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Useful Things Learned Hiking

Did I ever mention on here that I am writing a hiking book? Well, I am. I have a contract to write a DC area guidebook on hiking for a major travel publisher. By September 15, approximately one month before our departure date and about two weeks after I hope to have jetted over to Sweden, my entire manuscript plus maps and photos is due. What this means is that Jeff and I spend every single weekend hiking, checking off one by one the eighty hikes that will be in this book. So if you’ve ever noticed that our Sunday evening posts aren’t all that fabulous, well I apologize, but come Sunday we’re pooped—not to mention rank smelling.

And though spending every waking moment of our free time out on the trails isn’t exactly awesome for checking things off the RTW to-do list, it isn’t completely wasted time. In fact, we’ve learned a list’s worth of stuff.

1. The gear is good to go. Do we have a comfortable and safe way to carry the camera? How will my clothes hold up to the heat and humidity of the tropics? Can I layer effectively to stay warm without taking anything heavy? Is that Light My Fire Spork going to cut my mouth or be an effective tool? No way to know but test them out, and that’s where hiking has come in. Back in March, I layered up clothes I planned to take and set out for 10 miles of hiking. Verdict: Impressively warm. This past weekend, I donned two other outfits and went out in the near 100 degree temps plus stifling humidity and hiked nearly 20 miles in each. Verdict: There’s not much to be done when it’s that hot, but if I have to wear clothes, these are the ones. Every hike Jeff slings the camera bag across his body, wearing it along with his backpack and snapping away at everything from frogs to waterfalls. Verdict: Comfy, easy to access, and secure even when we’re scrambling over rocks and tramping through water. This weekend, we threw the sporks in the bag and used them to make peanut butter sandwiches and prepare and eat Jamaican chicken. Verdict: Not just a cool piece, but functional too.

2. We’re not going to be the kids holding up the trekking tour. No, we will be the kids laughing in the face of Dead Women’s Pass on the Inca Trail. Okay, maybe not, but we’ll certainly be in shape for the many adventures we plan to take. When Jeff and I stood at the trailhead of our final hike—what would be miles 32-38 for the weekend and miles 41-47 if I also include my Thursday hiking—I can say that neither Jeff nor I were certain our legs would carry us all the way to the ridge and back. But not only did we do it, we did it in less time than what a hiking club that focuses on uphill hikes told us it would take. So if you’re thinking about joining one of our trekking tours, you better come prepared. Otherwise you’ll be seeing nothing but our dust.

3. We really do like each other. When we’re hiking, it’s Jeff, me, and that’s it for up to 12 hours per day. No friends or family members are around to provide conversation. No TVs, iPods, or computers offer diversion. There’s no one to talk to but each other, and though we’ve been doing this all-day, all-weekend hiking for 2.5 months already we’ve yet to run out of things to talk about or become sick of being together. Woohoo! We just might make it around the world for a year without killing each other.

4. Squatting, no problem. Though I will always hold the porcelain pot dear to my heart, I can do without it. I have the squatting thing down. Aren’t you glad to know that?

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Chucking Stuff

I’ve been raised a bit of a pack rat. I hope my folks don’t get too offended for being sold out on the internet, but my mother has plastic boxes full of ten year old brochures. Heck, she has plastic boxes full of plastic boxes that she no longer uses. My Dad saves all the old screws and nails he pulls out, in addition to everyone’s favorite, the cutout underwear waistbands. I don’t think anyone knows what those are saved for (Dad, care to chime in and clarify?). Needless to say, I was destined to be a “saver”.

What I’ve never really understood is the whole psychology of it all. I’m always worried that something I throw away will be the exact thing I will need somewhere down the line. And therefore, I figure I can just file it away for when that time comes. It’s also the same reason I’ll buy something I don’t need when its a ridiculously good deal. I figure, it’ll be perfect someday, and then I’ll be so thankful I got it when I did. But most of the time, it never actually is useful. But I guess the rare occasions I do have exactly what I want reinforces the behavior enough.

So that’s why I think the most daunting part of this trip is probably what to do with all of the stuff we are leaving behind. In four years of living in this apartment, I’ve managed to accumulate a lot of things. A surprising amount. Especially for the small amount of closet space our apartment allows. Among all the things we are going to need to do this summer, packing up all of our things is going to be a big project.

