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Prompt #14: Quotes

This Ayn Rand quote is so concise and meaningful to me. I’ve always been a big believer of the “don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness” way of living. I was raised to question things, so my mild problem with authority and questioning ‘why?’ apparently started pretty young. But after reading Atlas Shrugged, this quote has really stuck with me.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” –Ayn Rand

Many of my best experiences have been from just jumping in and not waiting for permission. (Also one of the many things I love about working for a small company as I’m told amusing stories of bureaucracy and attending meetings about meetings from my friends at large companies). There are so many possibilities in life. So many paths a person can take, and so many paths that a person can start and decide to try something else…

No one ‘let’ me quit my job to travel for a year, but no one stopped me either.

I also love Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals (and the following formatting done by Francesca). Well this post has been a hodge-podge of thoughts and ideas and quotes, but I ‘do what I want’. ;) Enjoy.

Is there something you’re waiting on for someone else to let you do?

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Prompt #13: For some people, no matter how much they love traveling, there’s always no place like home. Other travelers make their homes wherever they happen to be. Tell us about your home – where is it and why do you consider it your home?

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow” –Lin Yutang

What is home? I’m over again on my work blog for today’s 30 Days of Indie Travel prompt: My 169,680 Square Mile Home

Where is home to you?

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Prompt #12: Travelers meet dozens, if not hundreds, of new people on every trip. They may become friends, enemies, lovers, and resources; they may stay in your life forever or be forgotten the next day. Tell about a time you felt a powerful connection – for however long – to another person while traveling.

“The great difference between voyages rests not with the ships, but with the people you meet on them.” –Amelia E. Barr

Solo travel makes you much more apt to meet strangers. It’s one of the fun things about travel, as the saying goes you might be traveling solo, but you’re never alone. I met so many interesting people on my RTW trip — from the people you spend an afternoon with and never see again, to the backpackers you just keep running into throughout a country, to people who you identify as “your people”.

One memorable friendship that I made on the road water, was with a couple from Toronto, Dave and Andrea. I had decided to take a small group sailing adventure from Mykonos to Santorini. After not finding any cheap lodging on Mykonos (I’d been paying $30/night at a pension in Naxos), I decided to just arrive straight to the designated meeting point. I arrived to the taverna about two hours early since my ferry was also early and started chatting with a Canadian couple who were also waiting to meet their sailing group. I was immediately excited that I’d be spending the next week with people who seemed just my style. Over the next two hours more late 20s to 30-somethings (couples and solo travelers) arrived and we all got to chatting. Then the two captains arrived. One of the captains said “Who’s sailing from here to Athens?” and all the people I’d just met raised their hands. The second captain said “and who’s heading for Santorini?” and myself and some random couples scattered around the taverna raised their hands. My heart sank, as I’d been traveling really solo for three weeks (spending my time reading, pedaling around the islands, tavernas, pubs, chatting with locals, afternoons at the cafes, windsurfing lessons… it’d been great, but I hadn’t met a lot of other travelers or spent much time with English speakers especially since it was getting to be end of season in the Cyclades.)

Needless to say, I was really looking forward to hanging out with people who seemed like “my people”; and the older couple, young standoffish couple in the corner, and random group of three, did NOT seem like my people.

I bid farewell to my new friends of an hour as we arrived at the marina. After putting our packs onboard and meeting everyone, we headed into town for dinner, and I was mentally preparing myself for a very long week.

Fast forward 4 days and I learned that the retired couple had a great sense of humor, the standoff-ish couple from Toronto were just in the corner because Andrea had thrown up almost the entire way on the ferry from Crete to Mykonos that afternoon, and the other group of three ended up being kind of odd ducks (a ‘club’ I’m well familiar with), and the German captain was kind of a nut who wandered about in his skivvies, but we had become a little family during our one week sailing adventure. Turns out I had a lot in common with Dave and Andrea, so they became my default people to hang out with from exploring a new island to listening to tunes on the top deck, to jumping off the boat enroute to Ios for a swim, and renting a car together to drive around Santorini after the sailing trip was over.

As we sat as a group on our 2nd to last night on the sailboat in the port of Ios, drinking champagne to toast a birthday, waiving to the Russian mega-yacht to our left and chatting to a group of sailing friends to our right, I was reminded how you don’t always get to pick your companions, and even if you could, you’d probably select ‘wrong’ half the time. I unexpectedly found ‘my people’ in a group I’d quickly stereotyped, and had a memorable trip, which just added more to all the reasons I love Greece!

