bit concerned with fashion. As they say, “Three twenty-something New Yorkers who ditched their media jobs to embark on a yearlong, round-the-world journey in search of adventure and inspiration.”
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