Life On-the-Road

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On the Road with Warren & Betsy Talbot
Monday, February 14th, 2011

Shortly after hosting our Inaugural Meet, Plan, Go! event in Seattle this past September, Warren & Betsy Talbot (aka Married with Luggage) took off for their three year career break. Now with four months under their [shrinking] belts, we check in with them to see how they are adjusting to life on the road.

You spent two years planning your career break travels. Now that you have been on the road for four months, what have you found to be the most valuable aspect of your preparation process?
We have found that living on a budget is the most valuable skill for a long-term trip like this. In addition, doing the research to figure out what the trip would likely cost for our style of travel means that we are comfortable traveling with the budget we set out for ourselves and do not anticipate running out of money early. We lived for 2 years on a fairly tight budget, which means once we started on the trip, there was absolutely nothing to get used to. In fact, we felt like we could splurge more once we were on the trip because we had lived under budget for so long – which is a great feeling!

Another thing that really worked well for us was selling off our possessions. We know this isn’t right for everyone, but for us it gives us nothing to think about but the trip. Our advice for anyone planning a trip like this is to make sure you have your “home details” locked in before you leave – hopefully with someone else to look after them – so you don’t have to waste any of your energy on what you left back home.

Warren & Betsy Talbot

Do you feel like you were over-prepared in any ways?
We bought into the hype that we needed special travel clothes, gadgets, and medicine for the eventual “traveler’s illness.” This was a big mistake because we spent too much money on things we either don’t like, never use, or can find abundantly (for less) in every country we have visited so far.

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Traveling with Kids: Building a Foundation of Learning
Monday, January 17th, 2011

Rainer Jenss was a Vice President and thirteen-year veteran of National Geographic. As the Publisher, he helped transform National Geographic Kids into the most widely read consumer magazine for children throughout the world. In the summer of 2008 he decided to put his professional expertise and personal passion to the ultimate test by traveling around the world for a year with his family.

Rainer continues to report on family travel as a Special Correspondent for National Geographic Traveler’s Intelligent Travel Blog and shares with us why traveling is a great way to build a foundation of learning in your children.

Kyoto, Japan

If you’re reading this post, you’ve probably fantasized about quitting your job, packing a suitcase, and leaving town for a while to travel the world. When we first got married, my wife Carol and I often contemplated taking the leap — sometimes seriously, sometimes not. There always seemed to be some excuse why we couldn’t, wouldn’t or shouldn’t. Our careers, responsibilities, and commitments had to be considered, and how about what our friends and family would say? It was always something. Then after the birth of our sons Tyler and Stefan, all this talk about packing our bags seemed to suddenly fade away. After all, you can’t possibly do something like this with kids, right?

If we teach our children to travel, we thought, then they will travel to learn –
a foundation that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

In January 2004, it all came roaring back. I had just returned with the family from Europe after visiting relatives for the holidays when Carol and I started reflecting on how much the boys (then seven and four) seemed to enjoy the experience of being in another country. Couple that with the post-9/11 mood of a country that was getting deeper into a war in Iraq and isolating itself more from the rest of the world, and suddenly it dawned on us that taking a year off to travel the world might actually be more sensible now that we had children. Increasingly, we found ourselves looking at taking a year off to travel not from the perspective of what we had to lose, but from all the benefits we could gain.

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Career Break to Antarctica – Part 2
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

In “Career Break to Antarctica: Part 1” Keith Martin beautifully described his arrival to Antarctica. How did he make the adventure happen?

Keith MartinI have never been one to give up on my dreams easily, so I started looking for other ways to get to Antarctica. Everything I found, from the cruises to mountaineering trips on ski-equipped planes, was exclusively reserved for wealthy travelers. I got my break when I came across a news story that talked about the research going on in Antarctica. That article led me to the website for the U.S. Antarctic Program (currently www.usap.gov), which, in turn, led me to the website for Raytheon Polar Services, the scientific support contractor for the U.S. Antarctic Program. I devoured every tidbit of information I could find regarding the Antarctic Program and working in Antarctica and quickly decided that I was going to work down there. The problem was solved, sort of…

There was no question about whether or not I was qualified for the jobs down there, since there were job postings from dishwashers and janitors all the way up to engineers and helicopter pilots, but getting those jobs proved to be another problem. The first year I applied to all of the jobs that I was most excited about: Field Camp Manager, Search and Rescue/Field Training and Equipment Staff, Antenna Rigger – All jobs that would get me out in the field exploring the amazing wilderness. I also applied to the engineering positions, since I am an engineer, but I ignored all of the ‘unskilled’ jobs. In hindsight it is no surprise that I didn’t get a single call.

