I was standing on the tarmac last night, waiting for my backpack to be brought from the small commuter plane I’d just taken from Seattle, when my good friend Chris Guillebeau appeared at my side. “Hey man, how’s it going?” he said, shaking my hand.
“Holy cats!” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Angola.”
“And Dubai and Madagascar,” Chris said. “But I just got back. I’ve been traveling for 47 hours. What about you? Where have you been?”
Chris Guillebeau, in line for our attempt to audition for The Amazing Race last February.
We grabbed our bags and started the long walk to the exit. Chris told me about his most recent adventures. He’s been traveling the world for several years now, pursuing a quest to visit every country by the time he turns 35. He only has a couple of years left now, and the remaining countries are becoming more challenging to get to. I’d already read about his adventures in Angola and how cold it was in South Africa, but I hadn’t heard about the latter parts of the trip.
“I ran out of cash in the Comoros,” Chris said. “That hasn’t ever happened before. Maybe I’ve grown too cocky. I didn’t have enough cash to enter the country, so they confiscated my passport. I had to pick it up when I left.” But even that wasn’t so simple. (I’m sure he’ll tell the whole story over at The Art of Non-Conformity before long.)
When we reached the waiting area outside security, Jolie was waiting for Chris. She burst into a smile when she saw him and ran to give him a hug. Then she saw me and stopped, puzzled. “What’s J.D. doing with you?” she asked.
“He’s been with me since Madagascar,” Chris joked.
I offered to give the Guillebeaus a ride home, so we hopped on the shuttle to long-term parking, where our driver was a mildly retarded but very friendly man named Bob. He shook our hands as we entered, and then cracked silly jokes all the way to the lot. (“What do you get when you cross a turtle with a porcupine?” “A slow poke!”)
As we drove into Portland, we talked about plans for next year’s World Domination Summit. How big should it be? Where should we hold it? What date? Who should speak? Chris also told me about his upcoming seven-continent book tour. “My goal is to have the best-selling book on Antarctica,” he told me.
“I’d love to go with you,” I said. “Maybe mine could be the second best-selling book on Antarctica.” We laughed at that and hatched some plans.
I left my friends at their doorstep and drove home happy. Real Life has some challenges in store for me this week. The next few days will be tough. But I awoke this morning with a smile on my face because last night I got to spend an unexpected hour with friends. What a fine way to end five days of travel.
It’s 17:01 and I’m waiting for the bus. I’ve spent the past eight hours making my way from a conference in Colorado Springs to a friend’s home in Seattle. For much of that eight hours, I’ve been waiting.
I’m on the last leg of my journey now — waiting for the bus to take me from the train station to Nicole‘s house. Apparently I missed the five o’clock bus by seconds. I rounded the corner in time to see it pulling away. No worries. I sat in the covered shelter to wait for the next bus. As I did, though, a boy across the street shouted at me, “Hey you! That bus don’t come for another hour.” So, I’m waiting.
I’ve learned that any sort of travel entails a lot of waiting: waiting for buses, waiting for planes, waiting for trains, waiting for ferries, waiting for tour groups. And if you’re sightseeing, there’s always lots of waiting in line. When I was younger, waiting bothered me. It felt like lost time. I was easily bored. And if I were traveling, it seemed that I ought to be doing something because otherwise my money would be wasted.
Now, though, I often enjoy the wait. It’s an essential part of the process, a natural component in the rhythm of travel.
Note: Sometimes the actual travel itself is a form of waiting. A sixteen-hour light from Washington, D.C. to Johannesburg is a long exercise in patience. A three-hour van ride from San Ignacio, Belize to Tikal in Guatemala requires patience too. We wait to travel, but the travel is simply waiting in motion.
What I do while waiting depends on the situation. In a new country or city, the novelty takes the edge off — there’s plenty to see and do. (I especially like to browse the shops in new places. What do people in Paris read while traveling? What sorts of snacks can one buy at an airport in Zambia? Are there good souvenirs to be had in Belize?) Here are some of the things I’ve done while waiting:
On our flight from Portland to Venice last summer, we had a long layover at JFK. To kill time, I exercised. I did push-ups and sit-ups and squats in a corner of the room. After 30 minutes of exercise, I sat down to read. “You stink,” Kris told me. “Go change your clothes.” I went into the bathroom and gave myself a sponge bath.
