Sixintheworld.com

We had an interesting conversation last night with a fun young British couple who are on their own 12-month round the world quest. We started sharing stories of China, where we’ve both been, and I drilled them with questions about India and Africa, where we have yet to go. We discussed our motives for leaving it all behind and our loved ones’ responses to our mania. 10 years younger than we are (as most of our fellow RTW’ers seem to be), Jon and Lisa sold their house and left jobs and befuddled friends behind. I must admit there are still days when my competitive, type-A side sweats the financial and career sacrifices we are making in order to do this, but Jon summed up the justification for our adventure succinctly: “Unlike many of the people here (in Vietnam), anything I had before, I can have again.” It might take a while and his new home might be smaller than his last, but he feels the experience he’s gaining now is more valuable than an extra bedroom or a year of career advancement.

Since Jon and Lisa have been on the road for four months (check them out at their website), they’ve met a lot of other travelers along the way. I asked if they’d encountered many Americans and to my surprise they said they had. To my even bigger surprise, however, they said more than a few had denied their nationality in the beginning. It seems there are some Americans who masquerade as Canadians, even going so far as to sew Canadian flag patches on their backpacks to avoid criticism and unwanted attention. I was floored. Tom joked about doing this from a safety perspective before we left, but we never imagined people would actually do it. Our nation’s foreign policy may have been highly unpopular over the past 6 years and we may not always agree with our elected officials, but we would never in a million years imagine denying our citizenship. We live in arguably the greatest nation on the planet, certainly one that affords its citizens the greatest freedoms and opportunities; and a big part of why we are exploring the world is to gain a greater appreciation for the United States rather than to escape it. I felt like I had just discovered Benedict Arnold in my midst; cowards skulking around the world pretending to be from Toronto because doing so avoids difficult questions and disapproving looks. I could understand if Americans were being targeted by assassins at the border and concealing your identity allowed you to live another day (remember the Israelis still stamp a piece of paper, not your passport, so you won’t get harassed in Middle Eastern countries) but these are people who don’t want to defend themselves against European travelers. For shame.

I’ll admit it. Like our grumpy New Zealand driver pointed out, Americans are not a traveling people. Well, at least not an internationally traveling people. Though he claimed 90% don’t hold passports, the real number stands somewhere between 75-85%. At first I thought this was an embarrassment to our nation, but in our three months on the road, I’ve come to see things a little differently. While in New Zealand, I realized that though the country is lovely, it affords it citizens limited opportunities for education and employment. To hop the ocean to Australia or Europe or anywhere else, Kiwis need a passport. Same goes for Aussies, who for the most part are enthusiastic about everything and wouldn’t turn down a passport if it meant they had to miss out on doing something fun somewhere else. For Europeans, passports are a basic necessity. Brits have to leave the country just to get to their favorite beach and those on the continent can’t go more than a few hours in a car or on a train without crossing a border. In the US, we have seemingly limitless educational and professional opportunities within our own borders. We can drive from one ocean to another without leaving the country and have thousands of miles of spectacular and varied terrain to explore in between. Until January 23 of next year, we could even travel to the Caribbean, Canada, and Mexico without a passport. With an entire continent at our disposal, why would we spend $95 and a day in line at the post office to get one unless we really needed it?

While I would love for each and every American to be filled with a spirit of discovery and get a chance to explore the world, I know many are content to stay at home and enjoy what they have…and that’s ok. Most of us have everything we’ll ever need to be happy and find meaning in our lives. I should qualify this, however, by saying that those who stay stateside have a duty to seek to understand the world beyond US borders, even from the relative comforts of home. We would be foolish to think that our future is not inextricably linked with the countries that provide our fuel, manufacture our electronics, and finance much of our debt. What’s clear from being out here is that our position on the world stage is tenuous and our power waning. Where we go from here may largely depend on the American public more than its leaders. So for now, I’m going to do my part by proudly proclaiming myself an American wherever I go. I don’t think I’ll get shot, I might end up paying a little more, but at least in the lingo of my boys I’ll “represent.” Hopefully I won’t prove too much of an embarrassment.

