Rolf Potts's Blog, page 133

For those of you who have been following the news, you might get the feeling that something is not quite right here in the Oceanic part of the world, and I tell you: those of us who live here think so too.  Mother Nature is smiting us down with a vengeance; in the past month and a half, there've been dramatic flooding in Queensland, Cyclone Yasi threatening to demolish Cairns, a tornado in northern West Australia, bushfires in Perth (that left one of my friends with a t-shirt, bathing shorts, flip-flops, credit card, and cellphone to his name), earthquake in Christchurch, and now the most recent earthquake in Japan with accompanying tsunami.  We even had a plague of locusts.

Obviously there are many, many websites telling you how to help the disaster victims (donate to Shelterbox, an Australian first-response provider), but I thought I'd just spend a bit of time going over some basic reactions to keep in mind if you're in imminent danger here in the apparent new disaster capital of the world.

Bushfires

If the police tell you to get out, GET OUT.  Don't stay behind to wet down your house.  If you're trapped in the middle of bushfires, get in or near a pool of water if you can. Don't try to outrun them on foot; you probably won't make it.
Wet blankets, put them over your head and stay under them.  Bushfires burn fast but are very very hot.
If you have to leave pets behind, unchain them and leave plenty of water nearby.  Obviously, best case scenario is you can get them in the car with you.
Breathing particulates can be very dangerous — as can exploding gum trees.  The eucalyptus oil in the trees can boil and make them burn like torches or, as mentioned, explode.

Earthquake

Get out of and away from tall buildings if you possibly can.  Get into doorways or other potential bracing areas, if you can't get out of the building.  A lady in Christchurch was saved by her desk.
There will be aftershocks, and they can happen for quite some time after the earthquake.  Be aware that they may trigger unpleasant flashbacks as well as potentially causing previously damaged buildings to shift and fall.
If you see cracks or other damage to roads or bridges, get away from them — don't pretend to be in action movies and jump over or near them.  They can shift unpredictably, and also may go down very deeply.
If someone is trapped under rubble, ensure the area is secure before attempting to help them.  You can't help anyone if you get trapped too.

Flooding

Exactly the opposite of an earthquake — get to as high ground as possible and stay there.  Try to bring food and water with you, as floodwaters might not recede for awhile.  Being pets.
STAY OUT of the floodwaters outside.  Aside from having unpredictable currents that can sweep you away, they may have surges of more water (like flash floods), which can knock you off your feet.  Also, rubbish, medical biohazard containers, cemeteries, and all other unpleasant things have also been engulfed by water.  The water will be very toxic.  DO NOT drink it or swim in it if you can possibly avoid it.  Even if you don't think you're going to get washed away.  It's totally gross.
If water engulfs your car, roll the windows down — water pressure on the outside of windows makes it difficult to roll them down, so opening windows, while counter-intuitive, will actually allow you to get out of the vehicle.  If you're getting washed away in your car and are not in immediate danger of drowning, it may be safer to stay in the car, as there can be very heavy dangerous objects in the water with you (like dumpsters).

Tsunamis

Move inland or to higher ground.  If you don't have time for this, go higher in a building or, as a last resort, climb a tree or post.
Save lives, not possessions.  This goes for all emergency situations.  If you see your belongings getting washed away, let them go.
If you find yourself engulfed, search for something that floats and cling to it to save energy.
Remember that fresh water and food may have been contaminated by tsunami water, leaving you in immediate danger.  There may be dead bodies contaminating the area further.  If possible, and you have somewhere to go, leave the area as quickly as possible.  If you cannot leave, try to band up with other people and maximize your findability through groups such as Red Cross.

For all natural disasters, be aware that on the news, it looks like emergency responders are there right away…sometimes they aren't.  You may be left alone for quite some time, so the best response is to BE PREPARED.  Be aware of political, natural disaster, and other situations in whatever region you're in, and if danger seems imminent, keep your important belongings in an emergency kit including water and food.  Donate to life-saving charities.  Take care of others according to your ability.  We can get out of this much easier if we all do it together.