On that same trip, we had a long wait in Rome before the night train to Paris. We had a long, leisurely lunch at a sidewalk cafe (during which I drank an entire liter of wine) before crashing for several hours at the edge of the train platform. We weren’t alone. Dozens of other passengers waited with us.
In Florence, Italy, we had to wait an hour to get into the Uffizi Gallery because of an impromptu strike. (We felt lucky; often these strikes can last much longer.) But waiting in line while sightseeing can be fun. It’s a chance to do some people-watching or to share stories with the people around you.
In most airports, I’m able to work while I wait. For instance, to kill time at the Denver airport this morning, I found a nearly-abandoned gate (downstairs in the A concourse, under A51) with a garden of free power outlets for me to charge my electronics. While I waited, I answered e-mail.
And now, as I sit in a bus shelter in southeast Seattle waiting for a bus, I kill time by blogging. I jot notes to myself on an iPhone. But today my wait is short. Nicole texts to say she’ll drive down to pick me up. “It’s Sunday,” she says, “and the buses don’t run very often.”
Nicole arrives a few minutes later, and I toss my pack into the back seat of her car. As I do, the #36 pulls up. Nicole and I laugh at the timing. I guess I could have waited.
“Waiting is fun when you have an iPhone.” — Kate (Nicole’s fifteen-year-old daughter), upon hearing the bus anecdote
What’s the longest you’ve ever waited while traveling? Does waiting make you tense? Or have you found ways to make the time pass more pleasantly?
Earlier tonight at Awesome People, I shared the six videos that make up The Sagan Series, one man’s attempt to create the PR campaign that NASA should have produced for itself. These videos make me ache to see humans in space.
As a boy, I dreamed of living in space, of journeying to other planets — and other stars. The best I’ll ever do, of course, is to go outside and look at the night sky. Unfortunately, that night sky isn’t so stellar here in Portland. There’s far too much light pollution. Maybe when I’m hiking across northern England next month, I’ll be able to take in some star-gazing.
To mollify myself in the meantime, I’ve been watching some brilliant time-lapse videos of the night sky, including the six featured below. First up is footage from Randy Halverson, who spent three weeks filming in Milky Way from his home in South Dakota.
Halverson’s other work is great, too, especially his winter night timelapse (including raccoons and an owl). Learn more at Dakotalapse.
Not to be outdone, here’s Alex Cherney’s gorgeous time-lapse video of the sky over the Southern Ocean Coast in Australia. This took Cherney 1-1/2 years of work and includes 31 hours of images made over six nights.
And here’s a time-lapse video from Norway’s Terje Sørgjerd. His film stars El Teide, Spain’s highest mountain, and a dust storm from the Sahara Desert.
Sørgjerd’s images are stunning. Take a look at this celebration of the arctic light.
From Daniel López, here’s “El cielo de Canarias” (Canary sky):
And here’s Simon Christen’s time-lapse footage of the sky over San Francisco:
That last one lasts only a minute, but I wish it were longer.
Finally, here’s an eight-minute video of time-lapse footage from the Europoean Southern Observatory’s Very-Large Telescope in Chile:
If I can’t see the stars in person, at least I can watch them from the surface of the earth.
I’ve lived my entire life within a 25-mile radius of my hometown, Canby, Oregon. When I left for college, I didn’t go far: I spent six years in Salem before returning to Canby. I now live closer to Portland, but I’m still only 20 miles from the place where I was raised.
It’s not just me. My father’s family has deep roots in the Willamette Valley. For the fifty short years of his life, Dad barely budged a mile from the home where he grew up. And his father was born and raised less than ten miles from that spot. The Roth family settled the area in 1889 and has never left.
When I was a boy, a big trip was a weekend at the Oregon Coast. Maybe once a year, the family would pile into the car and we’d make the two-hour drive to Lincoln City, where we’d stay at a cheap motel. One time, when I was seven or eight, we drove to Salt Lake City to visit my mother’s family. And once, around the same time, we spent a weekend in Vanderhoof, British Columbia (to which my father had decided he wanted to move). But other than that, we never strayed far from home.