Technorati Tags: Family Travel, Passports, Patriotism, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, Vietnam

I am writing and posting this short note from a high-speed connection on an airplane somewhere near Yap island in the pacific. After a month and a half of scrambling to find broadband throughout New Zealand and Australia, we have high hopes for a more connected Asia. We hope Boeing’s providing this free in-flight service for the moment is an omen that our Asian experience will be replete with bandwidth.

Keeping our fingers crossed and our kids asleep.

No our only problem is battery life on the laptops.

Technorati Tags: Family Travel, Internet, Broadband, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW

In one year’s time we are circling the globe. In this short period we will visit many of the world’s countries, meet many of her people, learn many of her lessons, and taste her bounty, both literally and figuratively. At least those were my thoughts before we left. After two countries the picture is coming more into focus. Even from our English-speaking, antipodean cocoon we are seeing that things are different than we expected. 6 “ahas” from our first 5 weeks: 1. If you travel with 1/3 of your party in the 6 and under age group you need to take it slow (ok, so we already knew that one) 2. The world is not built for parties of 6, minivans excluded. 3. It is hard to really get to know people when your kids are begging you to get them a drink, imitating a WWF match, or trying to shake free candy out of a vending machine. 4. Convenience and cost trump culinary pleasure. 5. Recess can go all day if you let it. 6. Even if your trip extended your whole lifetime, you could only be in one place at one time. In other words, no matter how far or how often we travel, we follow a thin line, leaving much of the world unseen, most people unmet, and many foods untasted.

When the final thought came to me, I was initially a little depressed about it. I thought about the struggles of getting us on this trip, the cost of it, the sacrifices we have made and will have to make because of it. “All those obstacles and the family isn’t going to see everything,” I fumed to myself. Just in Australia, we are 600 miles from the Great Barrier Reef, a short 3 day drive to Uluru (Ayers Rock), 2 days to Cairns, and 2 days to Kangaroo Island. However, we will not be seeing any of them. It would be impossible to see them all, but we could chose to push and see a few. It would mean the kids would have much less school time, we would remain in tourist mode and meet only other tourists, and we would wear ourselves out before we even get to the hard part–China is 15 days away, India 90. After feeling like I was letting the family down, I kicked myself as I realized how great it is that we each travel along a small line. It isn’t even that important where your line goes, just what you make of it. When the kids are older they can bring their lines back to see any tourist sites we might miss. On this trip we will trade in many of Australia’s great sites to soak in its vacation culture. We are staying in the quiet surfside town of Caloundra, a holiday favorite for folks from Brisbane, which lies just 1 hour to the south. The people here are friendly. We meet mostly Australians, mixed with the occasional Brit or Kiwi. For the most part they are working class Australians, some of whom are lucky enough to live here and others who are just on vacation here. We meet Steve Irwin’s mates, his surfing buddies, and even his barber. We smile at people and when they smile back we find out a little bit about them. I am a little saddened that the combined energy level of the 6 of us keeps people a little wary of us and at arms length. On our worst days, we are like a crazed under 5 foot basketball team enjoying their first road trip after their coaches have all gone to sleep. There isn’t much I can do about that, I am sure people at home think twice or thrice before allowing us in their homes or near their valuables. But the people we do meet have been very friendly with great life stories. I love learning what is important to them and trying to figure out how Aussies on the whole are similar or different than Americans. I know that only happens when you are traveling at a slower pace; if our thin lines were moving too fast between all the tourist sites we would never become friends with a pirate named Captain Rob, get to know a small beach town, or understand how the surf culture could be Australia’s greatest asset.

Technorati Tags: Australia, Caloundra, Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Travel

We woke at 3:20 am, an hour that gave us just enough time to rub our tired eyes, gather our fully loaded backpacks, and close up the campervan before our taxi arrived to take us to the Auckland Airport. Our flight was at 6:10 and we needed every second of the two hours we had at the airport to get ourselves on board. Our flight was with Aerolineas Argentinas, an exotic burst of Latin flavor on our thus far Maori/European spiced travels. I booked the flights online from Utah, paid for them by phone, and was assured that all we had to do was show up at the airport in typical e-ticket fashion. What ensued shouldn’t have surprised me.

“Thank you for your passports. Now I need your tickets.”

“Oh, we have e-tickets.”