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Career Break to Antarctica – Part 1
Monday, December 13th, 2010

Ever since childhood, Keith Martin dreamt of exploring the far reaches of Antarctica. And in January of 2005, that dream came true as he tackled Antarctica as part of his career break. But it didn’t come easy.

Keith Martin

It was unnaturally hot and, making things even more uncomfortable, I was wearing several layers of expedition-weight fleece, some extreme-cold-weather (ECW) overalls and a set of white, rubber clown boots that made my feet sweat. I was crammed into the back of a C-141 Starlifter, one of the U.S. Air Force’s antiquated workhorses, with several people I would become well acquainted with over the following nine months. We had been airborne for hours, flying southward over a vast ocean of icebergs and ferocious storms.

It had been beautiful and warm when we boarded the plane in Christchurch, New Zealand, yet the rules required us to wear the full compliment of ECW gear we had been given during the flight. Most of us had shed the thick red parka within minutes of take off, but the interior of the Starlifter was still a smothering inferno. I found a bit of relief from the heat when I got up to use the restroom, which for the men was a 55-gallon drum with a funnel and a curtain (the women were sitting in the front of the plane and got to use the flight crew’s bathroom.)

There was an icy draft shooting in through the cracks of the rear cargo door and several people were congregating in the narrow gap between the fuselage and the large pallet of baggage and supplies soaking up the natural air conditioning – I joined them. Despite the discomfort of the hot, cramped quarters, everyone on board was excited. For some people the flight was taking them to a place they thought of as home, for others, myself included, it was rocketing us southward on a grand adventure. A garbled voice materialized out of the jet noise and told us to take our seats – I hadn’t been able to make that out, but the people standing around me were veterans of the program and had been expecting the call.

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Slow Travel with Mobile Lawyer
Monday, November 22nd, 2010

In December 2008, Michael Hodson (aka the Mobile Lawyer), an attorney from Northwest Arkansas, left his litigation practice to circumnavigate the globe – all without ever getting on an airplane. The adventure took 16 months as he ventured through 6 continents and 44 countries. He’s currently in Colombia writing about his adventures on his site Go, See, Write as well as a book.

Tanzania How did you come up with your ‘travel style’ of no planes or reservations on your around the world trip?
Basically, I wanted a challenge. I didn’t really do any research before my trip (which almost ended up a big problem, since you do actually have to reserve cabins on those cargo freighters I had to take, my only reservations), but I was aware there were plenty of people that had circled the world before. I thought that never leaving the ground would also give me a much better perspective of the size of our planet.

And that it did. I do love flying, but you get a much better sense of the size of things if you travel overland. Getting on a plane, having a couple drinks, watching a movie or two, falling asleep and waking up in Bangkok gives one an incredibly false sense of how small our wonderful planet is. I never had a second thought about doing my trip overland and I am incredibly happy I stuck with it.

How do you go about crossing the ocean on a freighter – learning about it, reserving it, preparing for it, and keeping yourself occupied for the long trip?  Did you ever get seasick?
Luckily I don’t get seasick at all, which I have tested in some moderately bad conditions before, though all my freighter rides on this trip were actually very calm. As to the how-to part, there are 3-4 travel agents that book freighter travel. I used a guy named Hamish Jamieson for all four of my crossings, and then got to met him face-to-face when I arrived in Napier, New Zealand.

I wasn’t prepared for how incredibly boring this type of travel was on my first crossing, but luckily had five other passengers on that leg that were interesting and provided some conversational entertainment. Be forewarned, you get a cabin and three meals a day, but that is about it for entertainment. As I went through Africa, Europe and Asia, I stocked up on lots of DVDs to watch on my laptop and bought a Kindle for reading material.  Without those, I might have blown my brains out on the 22-day Pacific crossing back home. It is mind-numbingly monotonous.

