One week to go...

With one week to go before my departure on my latest journey, I will take the time to reflect on my pre-departure thoughts:

I am in a difficult transitional phase in my life. I have just graduated from the University of Washington and it seems like every week I say goodbye to a close friend whose friendship is not guaranteed to remain close. Michelle left at the end of May for grad school in Notre Dame which keeps her busy all summer and then leaves her to teach in Florida the rest of the year. Seema has begun her career working for Accenture Consulting in San Francisco. Dave is finishing his education at Montana State University and Patrick has returned to his side of Washington state to fight forest fires over the summer. Then soon my roommate and one of my closest friends, Danielle, will move home to San Francisco in search of a job.

Then there is of course those who, like me, are leaving or have already left the country to test their wits abroad. As I write, Nate is leaving Greece for Eastern Europe, Matt toils in Ghana, Lauren is busy learning and volunteering in Guatemala, Hala awaits my arrival having just returned to London from India, Josh is visiting family before heading down to Peru, and Brian enjoys his time before reporting to the Peace Corps for his tour in Cameroon.

Although staying in touch with people long term is difficult given the diversity of our life goals and immediate plans, it is something worth fighting for and hopefully I will see everyone in good health in the not too distant future, and maybe will even meet up with others on a trip sometime soon. I'd also like to say that I feel very fortunate to associate myself with such a group of world travelers, and wish them all an adventurous journey abroad and a safe return home.

One week to go. I have begun to pack up my belongings but it still doesn't feel like I am leaving. Last year I didn't realize the weight of my undertaking until I was on the plane, flying alone to Beijing. "I'm going to China," I remembering thinking. "What the HELL am I doing going to China?"

I think back on the lessons that I have learned since that first day of my trip last year, and I realize how much I have grown as a traveler, a person and a man. I expect a similar reflection taken next year to yield similar results stemming from my forthcoming trip. The learning process is so steep when one is forced to adapt to survive. An intrapersonal survival of the fittest.

I read about travel in a lot of resources and since I constantly hear about places I am going or want to go, I realize that some novelty is lost with the idea that the trip I await to begin has already been completed by thousands of my predeccesors and that many places I yearn to visit and explore are alreay overrun by white tourists. I recognize this but move on past it and try to stay as original as possible. To most people I meet before I leave, however, novelty is not lost. I tell people at my jobs that I am traveling and predictably they ask to where. Of course it takes a minute or two to explain the complexities of my hodge podge trip.

"Oh well I am going to the Isle of Man- thats an island between Ireland and England-, a friend of mine lives there and we are going to backpack around it for a week, then I'm going to Egypt for a month, I have a close friend who is Egyptian and she have family there and so we will stay with her family and travel around, then I'll meed my dad in Nepal for a month of trekking to Mt. Everest, then I'll cross the border into India where I was last year for 3 months and will volunteer there, teaching English and other projects, then in January I will meet my girlfriend in Bangkok and we will travel through Southeast Asia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos."

I've had to rattle this speech off dozens of times in the last couple months. And usually I either get to "then I'm going to Egypt..." and people lose interest, or harp in on that and make a comment about their own desires to visit the sands of Egypt. Learning my lesson, I sometimes shorten the rant to include only country names, but this still more often then not falls on deaf ears.


I have found that traveling is entirely an internal endeavor and any attempt at trancedence to a point where it can be shared with someone ignorant of travel or of the places in question, only works to cheapen the event by trivializing that which is in the traveler's eyes an infinite experience. Like one's loss of interest during a friend's detailed relation of a dream, a travel story is always incomparably more important to the one doing the telling.

In light of this I have created this blog not to relate the stories of my adventures in hopes of appreciation by the reader, but for a couple other reasons. First, simply, some people like to know where and in what frame of mind I am and consistent update of this site affords them comfort that I am sane and healthy. Second, I see an upkeep of a blog as a first step in something larger in the future which truthfully I hope will be unique and marketable enough that I can make a living by living my dream. Lastly, I feel it is my duty to promote travel to those who feel it is beyond their reach.

Every day I speak to someone about my trip and they offer their envy to me as if that were why I was going. On the contrary, I do not take pleasure in hearing that others wish they could do what I do but instead find amazing delight in learning that they themselves are taking their own journey soon, no matter how limited. I have found so much freedom and contentment in wandering, exploring and learning about other places that I can't stress enough how important it is to people who are considering a trip of their own. If I could give advice to every incoming freshman to the UW each year, it would be, "This is college, not the last judgment, oh, and study abroad. Twice." I can think of dozens of times I have met an underclassmen and wantonly told them that the NEEDED to study abroad, and to do it early and often.

No matter what I preach, extended trips such as my own are difficult to plan, save for, and carry out. Most would tell you that to do so requires time, money, and more than a little ambition. But I feel there are a separate three requirements that stand true to any longterm personal endeavor: passion, priority and sacrifice.

No one will dedicate three months, much less three years to a trip if they are not passionately involved. Luckily for most, this is the easiest of the three requirments, its as easy as falling in love. And just like being in love, its what comes after that is difficult.

I'll tell you that the biggest difference between me and someone who has always dreamed of a overland trip from Turkey to India but has never done so, is our biggest priority. Every day we make decisions based on an overreaching number one priority that shapes how we view the world. Someone might be driven to one day become a senator or a doctor or just to have children, and their decisions they make, including their education, friends, jobs, careers, and every financial decision is based on their aspirations. Every decision I make is based on the fact that I travel. Not that I want to travel, or would like to travel, but I do travel. Ask me to give a basis of reason for any thing I do and it will come down to that one point. For example, why do I work so much. That one is easy, because I travel. But why do I eay frozen pizza and pb&J sandwiches almost exclusively? Because I save money to travel. Because I don't have a lot of time or money to cook because I work so much because I travel. And so on.

This brings me to the last requirment. After a passion is identified and made a priority above all else, sacrificing those things that now seem less important becomes easy. I give up time to work, money for toys to lodging, food and airfare abroad. I dont make committments I can't fulfill given the fact that I travel over half the year. I lose contact with friends, I leave my teeth uncleaned by a professional, and my gastrointestinal system in a constant state of shock. Because I travel.

I don't really have a way to conclude my ramblings on traveling one week before I set out, so I will close with an appeal to all those reading. Have you ever wanted to take an African Safari? Sail a boat in the Mediterranean? Walk along the Great Wall? These things are less than a commitment of time and money, both of which are of short supply to all and shouldn't be wasted, but are more a set of choices than you may think. It is never to late for an adventure.