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It’s always a sunny day when you arrive in Frankfurt. You might think this is impossible, but Frankfurt is like Seattle: apparently it rains all the time, but never on your first day. (It helps to arrive in the summer months.) I’ve been here on a dozen stopovers, nearly half of them last year when…
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Once the bags are packed, a lot of decisions have already been made. The night before, you had to think through what to pack and what to leave behind. The morning of departure, you check again and again for the essentials: passport, wallet, journal, tickets, bus fare. Your itinerary, chosen from among countless options, is at least partially settled by now. You're going to _____, and as far as you're concerned, all of _____ is waiting for you. The road ahead may not be easy, but you have already overcome one big challenge as you carry those bags out the door.
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After your big adventure, you're looking forward to the homecoming. The adventure was fun and challenging, but toward the end you're ready for something familiar. You find yourself daydreaming of friends, family, and the comforts of home. Then the big day finally arrives, when you say farewell to _____, your base of foreign surroundings for some time.When you return, people are happy to see you, and you're happy to see them ...
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If you'd like to be a traveler, you could learn about history and geography, focusing on what is similar and what is different on this strange, beautiful planet. You could learn languages, in an attempt to ingratiate yourself and show respect for the culture you've dropped in on as an outsider. You could learn about photography or videography, and find a way to document your memories for others to enjoy from afar. All these things are fine and useful pursuits. But as you move from aspiring vagabond to global explorer, here are a few suggestions that might help even more.
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Thanks so much to everyone out there who was a part of the 63-city Unconventional Book Tour, which just wrapped up in beautiful Vancouver last weekend. We're working on a bigger project to document the whole experience for everyone, but for now I just wanted to express my gratefulness.
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By the time I got to the check-in counter at PDX airport this morning, I knew I'd go through with the plan. PDX-DEN-FRA to start with... but then what? I wasn't sure.
“Will you be traveling on from Frankfurt?” the United agent asked.
This is a polite way of saying, “When will you be leaving the European Union?” – to ensure I don't decide to take up residence in Germany.
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Back home in Portland, I went to my first yoga class in several weeks and immediately noticed that something was different. This class is kicking my ass! I thought—but then I looked around, and everyone else was doing just fine. The same thing happened during my 40-minute run the night before: 20 minutes in, I was ready to give up.
My most recent epic journey was fairly intense. Among other challenges, I slept in a different bed every night for 10 nights in a row. I hadn't planned it that way—I was in Cyprus for three nights, but I changed rooms one night and hotels the other night. Because of the complex itinerary, I had a lot of transit stops—one night in Munich, one in Miami, one in Heathrow, and so on. Living out of a suitcase can work for a while, but it does wear you down over time.
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What if we could come to the end of our lives with true fulfillment, looking back on a rich history of experiences, relationships, and accomplishments?
Either metaphorically or literally, we could point to a list of steadily-pursued dreams that turned into accomplished goals as we moved through different phases of life.
The sad alternative, of course, is to come to the end of life unfulfilled – something best phrased in this intense quote from Thoreau I’ve been pondering a lot recently:
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with their song still in them.Read More
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In the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh, I’m having lunch with a couple of West African gangsters. To be precise, I’m eating a cheese sandwich while they are chain-smoking and drinking espresso.
I started off sitting at another table, but then we said hello to each other and I moved over. Because I lived in their region for so long, I always enjoy talking with West Africans whenever I meet up with them while traveling. The encounter with the guys at the Sheraton in Bangladesh, however, is a bit unusual.
They are very friendly. We talk about Obama, about Bangladesh, and so on. I ask them how long they are staying in Dhaka, and they say “We’re not sure.” I ask if they are staying “here,” meaning the Sheraton, and they say, “We’re not staying here, but we keep a room here.”
Whenever they’re not traveling, one of them tells me, they live in Brazil or Columbia. They work throughout Latin America, Africa, and Asia, but never in the U.S. or Europe.
Hmmmm ...
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In my trips around the world, I’ve been to a lot of conventional places and a lot of off-the-grid places. Among other things, these experiences have led me discover that some of the best destinations for travelers are not always “undiscovered.”
Many places have a well-deserved reputation for being cool, and some other places you’ve never heard of maintain that status for a good reason. Still other places have gained undeserved reputations for being somewhere you “must’ visit before you die – but whenever I’ve gone there, I’ve felt a bit disappointed. I’ll tell you about 9 of those here, but… Read More