I keep saying I because Theresa doesn’t have this issue that I do. I keep finding small bundles of clothes in the corner whose presence Theresa explains to me as “I don’t wear them anymore, so I’m gonna throw them out.” I’m pretty sure I have more clothes than Theresa, but I usually wear the same ten shirts, three jeans and four pairs of shorts.o fortunately, I have her to help me out with my “affliction.” She’s got a pretty good gauge of whats useful or not and she’s more than happy to share it with me. It doesn’t necessarily make throwing it away any easier though. Of course, I know to ignore her indignant stares about my video games and other electronics.

But needless to say, it’s the one thing about preparing for this trip that I’m dreading the most. Which I guess is good, because as far as issues go, its a pretty minor one. So are you a chucker or a saver? A Theresa or a Jeff? How are you able to fight your compulsions? I’d love some psychological help this summer.

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Time’s a Ticking

October still sounds like it’s a long way off. With summer just taking off, I think of October, a distinctly fall month, and I convince myself that we have plenty of time to get things figured out. But, the truth is, the clock is tick, tick, ticking.

Our mid-October departure date is only 4.5 months away, but in reality we have even less time than that. Jeff will be leaving for Sweden in late August, and I’ll be following him at the beginning of September (provided we get the okay next week for him to proceed with his thesis defense). We won’t return until the beginning of October, at which point we’ll tie up loose ends and take off. We’ll be notifying our landlady in just one month of our intent to move out, actually moving our stuff to Louisville in mid-August, and turning in the keys at the end of August. That’s soon!

Which means there are a lot of things to be done in a short amount of time. (And in saying that, I’m just referring to trip planning things, not Jeff’s writing his thesis or me hiking my remaining 40 trails and completing my book.) Fortunately, if there is one characteristic that I have it’s discipline. I can always buckle down and get the job done. I do what needs to be done, and I don’t accept excuses. So I’m going to lay out a couple of items here that I want to get done in the upcoming weeks. Having them here for all the world to see will provide me with the necessary motivation to get them done. I’m not sure, however, how inspiring Jeff will find this. He doesn’t seem to have the guilt issues I have.

To Do in the Month of June

1. Lay out a general itinerary for the South America leg of the trip (estimated length of stay in each country and must-see sites).
2. Purchase life insurance.
3. Reorder contacts and get a large enough supply to last the entire trip.
4. Determine what vaccinations we are going to get and when/where we’re getting them.
5. Figure out what we have to do to assign power of attorney to someone else to handle our finances. (Any lawyer friends out there want to help us make sense of this?)
6. Make a list of everything we still need to buy.

I’m tempted to continue, but I’m trying to be realistic (not always my strong suit) about what we can accomplish. Anything you can think of that I’m leaving off but should be getting around to about now?

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Ahhh Beaches

We are now back from vacation. Life starts again tomorrow. We enjoyed our vacation to the fullest. No thinking, no doing, no working, just relaxing on the beach.

Having grown up in Hawaii, I have quite high standards when it comes to beaches. Smooth sand, hot sun, warm, clear water good for bodyboarding and with lots of marine life to investigate. Well, Litchfield Beach was 4 for 5. The water could’ve been clearer =). The sand softly massaged your feet, the sun slowly baked you (and in some cases fried you to a crisp … just ask Theresa), and the water was a refreshing relief. We saw alligators (on our river kayak trip), sting rays in the surf, washed up jellyfish, ospreys carrying off their catch, pelicans soaring by, scores of shells littering the beaches. We had a great time playing in the surf, getting crushed riding the waves into shore. There’s just nothing quite like a great beach.

So I’m really, really looking forward to the plethora of beaches we’ll happen across as we travel. I’ve already noticed myself seeking them out in our borrowed guidebooks, in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru (to say nothing of the legendary Brazilian, Thai and Vietnamese beaches whose country’s guidebooks we have yet to look at). I know that we won’t be able to take the time to relax at them all, but man, there’s no better place to recharge after a bustling city or a weeklong trek. So here’s to hoping we find the time to settle in a few times at a cozy beach cabana and relax a day or two away.