"Herodotus was aware of man's sedentary nature and realized that to get to know Others you must set off on a journey, go to them, and show a desire to meet them; so he kept traveling, visiting the Egyptians and the Scythians, the Persians and the Lydians, remembering everything he heard from them, as well as what he saw for himself. In short, he wanted to know them because he understood that to know ourselves we have to know Others, who act as the mirror in which we see ourselves reflected; he know that to understand ourselves better we have to understand others, to compare ourselves with them, to measure ourselves against stem. As a citizen of the world, he did not believe that we should isolate ourselves from Others, or slam the gates in their faces. Xenophobia, Herodotus implied, is a sickness of people who are scared, suffering an inferiority complex, terrified by the prospect of seeing themselves in the mirror of the culture of Others. And his entire book is a solid construction of mirrors in which we keep getting a better and clearer view of, above all, Greece and the Greeks."

–Ryszard Kapuściński, The Other (2008)

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine. Photo: Dennis Crowley / Flickr

On the surface, it can seem that vagabonders and entrepreneurs live in different worlds. Vagabonders are constantly going to new lands and learning new languages. Entrepreneurs are constantly working on new ideas and promoting their businesses.

This blog post by Peter Shankman got me thinking that the two are more similar in mindset: How to jailbreak your life so you can live the way you want. Shankman is best known as the founder of Help a Reporter Out (HARO), a service that connects journalists with expert sources. He is also deeply involved in doing marketing and public relations.

His "jailbreak" post was a rousing call to arms, as well as a kick in the butt for people to go for their goals. Shankman travels a lot, often to glamorous locales. Like many of us, he gets flack from friends and family who think he's lucky and just gallivanting around.

He lists every excuse for not living your dream, and takes a sledgehammer to each argument. Don't have the time, don't have the money? Think your job has to be tied to location? Shankman demolishes each one. Not to prove that his way is better, but that we can all start building the life we want.

Shankman is talking about starting your own business, but these are the same constraints that also hold people back from vagabonding. Both travelers and entrepreneurs are risk takers. Another trait they share is that they don't do it for one-upmanship. It's not about collecting stamps in a passport or stacking money in the bank. The driving force is to live life to the max.

One other major point is that the same technology that allows travelers to stay in contact, is the same technology that enables you to conduct business wherever you are. If there is a backpacker who has never used Skype, I haven't met them.

An interesting idea that wasn't covered was how travel could inspire your business ideas. Red Bull was supposedly based on a Thai energy drink called M-150. Music videos were popular in Europe long before the birth of MTV. Osamu Tezuka, a seminal figure in Japanese manga comics, said he loved the American Scrooge McDuck comics (see #1 on this list). In a nice cycle, Disney later imitated some of his artwork.

More recently, Apple's elegant products were heavily influenced by the work of German industrial designer Dieter Rams. New experiences and foreign influences can prime the imagination.

Are you a traveler who runs your own business? Have you spotted more similarities? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

While my personal wardrobe may lack variety in the color department, I always appreciate the use of bright hues everywhere else. On a recent trip to Nicaragua, I couldn't stop smiling at the tropical colors on buildings, in clothing, on pottery and in fruit juices.

The vividly painted adobe walls of the colonial city of Granada are arranged in brave combinations of red and green, orange and blue, pink and purple—combos that I believe my grandmother would have only allowed when I was a child. But the shocking blends lured me closer. I wanted to be part of the hues, even though I was in drab black and white. Some urban dwellers may be proud of their all-black wardrobe, but in Granada, it's best to dive in and play with the Crayola colors.

Another town, San Juan del Sur, employed bright shades not only on buildings, but also on the local buses rumbling through on their routes. Emblazoned with names of destinations as well as paintings of birds or trucker-style mudflap girls—one bus may include every citrus hue in its color palate. Add some chrome, and you've got a stylin' ride.

I was so inspired by color in Nicaragua that I purchased a bright pink bag before I left. Its use will remind me that color is never overrated. And I'll bring it on my next trip to the land of poets and volcanoes to brighten up my wardrobe.

I was a guest of the Instituto Nicaragüense de Turismo during my time in Nicaragua.