Have you made any surprise friendships on the road?

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Prompt #11: For some of us, food isn’t just a part of our travels, it’s the reason why we travel. Whether you travel the globe to try new foods and use food to form a deeper connection with the culture or just eat to live, food plays a big part in the travel experience. Share a food-related story from your travels or describe your best meal.

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” –James A. Michener

Eating is one of my favorite things about travel. I love to discover new foods, and usually wish that there were more meals in a day so I could have it all. So for today’s 30 Days of Indie Travel post, I’m over on my work blog, with 67 Memorable Meals from 23 Countries — chattering about all the interesting stuff I’ve tried so far on my travels from the questionable, deep-fried tarantula in Cambodia to those addictive potato wedges in New Zealand…

What’s one of your favorite meals while traveling?

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Prompt #10: At what point in your travels have you felt most in tune with the Earth? Share a story of how you interacted with the local environment or nature.

“”I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” –Henry David Thoreau

I feel most in tune with nature when I’m both experiencing it’s beauty visually and doing something physical, like hiking or surfing. It’s probably a combination of endorphins and the reward of doing something “difficult” that makes being in nature seem like even a bigger payoff while exercising.

In October of 2008, I was in Imlil, a small village in the High Atlas Mountains, in Morocco. Imlil is the base for treks up Mt Toubkal (the highest mountain in Northern Africa). Although we started out freezing when we left in the morning, it warmed up a bit by the afternoon as we hiked through the valley. It was breathtaking (the view and the hiking) as we hiked up the rocky paths below the snow-covered High Atlas mountains. Passing goats and herders, we finally reached the “hut” area had a snack and then turned around to go home. It felt so good to get out in nature and see a different side of Morocco that I hadn’t experienced yet.

And after a couple days of no showers, it was also nice to find a hammam in town after a long hike.

Where do you feel closest with nature?

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Prompt #9: Describe one perfect day you had while traveling this year. Where were you? What were you doing? And what made it perfect?

“Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” –Benjamin Disraeli

A perfect day I had this year while traveling, was our first full day in Maui in April. It was the first morning in about six months that I’d woken up to sunshine and warm air, and so relaxing to get away from the rainy spring in Portland, that we had a really laid back first day… Breakfast was fruit and breakfast burritos at our condo on the beach (Westin Kaanapali condos that we snagged on eBay for crazy cheap), before spending the day snorkeling, swimming, getting ice cream in town, and drinking beers on the beach while we watched the sun set. For dinner we headed up to Sansei Seafood in Kapalua for sushi and karaoke (and the best butter fish I’ve ever tasted).

Nothing especially ‘epic’ happened, it was just a perfect day spent with best friends.

Where have you had a perfect day this year?

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Prompt #8: Travel and learning go hand in hand. Travel teaches us not only about the world and the people in it, but also more about ourselves and our own ideas and values. What has travel taught you this year?

“Experience, travel – these are as education in themselves” –Euripides

I would probably travel anywhere, but there are some destinations that live way lower on my list of where I’d like to go next. The kind of places where you think, “that city isn’t really for me.” or “It’s not really my ‘style’.” New Orleans is was one of those places. I took a fairly last minute 4-day trip in October and ended up falling in love with New Orleans. I started out with very low expectations, because I’d always considered NOLA more of a party destination (I suppose I had always lumped it alongside Las Vegas (which I haven’t been to either) in the “I’ll pass” category), but I found the city and its people to be inspiring. There’s so much history in New Orleans, and excellent food, fantastic old cocktails (Sazeracs), amazing music…

What I learned from my New Orleans trip this year was that even though I’ve been around the world, sometimes the places in your own backyard (or 2,000 miles away, but technically still in your backyard as far as countries go) can leave just as big of an impression as an international trip.

Lesson learned: Don’t let your personal bias make you skip a destination.

What has travel taught you this year?

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Prompt #7: Joining in a local festival, holiday or special event is a great way to learn more about a local culture. Share the story of a celebration that meant something to you on your travels.

In 2006, I was in Paris on Bastille Day. Here’s a short video of watching fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.

What’s a foreign holiday you’ve experienced?

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Prompt #6: Just as travel can be fun and exciting, it can also have its challenging, or even downright scary, moments. Being in a new place pushes us out of our comfort zone and makes us face our fears. Tell about a time you had to face your fear when traveling, and what was the result.