Note: To be fair, my family couldn’t afford to travel. Much of the time, my parents struggled to scrape by. Their priority was to put food on the table for three boys, not to see the country or the world.
For most of my adult life, I’ve remained a homebody. I’ve liked the idea of travel, but lacked the money and the motivation to actually do it. Instead, I’ve explored the world through the eyes of other people. I watch travel shows. (Yay, Rick Steves!) I read books about Europe, Asia, and Africa. I watch foreign films to get a feel for other cultures. Whenever possible, I dine out for Thai or Moroccan or Ethiopian food.
These are small things, I know, but until recently, that’s how I’ve managed to glimpse the wider world.
The Travel Bug
In the summer of 2004, my wife’s parents paid for a family vacation. They took us on a cruise through the Inside Passage, finishing with a couple of days in Anchorage, Alaska.
The cruise itself was largely forgettable — I’m not a cruise kind of guy — but I was enthralled by the various excursions we took at each port of call. At the time, it was tough to rationalize spending so much money to go crabbing or to watch whales or to bike down the Klondike Highway from the U.S.-Canadian border (descending about 850 meters in 33 kilometers). In hindsight, however, it’s these experiences that made the trip worthwhile. Seven years later, I remember each vividly. It was from them that I became infected with the travel bug.
A ten-minute video of our stop in Ketchikan, Alaska.
Over the next few years, my in-laws took the family on other vacations. We spent a week in San Francisco. We traveled to England, Ireland, and New York. I loved each trip. I loved learning about the cities and countries we visited, loved meeting new people, and loved eating the food. Dim sum in San Francisco! Bangers and mash in Bath! Curry in Cork! What I loved most about each trip, though, was finding time to walk alone through the city or countryside.
With each trip, I wanted to travel more, but I couldn’t afford it. Eventually, I paid off my debt and began to channel my savings toward travel. Kris and I took some trips on our own. We spent:
A week on the San Juan Islands in northwest Washington.
A week exploring the jungles of Belize (with a brief foray into Guatemala).
Ten days in Italy followed by two weeks in France.
Three weeks in southern Africa, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.
But rather than quench my thirst for travel, each trip has made me want more. And they’ve made we want to see the world in a different way.
In general, Kris and I have traveled with groups on organized tours. These trips have their merits, and they’re great for some travelers. But they make me feel insulated. It’s as if I’m in a bubble, set off from the cultures I’m supposed to be experiencing. I don’t want that. I want to meet people. I want to move slowly through a country, allowing time for the unexpected. I don’t want to be slave to a schedule.
I want to travel on my own terms.
Going It Alone
I’m fortunate. I’ve worked hard over the past five years to not only pay off my debt but to build substantial savings. As long as I cut back on other indulgences, I can afford to travel (especially if I do it cheaply).
I’ve also constructed a lifestyle that allows me to work from anywhere. As long as I have an internet connection, I can write and get paid for it. As a result, it’s possible for me to work from the road — even if the road leads through Quito or Kathmandu or Cape Town.
This flexibility is awesome, of course, but it’s also unique. Like most folks, Kris has a regular job, one that ties her to a specific location. Plus, she’s not as keen as I am to try budget travel. My friends and family are in similar positions. They can’t travel as often as I’d like, and they probably wouldn’t want to travel in the same way.
So, I’ve decided to travel alone.
Starting next month, I’ll experiment with extended solo journeys. I’ll travel lightly, carrying only the things I truly need. (I’ve been paring down my travel kit with each trip; it’s still big by the standards of veteran travelers, but it’s shrinking.) I’ll stay in hostels and dive hotels, the sorts of places Kris is wary of. I’ll do a lot of walking, a lot of talking, and a lot of eating.
Where will I go? That’s the toughest question. I want to go everywhere, and it’s difficult to decide what to see first. For the past month, I’ve been vacillating. First, I wanted to hike Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. Then, I wanted to explore Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Next, I had my heart set on Guatemala. And Ecuador. Plus, what about Thailand? And I have invitations to Rwanda and Nepal, as well. So many options!