Last year, when my travel plans were thwarted by ludicrously high ticket prices, I let my dreams of exploring Bali fall to the wayside in favor of cheaper options. This year, however, I was prepared. I began scouting tickets as early as December of last year, and I'm happy to say my trip is booked for hundreds of dollars cheaper than the going price the previous year.

I've spent a whole year imagining the beautiful beaches on Bali and reading about the rich Indonesian culture. As a vagabonder, it feels a bit ridiculous to have only the meager vacation time allotted from my work to explore Bali. I catch myself in fancies, musing about teaching options in Indonesia – anything that would grant me a significant time in the country.

This is when I came upon the Darmasiswa Scholarship Program. The program's main purpose is to "to promote and increase the interest in the language and culture of Indonesia among the youth of other countries." The 6 month or year-long scholarships do not result in a degree or license of any kind, but simply provide scholarship recipients with the chance to get acquainted with the rich arts traditions in Indonesia or study the local language. Applicants can choose their study base from a list of Universities across Indonesia. Some universities may request that you teach a meager 5-10 hours of English per week while studying at their institution.

Scholarship guidelines are simple. You must be 35 years of age or younger with a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. The largest criteria for selection is a true passion in a related arts field that you wish to enrich through your studies in Indonesia. This is a great opportunity to learn and experience the beauty of Indonesia without the stress of a typical degree program.

(image credit: baliwww.com)

Sherry Ott

http://www.ottsworld.com

Age: 41

Hometown: Peoria, IL

Quote: "Trust that everything will work out. You don't have to have all of the answers."



How did you find out about Vagabonding, and how did you find it useful before and during the trip? I had heard of the book before, but quite frankly, I have never read it! However I started reading the website during my travels and utilized it for travel information and inspiration to keep going!

How long were you on the road? I've been on the road for 4 1/2 years now. However my initial career break trip was for 16 months starting in 2006. It changed my life, and I decided to go back to America, sell everything I had and go back on the road. It's a nomadic, uncertain life; but I love the freedom.

Where all did you go? On my initial career break I went to 23 countries – some of the highlights were Kenya, Tanzania, Bali, New Zealand, Laos, Borneo, Vietnam, India, Morocco, Croatia, Greece, Japan, and China. Then I lived in Vietnam for a year and used it as a homebase to go to Mongolia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Nepal. Most recently I've been traveling through Jordan, Lebanon, and now currently in Sri Lanka.

What was your job or source of travel funding for this journey? I had been working in Corporate Business/Information Technology jobs for 14 years. However I really started saving for the trip 3 years prior to leaving. I set aside and saved my annual bonuses and used that to travel. Once I reached a certain amount in my bank account, I came home and that's when I decided to get my ESL certification and go back out on the road and work and travel. Now I fund my travel lifestyle mainly through travel blogging and travel photography.

Did you work or volunteer on the road? Yes I volunteered during my career break in India for a month teaching English, computers, and interviewing skills. I have also since volunteered in remote Nepal villages for a few weeks at a time.

Of all the places you visited, which was your favorite? It's impossible to pick a favorite! I can give you a top 5 though…Vietnam, India, Nepal, Morocco, Mongolia

Was there a place that was your least favorite, or most disappointing, or most challenging? Absolutely – Egypt. It was definitely challenging – and that was back in 2007. I'm not a huge 'temples' person – but I did enjoy the felucca on the Nile and the Sinai area.

Did any of your pre-trip worries or concerns come true? Yes – I was worried that I may never want to come back and that did come true! Other than that, most of my worries about lodging, safety, loneliness, lack of money never came true. Once I got on the road, I adapted my lifestyle and attitude and quite frankly I was never lonely on the road. As a solo traveler you always meet people everywhere you go.

Did you run into any problems or obstacles that you hadn't anticipated? I had been initially subletting my apartment back home in NYC, and when I wanted to extend my travels for a few more months I had to find new renters while I was halfway around the world. Luckily I had a good friend back home helping me with all of the screening and paperwork.

Which travel gear proved most useful? My sleep sheet, headlamp, air freshener balls for my pack, luggage locks, ipod, first aid kit, and my keene sandals.

