Halcyon days
Since my un-birthday has just passed some I thought about where I was ten years ago. By August 1995 I was probably in the US, Florida, visiting with my wife's parents before we set out on a year's worth of travel. We had our round the world tickets and a rough idea of which countries we were going to end up in. We also owned our first Lonely Planet guide book for New Zealand, giving to me as a leaving present at work, along with an inflatable globe (later to prove extremely useful when half-inflated as a tent pillow) and a huge MagLite flashlight which remained safely in the packaging until I got back home. Our research had really been minimal, consisting mostly of being able to spell the names of the countries we were going to visit (fortunately we'd chosen easy spelling ones, nothing like Malacca).Everything we cared about went into two backpacks. One each.
We had around $9,000 to live for one year, and that was our total budget. Everything for that one year was to come out of there. I also picked up four weeks work in Melbourne that paid for us to spend 10 weeks in Australia, learning to dive in that time.
And now I work for a large multinational company, have a mortgage, two cars, two kids, a dog, school concerns for both my wife and kids, health insurance to fund, a lawnmower that's has a leaky fuel tank, two TVs, a seldom used formal dining room, broadband internet access. It's not a bad life at all, but it sure is different. And I would love to be back on the road again.
posted by Paul @ 9:17 AM
11 Comments:
It's getting a bit mid-life crises-y in here lately. Why don't you get a tattoo and buy a Harley like all your middle ages neighbors?
Yeah, that's nice, thanks. You ever considered a career as a social worker or a hostage negotiator ? No ? Really ? That's OK then.
Sheesh, caring and sharing obviously hasn't hit the spiky haired individuals on the West Coast yet.
He might be jealous that your posts are more sophisticated than his peeing-in-the-pool post. Don't take it too hard, Paul - those west coasters never did have a clue.
Hard to believe you could set out for a one year adventure with only $9000. Those were the good old days.
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Finally, someone with a little sense and civility shows up here. Maybe the Zima addicition is messing up with his interpersonal gland and it's too hard to be polite today. Still, he's more to be pitied than scolded I guess.
Actually, it was 9000 pounds. I forgot where I was for a moment, and was typing on a keyboard far, far away. But still, it wasn't a lot of money. If it hadn't been for me working in Australia we would have had to have skipped seeing that country, which would have been a shame. Things got much easier financially when we hit SE Asia. We still managed to accomplish a lot on the money we had - trekking in Nepal will always be a highlight for me, as will diving in coral seas, street food in Thailand, seeing monkeys in the temples in both India and Nepal, being offered live cobra in Java (I went for the shrimp instead). Even some of the bus trips hold memories, including one with us on the top for a six hour, forty mile journey where I personally wouldn't have taken a Land Rover.
I'd do it all again tomorrow if it were possible
I just reread my post...for the life of me, I don't see where I came off as cranky :P
And so rests the case for the defense m'lud.
In Sancho's defense, I think you'd look superb with a nice, large tattoo on your bicep. Something classy, like a snake twining around an xbox controller....
Ah, I see, you think he was paying me a compliment. I'm not sure I'd want him paying me that kind of compliment anyway ... I like it coming from you, not so much from El Spiko.
I was joking about the tattoo and the Harley. But it does look like you are doing some mid-life (though you are way on the young side of it) introspection. Good to see you aren't on autopilot. Maybe you can take a family vacation to the jungles and coast of Costa Rica, though its pretty tourist friendly from what I hear. Maybe you can take the family to Africa, or maybe the kids don't go and you and the missus leave em with their grandparents. Or are you looking for an even bigger change? Perhaps you are just reminiscing and I have my wheels spinning for nothing.
Introspection - yup, I guess that's true. We've talked about Costa Rica as a good place to visit before, although cash is still not just dropping from the sky into my wallet. I think it would be good for the kids to visit different cultures early on - it was easier to do that from the UK it seems.
It's not even that I'm looking for a big change, just knowing that having the flexibility to travel would help.
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