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Dealing with Tragedy Back Home
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

It’s every travelers worst nightmare – what do you do if tragedy strikes back home while you are on the road? You can never predict when illness or death may occur, nor should you let the anticipation of those events prevent you from traveling. It’s a situation you can never quite prepare for, but a conversation definitely worth having before you leave.

Amy Sutter shares with us how she and her husband Keith determined in advance what plan of action they might take if someone in their family fell ill, and how they inevitably had to put it into action.

Dealing with Tragedy

Nine thousand five hundred twenty-four miles. That is approximately the distance we were from home when we got the news that turned our world upside-down. We were about to go to sleep, only our second night in our campervan, mere meters from the ocean in Kurrimine Beach, Queensland, Australia. We had no internet and no international cell phone service, and it had been a few days since we last got in touch with anyone back home.

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On the Road: Safety Concerns
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Safety is a valid concern when traveling abroad for any length of time. And with the latest travel warnings, even the most intrepid traveler may be a bit intimidated. But in a society that focuses so heavily on the negative (especially in the news), how concerned should you be? And should you let such warnings, and the concerns of family and friends, stop you from pursuing your travel dreams?

MPGNYC Panelists
Our New York City panel for Meet, Plan, Go! share how they approached safety concerns during their own travels.

Brook Silva-Braga (A Map for Saturday)
The world is an amazingly safe place and the greatest practical danger travelers face in 99% of the world is having their possessions stolen. The unfamiliar is often scary–heck the first week of college is scary–but it is almost always a fear of the unknown rather than a marker of actual danger. Even for solo travelers. Even for women.

Jennifer Baggett (The Lost Girls)
One thing I always say when asked about safety abroad is that during the entire year I was on the road (which included notoriously dangerous locations such as Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi), I only experienced one non-threatening attempted pick pocket incident and a crazy cab driver trying to cheat us with a rigged meter. Whereas in NYC, I’ve had my wallet stolen out of my bag two times, punched by a homeless guy and been jumped in an all out fight on the street with two crazy drug addicts. Not to mention that I grew up not too far from Baltimore and Washington D.C. where there was no short of very violent crimes.

And of course after having been to so many places abroad and seeing firsthand how much safer it is than people think, it’s almost mind blowing how many misconceptions there are about international travel. Although considering that places such as India, Africa, Asia and the Middle East aren’t typical tourist destinations for Americans it’s understandable why there are so many perceived fears of the unknown. But like many places in the States as long as you keep your wits about you and make smart, common sense decisions (keep an eye on your stuff, don’t wander off down a dark alley alone or go to notoriously bad neighborhoods at night), you’re likely going to be just as safe abroad as you are at home. Especially since often times people are just after your money and don’t actually intend to do you harm.

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Traveling with Medications
Monday, October 11th, 2010

A valid concern when traveling is the thought of  getting sick. But what if you already live with a chronic condition – one that requires you to be continually on medication? Should that prevent you from following your extended travel dreams? Jenny Leonard of Where Is Jenny? shares tips on how she is able to travel long-term while on medication.

Jenny Leonard I started my location independent graphic design business straight out of college so that I could pursue my dreams in whatever way I wanted to at any given time. For a while it was racing competitive motocross (2000-2003), then it was volunteering in Vanuatu (2006), then backpacking South America (2008-2009), and now I’m going to sell everything I own to travel indefinitely (Jan 2011). My business was less than a year old in 2003 when I was involved in a serious car accident. After several surgeries, procedures, and years of physical therapy I finally found a doctor whom worked closely with me to find a solution. As a result I attend pain management every month and take a cocktail of medications daily (including Schedule II narcotics) to alleviate my symptoms.

Medication and medical care is easy to take care of if you live in one place and see the same doctor every month. It quickly becomes tricky when you hit the road for an extended or open-ended period of time. I’ve found it very difficult to find good information on the web surrounding this topic so I’m going to detail how I’ve addressed traveling around the world for extended periods of time with prescription medication.