But this morning, as I wrote this background, I made a decision. Ever since I visited England in 2007, I’ve wanted to return. I want to see the country at my pace. I want to see Avebury without being rushed. I want to stroll through the Lake Country. I want to visit Wales, to see Huw Morgan’s green valley (or what remains of it). I want to see an Everton football match. And, most of all, I want to walk Hadrian’s Wall.
England isn’t very exotic, I know. That’s okay. There’s plenty of time to see the far corners of the globe. For me, for now, I simply need to make a decision. Which I’ve done. On August 4th, I’ll fly to Indianapolis to spend time with Adam and Courtney. On August 8th, I’ll fly to London. What happens after that? You’ll have to check back here to find out!
It seems that over the past few years, it’s become fashionable for Portlanders to complain that it always rains on the fourth of July. In fact, this whining has become something of an epidemic. Nobody wants to make plans outside for Independence Day because of the possibility of rain.
But is it true? Does it really always rain in Portland on the fourth of July? I’m a life-long resident of the area, and I have to say: My memory tells me that Independence Day is usually hot and sunny.
Because I’m tired of arguing about the weather, I dug into the data from the National Weather Service to prove my case. I looked at temperature records and precipitation records.
Here’s climate data for July 4th going back 25 years. What conclusions can you draw from this?
As you can see, it doesn’t always rain on Independence Day. In fact, over the past 42 years, it’s only rained fifteen times — and only four times with real conviction. What’s more, over the past twelve years (including today), Portland has only received one one-hundredth of an inch of rain on July 4th.
I’ll admit, however, that I’m wrong when I say the fourth is always hot and sunny. It’s not. There are indeed cool days now and then. But the mean high temperature in Portland on July 4th is 77 degrees Fahrenheit and the mean low is 56. The mean rainfall is two one-hundredths of an inch (though the mode is zero rainfall).
So, there you go: It doesn’t always rain in Portland on the fourth of July. In fact, rain is uncommon, and real rain is rare. The next time somebody complains about rain on Independence Day, you can point them to this page! Somehow, though, I don’t think it’ll change their mind.
Eighteen months ago today, I started a weight-loss journey. On 01 January 2010, I weighed 213 pounds. I was heavier than I’d ever been in my life.
For the first three months, I struggled to find a fitness regimen that worked for me. Eventually I discovered Crossfit. Meanwhile, I learned to eat more healthfully. (I haven’t been perfect over the past eighteen months, but my diet has improved substantially. I eat Real Food most of the time now, and that’s what counts.)
Now, after a year-and-a-half, I’ve reached my goal weight. I’ve lost fifty pounds. Here are the basic stats:
01 Jan 2010: 213# (35% fat, 30% muscle) with 42-1/2 inch waist 01 Jul 2011: 163# (20% fat, 38% muscle) with 32-1/2 inch waist
Since the start of 2010, I’ve dropped fifty pounds from my weight and ten inches from my waistline. I used to carry nearly 75 pounds of fat; today I carry about 33 pounds of fat. In other words, I lost 42 pounds of fat. (I also lost roughly two pounds of muscle. Not sure what the other six pounds were. Brain mass?)
The exciting thing for me (and for Kris, and for my trainer Cody) is that I can now shift my focus from weight loss to general fitness. Instead of stressing over calories, I can concentrate instead on making smart choices with my food, and on making exercise a routine part of my life. (Well, it already is a routine part of my life. But I want to keep it that way.)
If things go according to plan, I’ll maintain at 160 pounds (+/- three pounds) for years to come. When I dropped from 200 pounds to 160 pounds in 1997, I regained ten pounds within a year, and then another ten pounds within two more years. That’s not going to happen again.
I promise you: These fifty pounds are gone for good.
Though things have been quiet around Foldedspace, they haven’t been quiet in Real Life. As always, I spend most of my time writing about money. I’m also exercising 2-1/2 hours a day, five days a week. I’m absorbing enormous (digital) piles of information about money and writing and travel. I’m meeting friends and colleagues for lunch and dinner. I’m doing my best to not let the yard turn completely feral. Kris and I are hanging out with friends. And, yes, I’m learning Spanish.
For years now, I’ve said that I want to learn Spanish “some day”. But that day never seemed to come. I’ve always found reasons to put it off.