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Interpreting History

The kayaking trip that Jeff mentioned in the last post didn’t just involve paddling around tidal waters; it also came with some history lessons on the area in general and Sandy Island in specific. At one point, we all pulled up in our kayaks as our guide described how the area in which we were floating was once a rice-growing area managed by plantations where over 1,000 slaves were put to work. On one hand, it was interesting to learn a bit of history. On the other hand, we all agreed at the end of the trip that the way the history was presented made us feel a little bit uncomfortable. Our guide repeatedly stressed how well the slaves in this area were treated and how profitable the plantations were. There was maybe a brief aside acknowledging that slavery was, perhaps, not the best thing, but we all felt the guide was a little too sympathetic to this horrible part of our history. Hey, the plantations were turning an 8% profit, how could it be wrong?

It’s always tricky dealing with history in which there is an obvious winner and an obvious loser, an obvious bad and an obvious good. The first time I came across a memorial to fallen German soldiers while living in Freiburg, I spent some time staring at it uncertain as to how to interpret it. I mean, Germany was obviously the bad guy in this battle. How could they be memorializing their soldiers? I get a bit of the same feeling when I see Confederate war memorials. But then, if you take a moment to think about it, you realize that it’s not that simple. The fallen soldiers were husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers, and they died fighting for something they believed in. Whether they simply believed in their country or in objectives that we find abhorrent (the annihilation of a race, slavery, etc.), we have no way of knowing. Whether they fought willingly, even exuberantly, or whether they were forced into battle, we also will never know. All we know are that these are men who went away to war and never came home. The facts are obscure, the history incomplete.

History is a funny thing. It seems it should be objective. This happened. Then this happened. Then because of this, this happened. But it’s not like that at all. Instead history is interpreted. The winners have their version. The losers have their version. The governments have their version. The people on the ground have their versions. There are individual histories and collective histories, private memories and public memories. And as time passes, the histories and memories merge and change. I find this process to be completely fascinating, and if I were ever to return to school it would be to study history and memory.

On our trip, we’re sure to have multiple experiences in which history is presented in ways that differ from what we know. Sometimes the facts will have been blatantly distorted. Other times the facts will be interpreted in a way different than what we’re used to. And on occasion, we’ll be presented with history that we know little about and will thus have little basis on which to judge the accuracy of it. The history we’re taught as Americans is not just our version of it, it’s also often woefully incomplete. Admit it, unless you’re a history buff who sought out specialized college courses, you probably know little about the Korean War and probably not all that much about Vietnam. The Cold War is a vague idea that seems almost quaint. Iran-Contra is in your vocabulary, but explaining it might be beyond your capabilities. With history classes always seeming to start with the Tigris and Euphrates River Valley and the rise of civilization, there never seems to be enough time for any amount of focus on the twentieth century. A brief glossing over of all that happened from WWI to the present is about as good as it gets. And even then, the focus is almost exclusively on Western Civilization. What happened in the rest of the world goes without mention, unless somehow the U.S. got itself involved. An incomplete education, indeed.

I’m going to go ahead and be a nerd here and say that I’m really interested in learning some new history on this trip and getting a different viewpoint of history that I think I already know. I’m sure sometimes the new info will be interesting. Sometimes eye opening. Sometimes downright hilarious.

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Travel Disasters

We had a minor snafu today during our vacation in Pawleys Island, SC. We went on a guided kayaking tour, and in the midst of the excitement, locked the keys in the van. Now, this wasn’t a big deal as I got a ride back to our house with our guide, grabbed the car keys and my cars keys and drove back, but it reminded me of my greatest travel disaster to date. I’m sure this will be minor compared to some of your experiences.