FIND THE RIGHT DOCTOR
The most important link that helps make extended travel even an option for me is my doctor. My doctor understands that the decisions I make in life are mine and that only I can make risk assessment choices, not him. Therefore, he doesn’t sit around and lecture me on how skateboarding will make my injury worse, but rather helps me continue doing an activity that makes me happy. If your doctor is giving you a hard time about what you’re doing in life whether it’s skateboarding or traveling the world, shop around. It took visiting dozens of doctors before I found one that I’m thrilled with. I found many to be traditional, conservative, and judgmental towards my unconventional life. They also didn’t give me the treatment I deserved because of it. The doctor’s job is to support and give you the tools and resources you need to live the life you want to live. Don’t settle for less.

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Hostel Tips for Career Breakers
Monday, August 16th, 2010

It was one month into my 15 month career break and for the first time I was alone. I had the first month to ease into travels first with my friends, next with my sister; but now I stood in front of the hostel in Capetown as my sister pulled away in the taxi.

European Hostels I was nervous, very nervous; this was going to be my first hostel stay in my entire 36 years of life. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with fears – fears I would meet no one, fears it would be uncomfortable, fears I would be the oldest person there, fears I was somehow going backwards in my life. After all, the last time I stayed in a shared sleeping arrangement (dorm) I was in college. However, I knew that if I were going to travel for 15 months, I would need to overcome those fears.

And I did…only to come to realize how irrational those fears were.

Hostels are a great option for career breakers of all ages, and more people then you think are utilizing them to keep expenses down, and provide social outlets as part of their career breaks. If you are like me and have never stayed in a hostel before because you think they are just for young partying backpacker types, then prepare to have that myth shattered.

Before you start your career break here are some strategies for easing into hostels as an accommodation for the first time.

Take a Test Run

You’d never buy a car without driving it first – so why not use that same idea and give hostels a test run? You don’t have to be out of the country to try out a hostel; did you know that there are many, many great hostels in the US? I recommend on your next short trip, instead of booking yourself into a Marriott or Holiday Inn, check out Hostelling International USA and see if there’s a hostel in your destination. This is a great chance to try one on and see what you can expect. Some of the hostels in San Francisco , New York City , Chicago,  and Martha’s Vineyard are in amazing locations with great facilities. You’ll find the staff is very knowledgeable about the tourist attractions, and you’ll probably save half the money you would have spent on a hotel to be used at a fabulous restaurant instead!

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How Long-Term Travel Strengthens Relationships
Monday, July 19th, 2010

Betsy Talbot of Married with Luggage ponders how long-term travel can strengthen a relationship as she is about to embark on her journey with her husband, Warren.

Can you imagine being with your partner 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a whole year or more? (You, in the back, do you need a paper bag? Breathe in, breathe out.)

Travelers who embark on long-term trips dream of the excitement of new places, recapturing the romance in their relationships, and discovering new things about each other. Still others worry that minor personality conflicts will turn into big fights with too much time together. You know what? Both sides are right.

Warren and I have spent the last two years planning and saving for our upcoming trip around the world. We’ve learned to live with a pretty tight budget, let go of material possessions, and become fairly Zen about the whole quitting-your-job-without-a-backup-plan thing.

But how are we – two type-A people with different opinions on a lot of things – going to fare on the road? We asked some seasoned travelers for their tips.

MAKE A DECISION ALREADY: LEE’S STORY
Lee and Sachi LeFeverLee is a pretty brave guy when it comes to relationships. Not only did he and his wife Sachi travel for a year together, they also work together every day at Common Craft and they recently did an extensive remodel on their home. This is a couple with some experience to share:

“Relationships sometimes live or die based on a couple’s ability to make decisions. It’s hard enough in normal life to deal with coming to consensus on something as simple as dinner plans. Travel puts these decision points into overdrive. You wake up in a new city and have to decide your way through. From the moment you wake up to the moment you sleep, your day is filled with finding food, activities and rest with little to go on but a guidebook and advice from friends. It can be really stressful. Add some heat, hunger and a little attitude and it can be explosive.

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