Part of the problem is that learning a new language is slow going. Plus, it’s scary. I feel embarrassed stumbling my way through verb conjugations and incorrect nouns. I hate when the words don’t spring immediately to mind. Besides, there’s a huge time commitment if you ever really want to become proficient.
Background: I studied German for two years in high school. During my first semester in college, I studied Spanish, but then (for reasons I forget) I went back for three more semesters of German. Since then, I’ve tried to teach myself Latin (hey, I should try that again!), and have dabbled in French and Italian. In other words: I’m fluent in English and know a smattering of words in other languages.
Earlier this month, I met Benny Lewis, the Irish polyglot who writes about language learning at Fluent in 3 Months. I told Benny I wanted to learn Spanish and asked if he had any suggestions.
“The best thing you can do — if you can afford it — is to hire a private tutor,” he told me. “Meet with the tutor as often as you can.” (Later, Benny spent an hour with me on Skype. We talked about his current trip to Turkey, and he gave me travel tips, especially for Latin America. Benny rocks!)
Well, I can afford to hire a private language tutor, and so that’s what I’ve done. For the past two weeks, I’ve been meeting with a Peruvian woman named Aly. We spend 4-1/2 hours a week together, and she assigns stacks of Spanish homework. It’s almost overwhelming at times — but I love it.
I feel like I’m catching on fairly quickly (and Aly seems to think so too), but I’m also frustrated because I wish I lived in a world populated by s-l-o-w-talking Spanish speakers. I could learn Spanish more easily if everyone around me would just speak it!
This is actually one of Benny’s top tips. In addition to hiring a tutor, he recommends immersing yourself in the language you want to learn. He wants to learn Turkish right now, so he’s in Turkey. If I want to learn Spanish, he thinks I need to go somewhere that Spanish is the primary language. I need to be forced to learn it.
Meanwhile, Stephanie (the Travel Chica), Courtney Baker, and Shannon O’Donnell have all suggested I try to find a language school in Antigua, Guatemala or Quito, Ecuador. From my initial research, it looks like I could sign up for a week at a time (for about $25/day) and get one-on-one personalized training. Benny says a language school isn’t necessary, that I’ll simply absorb the language through daily experience. He says I should head to Medillin, Colombia. “Colombia has the easiest Spanish in the world to understand,” Benny told me.
Benny may be right, but I know how my mind works. One-on-one lessons are going to be a better bet. Besides, if I decide I don’t like the language school, I can always shift my focus to learning from daily interactions.
In any event, I’m excited to have a focus for my first solo trip. Next week, I hope to pick my August destination. (Ecuador holds some charm because it’s a jumping-off point for the Galapagos Islands.) In the meantime, I’ll continue working with Aly three days a week.
I feel like the days ahead hum and glow with promise.
A couple of weeks ago, Kris and I took the plunge: After years of talking about it, we went skydiving. In 2007, when I built my list of 101 things I wanted to accomplish in 1001 days, skydiving was one of my adventure goals. It took me a bit longer than 1001 days to get to it, but it was worth the wait.
I splurged to get video from the jump:
Note: I think the music for the video is hilarious. I opted for AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” because that’s the mood I was in at the time. But the Metallica is nothing I’d ever choose.
If you look carefully, midway through the video, you can see me saying, “Look, Jeff, I can see your house” (or something like that). It was fun to be able to look down and spot where my brother lives.
Now that I’ve jumped once, I’m willing to jump again. But I think I’m going to save my jumps for special places. I recently met someone, for instance, who went skydiving over Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. That sounds frickin’ awesome. So, I’ll do this again in the future — but only in amazing places. (Sorry, Jeff — Molalla isn’t that amazing.)
Nearly seven years ago, I wrote a longish post at Foldedspace lamenting that I wasn’t the man I want to be. Here’s the advice I gave myself in 2004:
Happiness comes from within. If you’re not happy with the man you are, then be the man you want to be. If the man you want to be writes when he gets home from work, then write when you get home from work. If the man you want to be is fit, then be fit. If the man you want to be is not a smart-ass, then don’t be a smart-ass. If the man you want to be doesn’t watch TV, then do not watch TV. Read. Listen to classical music. Cook. Keep the house clean. Form deeper relationships with your friends. Be the man you want to be.