Least useful? My global sim card. Once I discovered Skype there was no real need to have a cell phone.

What are the rewards of the vagabonding lifestyle? Without a doubt you increase your ability to deal with uncertainty. You become more flexible and patient. Plus in a strange way I think you become a better communicator. I only speak English – so I have to constantly read people's body language and determine how to communicate with people. You think on your feet and are challenged each and every day. I personally think these are all super marketable skills for when you want to return to the workforce. I am more confident in my ability to survive. The added benefit I didn't anticipate is that you end up with friends all over the world!

What are the challenges and sacrifices of the vagabonding lifestyle? Even though you meet people all the time, you can never really go very deep with them. The relationships are quick and you are constantly having to leave people and may never know when you will see them again. It feels like a revolving door at times. There's no real stability, and that can be difficult at times. I also always found it hard to be away from home for the holidays.

What lessons did you learn on the road? I learned to eat anything put in front of me. I learned that my body is stronger than I thought and that constant cleanliness and bacteria killing sanitizers are overkill.

How did your personal definition of "vagabonding" develop over the course of the trip? I think for me it it started as a temporary thing – an adventure with a beginning and end. However now the term vagabonding is my lifestyle. I don't know when and if it will end.

If there was one thing you could have told yourself before the trip, what would it be? Trust that everything will work out. You don't have to have all of the answers. Answers you didn't even know were possible will appear.

Any advice or tips for someone hoping to embark on a similar adventure? Surround yourself by supportive people who are board with your adventure. If your family or friends don't understand, then find people who will and spend a little time with them. They will give you the inspiration and drive to keep going when the planning gets difficult or you start to worry about what you are going to embark upon. When I started there wasn't much access to other people like me. Now with Facebook, blogs, Twitter and websites like Vagabonding and Briefcase to Backpack – you can met all kinds of people who are preparing for similar trips. You can find support now!

When and where do you think you'll take your next long-term journey? My next BIG adventure this year is the Mongol Rally. Myself and 3 other travel bloggers will be driving an ambulance from London to Mongolia this summer for charity. This adventure even has me a bit nervous! But it will be epic.

Twitter: ottsworld
Website: www.ottsworld.com

Are you a Vagabonding reader planning, in the middle of, or returning from a journey? Would you like your travel blog or website to be featured on Vagabonding Case Studies? If so, drop us a line at [email protected] and tell us a little about yourself.

First, a caveat, you are about to read a review of book about "Lady Adventurers," How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt written by a man, Mick Conefrey, reviewed by a man, me. That said, Conefrey's book is not just a handbook for the independent, female explorer, but a great look at the history of female explorers.

Unlike say, Eat, Pray, Love which makes me want to stab a fork in my eye every time I see the cover, How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt is not a collection of cliches about female travelers wrapped up in a lame little love story. In fact, How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt is great look at history's real female adventures, most of whom have been sidelined and ignored by most history books.

How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt does mention a few of the more well-known female travelers — like Isabella Byrd, Freya Stark and Amelia Earhart — but the main focus is on women you've probably never heard of, but should have.

Some of the accomplishments by women in Conefrey's book include being the first to summit Huascaran (the highest point in Peru), the first westerner to visit a Ottoman harem and the first woman to sail across the Atlantic alone.

But beyond notes in record books, the overwhelming portrait of women as adventures that emerges from Conefrey's collection of stories is that women seem more deeply engaged with the places they visited than men of the similar times. Perhaps that's a bias born out of what women chose to record of their journeys versus their male counterparts, but it's there nonetheless. With the exception of Mark Twain, if you really want to learn about what travel was like in the 19th century, read accounts by women.

I enjoyed How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. One part history and one part adventure story, How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt rarely disappoints. Perhaps my favorite line comes from Mary Hall, a 19th century self-styled "World tourist," who said, "take every precaution and abandon all fear." You'd be hard pressed to find better travel advice in any era.

How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt will be available March 15, 2011. You can pre-order a copy on Amazon today.