“There are no e-tickets for this flight.”

“Um…ok. Did I mention we have e-tickets?”

An hour later a somewhat fussy, definitely fancy airline employee emerged with paper tickets and no apologies. I might have wondered if I had made some mistake if it hadn’t been for the poor woman behind us. She had purchased tickets for the flight, also online, for some 20 odd family members, but the airline had somehow neglected to actually book them. They promised her a refund, but that did little to pacify her. How, after all, was she to get all these people, at least 2/3 of whom were inexplicably checking at least one, if not eight, oversized comforters, home? The rather unsympathetic airline man apologized but told her there was little he could do. They could fit 2 of her party on the plane, but the rest would have to wait until the following week. What? What universe are we operating in? I think we were lucky to emerge unscathed.

Four hours later we were in the land of Oz, Sydney to be precise. Six hours later we were barreling toward the Opera House in a rental car, a sleek, silver Toyota Tarago, which we call a minivan but Australians call a “people mover.” We had planned on staying at one of the Starwood Hotels in Sydney for 5 days of sitting still, working on schoolwork, and writing about New Zealand, but circumstance/destiny, our chosen companion on this trip, intervened. Hotels were sold out, rooms were pricey, and there really wasn’t that much that we wanted to do in the city with the little ones. We took the ferry to Manly and played on the beach until, in typical Australian fashion, a dangerous creature spoiled our fun. As the kids dabbled in the surf, the voice of a jovial lifeguard voice came over the loudspeaker and announced that unless swimmers had an exceptionally high tolerance for pain, they should leave the water in deference to the bluebottle jellyfish that were drifting into the bay.

We shuttled back to Sydney oohing and aaahing at the spectacular views from the ferry and sprinted to the Opera House, which Dax, McKane, and I toured. Tom and I spent quality time and money at Bennelong, the Opera House’s resident 4-star restaurant last summer, so he was willing to herd the small ones outside during our peaceful hour of fascinating architectural exploration.

My mind sated with dreamy visions of rich, narrow-planked eucalyptus walls and comfy seats of lush magenta wool, I hopped into the People Mover with the posse to begin the short trek to the Blue Mountains. Next time we’ll catch an opera I thought to myself. Next time.

Technorati Tags: Australia, Family travel, Manly Beach, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Sydney Opera House

Our family struggles with punctuality. Individually, any one of us can be on time to anything, but put us all together and 15 minutes late seems to be the best we can muster. Perhaps we dawdle because we assume that someone else in the group is taking longer or moving slower than we are. Perhaps we just aren’t eager to hop in the car together. It’s hard to know exactly why we can’t achieve timeliness. A few weeks ago, I was feeling pretty proud that all four kids and I were going to be in the car and ready to make the 30 second drive to church from grandma’s house three minutes EARLY. Bells were ringing, angels were singing, I think I felt the earth move. Three of four were loaded and one was fully clad and exiting the building when not three feet from the door he made a detour—-the bathroom. Uh oh. Now this particular child is one of the younger in our family and has not yet mastered his bodily functions sufficiently to schedule them around planned activities. “How long do you think you’re going to be in there?” I inquired, since the car was running and people were waiting. “I don’t know,” echoed a little voice faintly from behind the door. Twenty minutes later he emerged with a grin on his face and feeling much better. We were only 25 minutes late to church that day.

What I realized at that moment was that no matter how much we schedule on this trip, there will always be a chance that circumstances will preclude us from fulfilling our plans. Upset stomachs, lack of clean clothes, misplaced cameras, and bad moods are just a few of the potential spoilers out there. Yesterday he of the ill-timed bowels simply did not want to be upright at the designated hour and was deposited in the car against his will, causing yet another lengthy church delay. This child seems to specialize in dragging his feet (and forgetting his shoes), but the remaining five of us are equally inclined to cause disruptions to a schedule.