I’ve undergone a massive transformation since writing those words. Seven years ago, I suffered from depression. I had neither goals nor direction. I worked at a job I hated. I was fat. I was deep in debt. My life seemed pointless.
Today, things are different. I haven’t followed my own advice to the letter — I still crave deep connections with friends and haven’t done enough to make that happen — but I’ve followed much of it.
I actually feel younger at age 42 than I did at age 35. I’m certainly fitter and healthier. I’m in better financial shape. I have a sense of purpose. Best of all, I’ve learned the power of being true to myself and others. It benefits no one to put on a false face and pretend to be someone I’m not. I used to make decisions based on what other people would think, not based on what I wanted. Today, I do my best to be friendly and nice, but ultimately what matters most is that I make decisions that reflect my authentic self.
Note: I can’t believe I just wrote “authentic self”. I’ve always hated that sort of New Age claptrap. But the things is, I’m learning that being true to my authentic self is the key to happiness.
I’ve spent the past seven years on a relentless quest for self improvement. Now here we are in 2011, and I like who I’ve become. But the trouble is that this New J.D. is living a life designed by the Old J.D. I have to tell you: I’m not a fan. It’s like I’ve been living in the Matrix, or like I’ve been chained inside Plato’s cave. Now that I’m free, I want a different lifestyle.
What do I mean?
Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, I want to travel. (Several times a day, I think of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life: “I’m shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world!”) I want to meet new people and see how they live. I want to see natural wonders — and man-made wonders, too. I want to try new food. I want jump out of airplanes and swim with the sharks, trek over mountains and get lost in the jungle. (But not too lost.) I want to taste the world.
Note: One problem I have is that there’s simply too much I want to see and do. For example, I’ve carved out three periods for travel later this year, but I can’t decide where to go. I want to see everything! How can I possibly choose?
There’s no way to know what I’ll truly enjoy until I get out there and try things. The issue isn’t so much what I’m going to do. There are many options, and I’m willing to experiment until I find something that works for me. The issue is how do I make enormous life changes without severing past ties completely. Is it even possible? I don’t know.
Take our house, for instance. When we bought it in 2004, it was my dream house. That’s not true anymore. Now I feel like it’s burden. It’s too much space for two people. The yard requires constant maintenance. I don’t like the location. And so on. But Kris loves the place. It’s still her dream house. Is it fair for me to ask for change when she’s happy where she is?
It’s going to take a while to figure out this stuff. I’m pleased with who I am but not where I am. I guess that’s one part of the process of change, right? My life isn’t just good — it’s amazing. And I plan to make it more amazing. But the adjustments are going to take some time.
I’m a tired man. Adam and Courtney Baker rolled into town last week. They parked their RV on our front lawn, and I’ve been hanging around with them ever since — going out to eat, talking about blogging, and staying up late to play board games. It’s awesome — for me, at least. (I can’t speak for Adam, Courtney, or Kris.)
Baker’s RV, Kris’ flower garden, and the ever-present Oregon rain.
Adam and Courtney have been driving across the U.S. in their RV since January. They started in Baltimore, and have made a U-shaped traverse of the country, coming up the West Coast during the month of May. They’re not alone. They also brought their three-year-old daughter, Milligan, who is as cute as a bug’s ear.
At dinner, Milli tells me how old she is. That muffin is nearly as big as her head.
All parents think their kids are cute and smart and wonderful. But Milli actually is cute. I think she’s adorable. Plus, because she spends so much time with adults, she does a good job of interacting with them. She’s still three, of course, but she’s a precocious three. She’s smart and friendly and funny.
She’s also cuddly at times. Here, she’s giving Kris some spontaneous snuggling:
I spend a lot of time with Kris (which is good, since she’s my best friend and my wife!), but I don’t get to hang out with my other friends very often, except at the gym. It’s been far too long since I’ve been able to linger with anyone, playing games, going to lunch, and so on. But that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few days, and I’ve really enjoyed it.
Thankfully, Adam and I are working in separate spaces today, which means we’re able to be productive. (I am, anyhow.) But I look forward to playing games with the Bakers again soon: Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Dominion, and more! And I look forward to mingling with Milligan.