I just saw the movie "127 Hours", which is less about travel than standing still — it's about outdoorsman Aron Ralston's 5-day stint in a Utah canyon, trapped by a rock which fell and pinned his arm against the wall.  Yep, he's the guy that had to cut his own hand off with a pocket knife.  I'd read his memoir, called "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," several years ago, and mostly remember alternately cringing at the vivid description of the amputation, and sighing at the fantastic descriptions of the American southwest landscape.

I've always had a soft spot for the American southwest — the rolling hills and sagebrush and desert colors pop up in books I love to read, like Barbara Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees" (another book about travel, actually, and one of the best), and I find myself savouring descriptions of it as a place I love to go, although I've been there more often in words than reality.

Sometimes you can visit a place more effectively in words that on foot, though, and I did a little looking around for the kind of things I like to read, and found this: Matador's list of the 50 most inspiring travel quotes.  Read, and go, whether in your car or in your mind.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." – Mark Twain

"But if the one definable feature of travel is that it has been a constant in human history, an irresistible lure to ambition or imagination, it has never achieved a reliable standing in literature. There has, in fact, always attached to it a hint of the deceptive or the deluding. 'There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life': the warning is as old as Homer, if its opposite — 'Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased' — is as old as the Old Testament. Seneca's 'Every change of scene is a delight,' Hesiod's 'New air gives new life,' are reproved by Talmudic censure: 'Three things are weakening: fear, sin, and travel.' If one man, Sterne, says that 'Nothing is so perfectly amusement as a total change of ideas,' another, Chesterfield, holds that 'Those who travel heedlessly from place to place…set out as fools, and will certainly return so.' If Johnson advises that 'the use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are,' Shakespeare says, 'When I was at home, I was in a better place.' Hazlitt's enthusiasm — 'The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases' — is corrected by French realism: Voyager, c'est travailler. And men seem never to have rid themselves of one of the stubbornest irritants of the footloose conscience — that escape and change are equally impossible and that a man carries himself and his soul with him wherever he goes."

–Morton Dauwen Zabel, intro to Henry James The Art of Travel (1958)

We usually talk about the air ticket deals we post each month as "RTW trips," because that's the most common shorthand for long-term travel. At the same time, we call them "multi-stop tickets" in the title of each post – because that's really all they are.

Some round-the-world tickets you can buy do require you to move in a continuous direction around the globe with no back-tracking, making them more traditionally RTW trips. The tickets available on BootsnAll are simply multi-stop tickets with which you can create any itinerary you like. You not only don't have to circumnavigate the planet, you can go back and forth between two cities 12 times if you feel like it.

We bring this up because while it's something that's always in the back of our minds, we're reminded of it more directly now and then – like when we looked at the multi-stop ticket deals available for March. The first of these includes three different stops in India plus one in Hong Kong and one in London – and that's it. That's far from what most people would consider a RTW trip, but if you're interesting in exploring India in more depth with a couple other destinations thrown in for fun it could be your ideal itinerary.

The ticket deals we post each month are meant to help inspire you – if one of them strikes your fancy as something that sounds like the perfect trip, that's fantastic. And if they help you think outside the box of the more typical continuing-in-one-direction-around-the-planet trip, that's even better.

Here are the new special deals on multi-stop airline tickets available through BootsnAll – these deals are good through March 31, 2011:

Focus on India: New York – Hong Kong – Bombay / Mumbai – Goa – Delhi – London – New York, from $US1199 plus taxes

Asia & Europe RTW (with Vancouver departure!): Vancouver – Beijing – Delhi – surface – Bombay / Mumbai – London – Rome – surface – Paris – Vancouver, from US$1599 plus taxes

Asia, Australia, & South Pacific: Los Angeles – Bangkok – surface – Singapore – Bali (Denpasar) – Darwin – Cairns – surface – Melbourne – Nadi (Fiji) – Los Angeles, from US$1899 plus taxes

If none of these sample itineraries is what you're looking for in your round the world trip, then start planning the trip that suits you with our RTW trip planner And don't forget to sign up for BootsnAll's RTW newsletter, delivering RTW trip planning advice and resources via email every single month.