It was on our trip to Hawaii, and mentioned in our Travel Take Two. We had just arrived and driven out to Waianae to visit our friends Dave and Heidi. No sooner had we arrived than had I begun craving a Hawaiian Shave Ice. For those who have never had the pleasure, think of the greatest sno cone you have ever had, then use tiny shavings of ice that meld with the flavors into a solidified slushy. It’s magical. So we drove off to a nearby shave ice stand, and got out of the car to head to the counter. I went inside, ordered, and devoured my slushy (and Theresa had her first), then we perused a nearby shop and headed back to the car. Only then, over half an hour after we had left the car, had I realized what I had done. I had locked us out of the car, with the keys in the ignition and the car still running. Now, being a fairly instinctive person, I’m certainly prone to acting prior to thoroughly thinking about the ramifications of something. But as far as my brazenly stupid acts are concerned, this was pretty unprecedented.

To further complicate matters, we were over an hour from the nearest auto service, so I got to think about my silliness for a while before the AAA truck came. Worse yet, even he couldn’t seem to get into the car. He was trying to pop the lock wires inside the door using a coat-hanger like contraption, then we tried to pop the locks inside the car. Nothing was working. After around an hour of frustrating tugging and prying on the car’s doors, we managed to open up the car. The car ran the entire time. After three hours, we headed next door to get some more gas, and went on our way.

So while not the most disastrous story in terms of repercussions, it was definitely my most embarrassing so far. I’m sure with a full year to try to top it, I’ll manage to do something dumber on this trip. So what is your biggest travel disaster? When did you feel most embarrassed by your actions on the road?

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They Don’t Sell That Where I Come From

Grocery stores reveal a lot about a place. In Germany, grocery stores are just a couple of aisles. They’re very focused. You want mayonnaise? Here, have a tube of mayonnaise. There aren’t 27 brands to choose from. There isn’t full fat, low fat, no fat, imitation. There aren’t glass jars, plastic tubs, squeeze tubes. There’s just one of each product, and you either take it or leave it. Though at first, it seemed so limiting, by the time I came home from a year in Germany, I was so adapted to it that I was completely overwhelmed by American grocery stores.

In America, we don’t have grocery stores; we have supermarkets. There are entire aisles dedicated to bread, entire shelves stocked with ketchup, more cereal choices that you could consume in a year. Even “exotic items” have options. And if you want to buy your toilet paper, light bulbs, school notebooks, and laundry detergent, do your banking, and pick up your prescription while you’re at the grocery store, no problem.

So while I usually enjoy going to grocery stores in foreign countries—you never know just what you might find, and it always provides a bit of insight into the country you’re visiting—I don’t particularly enjoy American supermarkets. Grocery shopping takes forever. I have to compare prices and compare nutrition facts. I have to try to calculate the actual savings of driving to another store that has better prices on certain items in regards to the cost of gas and the value of my time. It’s just not fun.

Thus you’d probably think that being that Jeff and I are currently on vacation—enjoying the beach at Pawleys Island, SC—I’d probably not be very happy about having to go to the grocery store. But you’d be wrong. I actually enjoyed it. First of all, the store is called Piggly Wiggly, which is without a doubt the best name for a grocery store. I saw that they were selling shirts with the mascot pig on it, and I must say, I’m tempted to go back and buy one. Secondly, though American supermarkets are pretty standardized, there are some differences. For instance, in the produce section of the Piggly Wiggly I found boiled peanuts and packages of collards and mustard greens. We are, indisputably, in the south. The Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway and the Confederate flag rafts only served to back that up. The blazing sun that left my legs and my knee in particular (odd, I know) a fiery shade of red provided final confirmation.

Anyhow, what items in your grocery store give away your location? And what is the weirdest thing you’ve found in a foreign grocery store?

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Dinero, Dinero, Dinero. Budgeting South America

Well you guys did an awesome job on the Straw Poll (and please, continue to add in your estimates/experiences, we’ll keep a running tally). Since I’ve been analyzing data nonstop for the past few weeks, I ran some statistics on what you’re responses, looking at our “collective wisdom.” The theory goes that all of our collective knowledge should produce the most accurate results. We’ll see how that works out. Here’s what you all collectively said:

Total responses: 12

Median budget: $41,000, $34,250-50,000 (25-75%)

Mean budget: $41,171, $34,835-47,507 (95% confidence interval)

So there you go, a nice normal distribution tells us it will cost $41,000 give or take $7000 for us (or two of you) to travel the world for a year.

