Most of you already know that my wife and I have been travelling since we left Bermuda a year ago, we started in Brazil and travelled to Antarctica by cruise ship, then we travelled around South America for 6 months before heading back to Canada before continuiing across North America. We've coverage a little less than 50,000 miles in the past year and seen a lot of 3 continents so far. So what's it like?
Well for starters, it's exciting to visit other places where people have very different cultures and customs and the scenery is often stunning. It gives you reason to pause and realize what an amazing place this little planet we live on is, filled with diversity in every form of life and habitat. There have been many times over the past year when I have been just completely blown away by something I've seen in my travels.
It's expensive, forget that 'see europe on a dollar a day' crap, travelling costs doe-ray-me money. Even though we have kept to a pretty strict budget which meant not seeing everything we wanted to see in some of the countries we visited, it still adds up to more than a dollar per mile travelled for the two of us. Not cheap but worth every penny so far.
It's dangerous but not as dangerous as day to day living in many North American cities, a lot this boils down to using common sense and avoiding trouble before it has a chance to happen. We were cased by muggers twice in our travels and had gunshots in the alley behind one of the places we were staying at in Colombia but we dealt with these situations sensibly and everything worked out okay. Stay in places that are nice enough that you are in a reasonably safe neighbourhood, saving a few dollars can cost you your life in some parts of the world. A word of advice - do not visit Cali, Colombia no matter what your wife tells you she read about how wonderful it is now that the Medellin Drug Cartels have been cleaned up. BS! this is still the murder capital of south america and for good reason, people are armed and hungry so a life is cheap and tourists are assumed to be rich targets, just my thoughts on the matter.
It's not essential to speak the language but it helps if you try to learn at least a little of the language of the country you are visiting. Basic phrases like 'good morning' or even just 'please' and 'thank you' go a long way everywhere in the world, just the same way they go a long way back home - it's called being civilized. We spent a few weeks learning spanish in formal classes and it opened a lot of doors for us, both my wife and I have rudimentary spanish so this refresher course was a big help. You can get by with english and spanish in Brazil where the official language is portaguese, that and a lot of hand signals.
It will put things in perspective, at least it does for me. This planet is a little blue marble, spinning in space around a pretty mediocre sun located in an arm of a mediocre galaxy which is just one of billions and billions of other galaxies in this great, big, beautiful universe. But I really like this blue marble and all the really cool things on it, the animals, the birds, the fish, the mountains, the forests - the whole shooting match. Let's all try and keep this blue marble spinning without messing everything up the way humans have a way of doing when they lose perspective, that way our grandkids will have a chance of enjoying it too.
It will allow you to see that there are other ways of living that are just as valid and worthwhile as our western view of the world. The penguins of Antarctica don't even know that the rest of the world exists and they don't care because this is a continent devoid of people, except for a few research stations, it is immense and timeless - it is also perhaps the most beautiful place I have ever seen. South America moves according to it's own time clock, family and friends mean everything - work takes a backseat to them. Siesta and Fiesta are what it's all about and the work all seems to get done just the same - not as fast as I'm used to but it gets done and everybody seems to get along. It's not perfect and there's a lot of poverty as well as a lot of wealth but when the poor outnumber the rich in the extreme this is where you find ugly countries, let's hope this sort of thing never happens in our home countries.
It will make people question your sanity and not everybody will be supportive of your trip. I suppose it's just a part of the human condition that some people want to drag you down and keep you from living your dreams. What I do with my life has no bearing on what other people do with theirs in my opinion but not all people see things this way. We could have spent the money we are spending on travel to buy a new house but that isn't what we wanted to do with the money we saved while living in Bermuda. It probably isn't what most people would do but it's what we decided to do and we're good with that decision.
Personaly I would say that the world would be a more peaceful place if more people travelled, seeing the other guy on his home turf gives you a better understanding that we're all just people trying to make a go of life. Let's just try to get along.
Cheers All,
Eric
Well for starters, it's exciting to visit other places where people have very different cultures and customs and the scenery is often stunning. It gives you reason to pause and realize what an amazing place this little planet we live on is, filled with diversity in every form of life and habitat. There have been many times over the past year when I have been just completely blown away by something I've seen in my travels.
It's expensive, forget that 'see europe on a dollar a day' crap, travelling costs doe-ray-me money. Even though we have kept to a pretty strict budget which meant not seeing everything we wanted to see in some of the countries we visited, it still adds up to more than a dollar per mile travelled for the two of us. Not cheap but worth every penny so far.
It's dangerous but not as dangerous as day to day living in many North American cities, a lot this boils down to using common sense and avoiding trouble before it has a chance to happen. We were cased by muggers twice in our travels and had gunshots in the alley behind one of the places we were staying at in Colombia but we dealt with these situations sensibly and everything worked out okay. Stay in places that are nice enough that you are in a reasonably safe neighbourhood, saving a few dollars can cost you your life in some parts of the world. A word of advice - do not visit Cali, Colombia no matter what your wife tells you she read about how wonderful it is now that the Medellin Drug Cartels have been cleaned up. BS! this is still the murder capital of south america and for good reason, people are armed and hungry so a life is cheap and tourists are assumed to be rich targets, just my thoughts on the matter.
It's not essential to speak the language but it helps if you try to learn at least a little of the language of the country you are visiting. Basic phrases like 'good morning' or even just 'please' and 'thank you' go a long way everywhere in the world, just the same way they go a long way back home - it's called being civilized. We spent a few weeks learning spanish in formal classes and it opened a lot of doors for us, both my wife and I have rudimentary spanish so this refresher course was a big help. You can get by with english and spanish in Brazil where the official language is portaguese, that and a lot of hand signals.
It will put things in perspective, at least it does for me. This planet is a little blue marble, spinning in space around a pretty mediocre sun located in an arm of a mediocre galaxy which is just one of billions and billions of other galaxies in this great, big, beautiful universe. But I really like this blue marble and all the really cool things on it, the animals, the birds, the fish, the mountains, the forests - the whole shooting match. Let's all try and keep this blue marble spinning without messing everything up the way humans have a way of doing when they lose perspective, that way our grandkids will have a chance of enjoying it too.
It will allow you to see that there are other ways of living that are just as valid and worthwhile as our western view of the world. The penguins of Antarctica don't even know that the rest of the world exists and they don't care because this is a continent devoid of people, except for a few research stations, it is immense and timeless - it is also perhaps the most beautiful place I have ever seen. South America moves according to it's own time clock, family and friends mean everything - work takes a backseat to them. Siesta and Fiesta are what it's all about and the work all seems to get done just the same - not as fast as I'm used to but it gets done and everybody seems to get along. It's not perfect and there's a lot of poverty as well as a lot of wealth but when the poor outnumber the rich in the extreme this is where you find ugly countries, let's hope this sort of thing never happens in our home countries.
It will make people question your sanity and not everybody will be supportive of your trip. I suppose it's just a part of the human condition that some people want to drag you down and keep you from living your dreams. What I do with my life has no bearing on what other people do with theirs in my opinion but not all people see things this way. We could have spent the money we are spending on travel to buy a new house but that isn't what we wanted to do with the money we saved while living in Bermuda. It probably isn't what most people would do but it's what we decided to do and we're good with that decision.
Personaly I would say that the world would be a more peaceful place if more people travelled, seeing the other guy on his home turf gives you a better understanding that we're all just people trying to make a go of life. Let's just try to get along.
Cheers All,
Eric