As if we needed reminding of this fact, I donated the past two weeks of my life to some nasty, untreatable bacterial/viral hybrid lung and throat ailment while Tom managed to throw out his back lifting weights in our basement. I struggled to remain functional during my illness, but Tom ended up supine and completely looped for two days. Friends brought him meals and muscle relaxers and our imaginations carried us to places we didn’t want to go: would we have to stay home, postpone our departure, go through another difficult surgery and long recovery? Should I return to Georgia to feed him, console him, and drive him to appointments and possibly work? I videoconferenced with him and could see the state of the house from the computer screen. If he couldn’t walk, how could he clean up? Assuming he improved enough to travel to Utah, what kind of debris was he going to leave behind in his temporarily handicapped wake? After a long weekend of suffering, a friend took him to the doctor last Monday morning. After examining his X-rays, he made the diagnosis: lower back sprain. The treatment: no surgery, just lots of pain killers and avoidance of extended periods of sitting. That’s going to work well for our upcoming 35 hour series of flights from Salt Lake to New Zealand!

Rather than shaking me, our recent experiences have actually reinforced my philosophy that despite my Type A, control freak personality, I must resist the urge to overplan. We have plane tickets, yes, but with the exception of one flight I booked two days ago (New Zealand to Australia), everything thus far is completely changeable and refundable. If someone get sick, sprains an ankle, or we fall in love with a particular locale, we stay put. If we all get bored, can’t find any good restaurants, or learn about a new place we simply must see, we move on. Though we still won’t be able to control the length of bathroom breaks, if we operate on a premise of flexibility and resist the urge to set an adult-paced schedule, we should wend our way around the world successfully and without any undue, self-imposed stress.

Just remember, if you’re meeting us somewhere along the way, it might not hurt to be twenty minutes late.

Technorati Tags: Planning, Lower back sprains, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Travel

For the past 10 years, I have taken the kids to Utah for summer vacation. We make our annual exodus to “Camp Grandma” for a number of reasons. The first is that after 10 months of managing schoolwork, lessons, activities, and social calendars for four children, some part of me…a big part…craves a break. The second is that the state is full of adoring relatives who love my kids and are happy to share their talents, skills, and affection with them. The chief among these doting family members is Tom’s mom, Lorelie, who serves as activities director and is tireless in her efforts to get my kids off their butts and out of the house. With no more than a moment’s notice she can throw together a field trip, art project, or spelunking expedition complete with snacks and a craft.

One of last week’s outings was a visit to Salt Lake City’s Hogle Zoo. The zoo is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary and has staged an exhibit to herald this significant accomplishment. We didn’t venture into the auditorium where the exhibit was housed because we doubted it would have much to engage the 3-year-olds’ attention. I checked out the summary online and it turns out the highlight was something we’ve already seen….the stuffed carcass of Shasta the Liger (see It’s Pretty Much Kieran’s Favorite Animal) who normally lives at BYU’s Bean Museum. The other intriguing piece of information I gleaned from the website was that one of the Hogle’s former directors perished from a puff adder bite. Ouch! The hazards of zookeeping!

What the exhibit failed to feature and what the Hogle is more commonly known for is its checkered past with animal mortality. As it turns out, caring for exotic beasts is not as simple as one might think. If I can kill a goldfish which requires nothing more than a few flakes of food and a clean bowl by looking at it, how easy is it to kill an elephant which requires a carefully maintained space, a complex, nutritionally balanced diet, and a strict skin care regime? The Hogle learned that simply letting a drugged pachyderm lie down for too long can prove too much for its fragile system. (That one wasn’t really the Hogle’s fault.) Within the past decade, wolves, chimpanzees, a gorilla, and a cheetah have all escaped, and giraffes, a tiger cub, a polar bear, and other elephants have all suffered questionable demises. Despite these setbacks, the small menagerie is working hard to overcome the spectre of death that clouds its new $7 million gate.

With the front entrance and parking lot swamped with visitors, we entered through the apparently secret back gate. Asher, McKane and I met up with the rest of the group at the Cat Wok Cafe, where the menu boasted tasty Asian delicacies such as grilled sweet and sour chicken, tofu with plum sauce, and heaping bowls of sticky rice. Sticky rice? I love sticky rice. I asked the teenaged clerk, “Is it really sticky rice?” “Yes,” he answered and looked at me like I was from another planet. “Does it come wrapped in a banana leaf?” “No,” and again the look. “But it’s really sticky rice?” “Yeah.” Thirty seconds later he handed me a black styrofoam bowl filled with Minute Rice, not two grains of which were stuck together. I pointedly declined his bland, pseudo-Asian fare and contented myself with a $2 pretzel instead.