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Now, that said, Theresa and I get our own say =). We are going to detail for you in as much detail as possible what we expect to spend, but we are going to do it in three parts. One for each continent. This will provide us with nice benchmarks by which to keep tabs on how we are doing with our budget and all of you with a continent by continent breakdown (since that’s where the greatest variance in costs are). We’ll update the finances to see how well we actually did at the end of each continent. So hopefully this will work out.

I’m going to start today with South America. We will be spending approximately 5 months in South America (with a brief stop in Nicaragua). There are two kinds of costs that go into any trip like this one, the first being your mundane, every day existence costs, mainly food, lodging, and transportation between places. The second is all the entertainment and adventure we want to do … which is the real reason to do a trip like this. So that’s obviously going to be a substantial chunk of change. So that’s the gist of how I’m going to sum our planned expenses up.

Every Day Costs:

In our research, we’ve come to the conclusion that private two person rooms at budget hotels/hostels are going to cost us around $30-40 a night. With the nose dive the dollar has been taking these days, we’re going to assume closer to the latter. Now obviously, we have no direct experience with this, but that’s what we’re going to budget. As far as food goes, nice restaurants tend to average ~$5 each for a meal. We also plan on eating some street food and cooking on our own relatively regularly. Using that as a vague basis on which to make estimates, we’ll budget $20 a day for food. This hopefully will be a little on the high end, and will help a little with the “sticker shock” from how little our dollars will buy anymore =). Travel by bus is relatively inexpensive, but by plane is relatively expensive, and neither will be an every day occurrence. Plus, we’ll try to keep our plane travel expenses controlled with frequent flier mile trips (there’s still a lot of work to do on that part of the trip). We do plan on using buses or trains for much of our travel, which seem to be quite cheap. I’d say budgeting $10 a day will cover us for the variety of transportation needs we are going to have. This leaves us at a conservative $70 a day between the two of us. You multiply that by the ~150 days we will be there and we’re looking to spend around $10000 on regular expenses.

Activities:

First of all, we’ll want to do plenty of things like go to museums, go into national parks, rent bikes, things of that nature. I’d say if we budget $10 a day we should cover an activity or two a day for ourselves, and I’m sure we won’t want to do a whole activity or two a day after a very short while. At least not activities beyond lie on the beach or walk around town. A number of the specific activities we want to do in South America are going to be relatively expensive. This is because they are pretty darn cool and lots of other people with plenty of money want to do them too. This isn’t a be and and end all list, but here are most of the specific things we will want to do that we have to specifically hire guides/pay for services:

Galapagos Islands – $1500 per person

Trek to Roraima – $200 per person

Machu Picchu – $400-500 per person

Nicaraguan language school – not more than our food and lodging budget

Amazon Jungle Trip – not clear as our approach is not settled (be sure to vote for your favorite), but likely not more than $200 more than food and lodging.

So when you combine all of this up, we’re looking at around $10000 for both of us to get around, keep ourselves fed and have beds to sleep in. This assumes any flights we take use frequent flier miles or do not gouge our expenses too greatly as they can get expensive in a hurry. It will cost us another $5000-6000 to do all of the things we want to do in South America, leaving us at a total of around $16,000. So there you go, our budget for two people for five months in South America is $16,000.  We’ll evaluate how we did after that leg of the trip.  Next up, Southeast Asia.

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One Step Forward

You may have noticed Theresa carrying a disproportionate share of the writing on LOW and myself conspicuously absent over the last three weeks. Contrary to what you may be thinking, this was not due to Theresa locking me up in the basement and not letting me out. Instead, I was sitting in the dungeon at work, furiously working away at the microscope. Then I was furiously typing away at my last two manuscripts. My life has consisted of work, work, eat, work, hike, work and sleep in the few extra hours.

But I am happy to announce that I have completed my thesis application (as opposed to the actual thesis … there’s still a long way to go, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves). This includes drafts of all the papers I plan to include in my thesis, my ethical permits and committee members, and date and place of defense. Very thorough. I sent it to my mentor in Sweden today, and then we went out for a few beers and a delicious Five Guys hamburger with far too many fries. Best burgers around – they’re a delicious local DC chain that is now expanding fast, so look for one near you. And I didn’t even get a free burger for that plug.