“Always do what you are afraid to do.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Before I did my round the world trip in 2008, I was apprehensive/afraid/nervous/curious/excited (depending on the day) about solo travel. I hadn’t experienced solo travel yet (other than a bit in Hawaii, which seemed way easier to me than a foreign country), but 23 countries later my “fear” of solo travel is long gone — but a mindful relationship with my gut is still going strong.

How did I deal with my fear of solo travel? I went traveling. I love the above quote by Emerson, because it reminds me that so often in life the key is to just begin. I’m a planner, and I have a healthy respect for obsession with planning and spreadsheets, so I’m all for trying to make smart decisions vs half-assed ones, but after some preliminary planning and research, jumping right in to things is how I like to live.

I went to Panama on a trial RTW trip, of sorts. I was nervous that I didn’t know anything about solo travel and that I didn’t know if I would like it and felt a little silly that I was going to completely overhaul my life for a couple years to begin something I might not even like (yes, I liked it). So after Panama, I was still a bit nervous about the safety concerns of traveling solo. My sister & her husband were definitely nervous about me “traipsing around the globe for a year”, and turned themselves into my security team. I traveled slightly differently because of them, but it also made our relationship of their initially not wanting me to go, much easier, because I accepted their fears and they helped talk a little sense into me.

Most solo travel tips are just common sense, but there are some things you don’t really have to think about as much when you’re traveling with one more person. When I got back from my RTW trip, I wrote about some tips for solo female travel, that helped me deal with the fear. My best tip though:

Use your gut to differentiate between danger and curiosity.

And as much as some women will tell you that it doesn’t matter what you wear or what you look like as a traveler, in some places it seriously does. I ended up doing a small group trip from Intrepid through Morocco, that was a nice break to experience a country with other travelers. And as I mentioned in 10 Things I Love About Morocco, “the constant attention can be over the top if you’ve had a long day and sometimes you just wish you were invisible, but for the most part, it’s just curiousity… and maybe 50% the blonde hair and blue eyes bit. At least now I know that I would hate to be a celebrity! By the time I got to Barcelona, I was like ‘uh, no one has told me that I’m beautiful yet today or offered 1,000 camels for my hand in marriage!’”

It also helps to have someone at home who knows where you’ll be when. My sister was my “power of attorney” at home. She had my email/bank logins/shared calendar, got my mail etc. So she would know days I was in transit, like that I was leaving Istanbul for Greece, and I would “checkin” with her when I arrived to a new town and about once a week otherwise. This helped her anxiety about me being alone, and helped me feel more confident that someone knew where I was.

What fear have you overcome while traveling?

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Prompt #5: One of the greatest joys of travel can be the random acts of kindness you’ll receive from total strangers. Have you ever found kindness from strangers in unexpected places?

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.” –Seneca

So much of traveling is relying on the kindness of others, and it’s amazing how kind and helpful complete strangers can be. While I’m naturally a bit suspicious of a total stranger’s motivation to help me, more often than not, it’s just one human seeing another in need.

My first experience with random kindness while traveling occurred in Marseilles. I had gotten a sunburn the day before and couldn’t seem to find any aloe vera at the giant Monoprix grocery store (which reminded me of a Fred Meyer because they had home/beauty etc departments). I don’t speak French, so my 5 phrases and ability to count to 10 wasn’t helping me find aloe vera for my scorched shoulders. After unsuccessfully looking in the lotions and potions area, I decided to ask a woman and her daughter for help.

“Bonsue… Parle-vou anglais?” (this question was always met with kindness in the south of France. I was sad to find it was not as successful upon reaching Paris, where it was met with “what are you saying” spoken back to me in English). The teenage daughter said no, but the mother spoke a little English. So I asked them about aloe vera, sun burn, hand motions etc. and they had no idea what I was talking about so I was going to just be like “ah nevermind, merci”. But this woman wouldn’t give up. She then gets all excited and whips out her mobile, calling her son. So then she makes me talk to him. He was like “so it’s some kind of ointment for a sunburn?” and I replied “yes” and so he asked me to spell it, and as I was saying “A-L-O-E…” the mother screeched what was the French equivalent of “aloe vera gel”. After a bit of giggling by all three of us, she explained that aloe is found at the pharmacy. So she had her daughter take me across the street to the pharmacy, and help me find it there. We were both laughing and all I could do was say thank you and smile.

It made my day that a complete stranger would take the time out of their busy day and grocery shopping trip to stop and help a poor sunburned American girl find aloe. So incredibly sweet and a great memory. :)

How have you experienced random acts of kindness on the road?

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