The incident didn’t bode well, but we soldiered on, open to all the Hogle had to offer. Blissfully unaware of the establishment’s shady past, the kids had a blast searching for all the animals grandma included on their take-along worksheet. They found giraffes, zebras, wolves, bears and peccaries (which were my favorite). We rode the train, ate $1 snowcones, posed in front of the massive metal elephant, and ambled through the butterfly garden. A good time was had by all. There were no lines, the distances between venues were small, and the heat was bearable. All in all, the trip to the Hogle proved a worthy endeavor. I guess I’ll just have to wait until I get to Thailand for some good sticky rice.

This little guy was awake, but can you tell they’re a little nervous?

Technorati Tags: Hogle Zoo, Animals, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Utah

As we have conducted research for this trip, we have discovered a virtual community of kindred spirits. Though more unusual for Americans than Europeans or Australians, round the world treks are not uncommon. For all those who think we are crazy or entering uncharted territory, we offer the following six sites as corroboration and inspiration:

1. Me-go.net - Young Megan Kearney is currently two months into her second RTW journey. The word intrepid comes to mind as this lone traveler tackles strange and challenging destinations such as Mongolia and Kryzgstan. She includes terrific photography, detailed travel journals, and an account of her motives for wandering the globe. Her trademark is cartwheeling everywhere she goes, though she claims these photos are tough to capture.

2. Tripconnect - A perfect resource for those with friends who travel. As with linkedin, users build out a network of friends with whom they share travel tips, reviews, and advice. Since sending out a message last week, I’ve received a series of thoughtful, pointed responses catered specifically to our destinations. I now know all the best places to park our campervan on the North Island of New Zealand, the coolest family-friendly safari spots in South Africa, and the most alluring hot springs in Costa Rica.

3. Idealist.org - A resource-rich site for people seeking professional or volunteer opportunities to serve in countries around the world. I’m still trawling the site trying to decide which places besides India we might try to pitch in. A recent story highlights the growing trend of service-oriented vacations, or “voluntourism.”

4. Worldhum - An ever-expanding collection of travel writing and philosophy that highlights the shrinking nature of our planet. The country and topic specific blogs are particularly handy. While tripconnect will help us with details, Worldhum provides literary inspiration. Check out their list of Top 30 Travel Books and the column by Rolf Potts, one of our favorite travel writers and author of Vagabonding.

5. Grooms Globe Trek - Wharton-educated photographers who just returned from their own year off with the kids. They share many of our reasons for wanting to take off and have taken away from their trip many of the same things we hope to take away from ours. They were so moved by their experience in Africa that they’ve created a book of portraits from their travels which they are selling to benefit African charities. According to their final post of just a few days ago, they feel much closer as a family and now see life at home with new eyes. Kudos to them for being an example to us!

6. Where the hell is Matt? - Matt first quit his job and traveled around the world in 2003. The homemade “dancing” video he posted on YouTube was so successful that Stride gum sponsored him to go around the world again and film himself dancing in even more exotic locales. I can’t stop watching his video. And who knows, maybe some generous sponsor will catch the Andrus fever and send us traveling again and again and again… (For more on Matt or to watch his video, see my previous post, That’s Definitely Not Crumping.)

Of course, the presumption here is that sixintheworld.com is your favorite travel-related site and will continue to be for at least the next year. If it isn’t, how ’bout you just pretend. No one will know the difference.

Technorati Tags: Voluntourism, Travel blogs, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, Travel

It has been a week since the 30 hour haul across the country. I am still recovering and haven’t had much time to write or even think about writing. Anne is doing a great job of documenting the first leg of the trip, but I want to give a big thanks out to Sammy Hagar, because if we had to cross the country at 55 mph, we would still be driving. I would also like to point out that 75 is the new 55. Is there any chance that in the next 12 months another politically active rocker, perhaps Zack de la Rocha might decide to take on the establishment and get 75 raised to 85 or as the great state of Montana attempted, unlimited? I hope so.

Technorati Tags: Driving, Humor, Sammy Hagar, Speed Limit