Anyway, back on topic, after Lars gets the requisite signatures, it will be sent to the committee to render a decision on whether I will be defending in September. So this and the next couple of weeks are an important checkpoint on our current timetable, here’s to hoping the Swedes like what they read in my application and we get the green light for my defense and thus our subsequent journey.

P.S. All of this work is also why I’m not as far on our budget planning as I would like to be, but don’t worry, the follow up to my Straw Poll will be coming up soon.

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Volun-tourism

On occasion, people who hear about our travel plans ask if we intend to do any volunteer work on our round the world trip. I always feel a little uncomfortable when asked this question because the answer is no. Now that’s not saying we’re against it or we wouldn’t do it if the right opportunity arose, but that’s saying that we didn’t plan this trip around the idea of doing volunteer work and we aren’t actively seeking opportunities.

Volun-tourism is huge these days, but I’m going to go ahead and be honest here and say that I’m not a big fan of it. In most cases, I think it’s much more of a way for you to feel good about yourself than for any real difference to be made in the world. Oftentimes, little of the money you pay for your volunteer vacation actually goes into the community that you’re “helping.” Instead it goes to paying for your hotel, your food, your entertainment, your supplies, and the overhead of the company through which you’ve organized your trip (and very rarely are they a local organization with local staff).

Additionally, I don’t think most people have the type of skills or training that are really needed. I certainly don’t. Sure, I could help build a house but really what am I doing but taking a job away from someone who could use it? People all over the world can build, and they can probably do it much, much better than I can. They don’t need me to hammer nails or shingle a roof. What they might need me to do, however, is donate the money that will let them buy the hammer or the shingles or that will allow an organization to hire them on at a living wage. Though just sending money doesn’t make us feel as good as offering our time and sweat, sometimes it’s really the better option.

Finally, I think that really making an impact requires more than one week of your time. Ever wonder why the Peace Corp requires a two-year commitment? You have to get into a community, learn its needs, gain its trust, and help people help themselves. There are some fabulous organizations out there that have already laid this groundwork and allow you to contribute on a short term basis, but take a look around and you’ll see that the organizations that are really getting things done usually ask for a minimum commitment of at least one month. The time, money, and effort that goes into training you to do any work for a shorter period than that often means that the organization is on the losing end of the deal.

Now hold on, before you run off to comment on how wrong I am, let me continue. I’m really not anti-volunteer. I think much good is done in the world by people who don’t ask a dime in exchange for their hard work. And I believe that if you have a cause that you hold near and dear and you want to contribute to it, than you, by all means, should. Additionally, if you have a skill, talent, or profession that’s rare/in demand—if you’re in the medical field and can provide health care to those without it, if you’re a lawyer and can represent those who are voiceless, if you have accounting skills and can help someone start a business, if you’re an artist and can bring the joy of art to someone—than go out there and put your skills to work. But if you’re just a Joe-Schmo like me, take a moment to ask yourself whether it’s really helpful for you to build a school when A) you’ve never hammered anything more than a nail into the wall to mount a photo and B) the community you’re building a school for doesn’t have any teachers.

So am I just offering an excuse for people to say “Well, there’s nothing I can offer here” and go off and do whatever they want without a care for the world? No, of course not. There are plenty of ways to make the world a better place without going on a volunteer vacation. For starters, while you are traveling, do your best to buy local. Support local restaurants, local hotels, local outfitters. Put your money into the community you’re visiting rather than some international business that will take the money right out of the country. Second, if you come across an organization that inspires you, ask how you can help. If they say that they need volunteers, great. If they say what they really need is money, then consider making a donation. And finally, remember that charity begins at home. Look around your own neighborhood and see what needs to be done there. If you want to build a house, I bet Habitat for Humanity can put you to work. If you want to teach English, see if your library has an ESL tutoring program. If you want to inspire kids, become a Big Brother/Big Sister. A staggering amount and variety of opportunities are available, and usually they just want your time, which means you can then put your money to work to actually improve another corner of the world (rather than attack it with a hammer you don’t really know how to wield).

[Jeff will be returning to the topic of how much a round the world trip costs in an upcoming post (hopefully this week), so continue to register your thoughts in the straw poll below.]