An epic journey?

I’ve been thinking about a big trip. It is something that has always been something that I have thought about doing- taking 6 months or a year or two years and just going where I can. In addition to planting the seed of Peace Corps in me as a child, I grew up hearing stories about my parent’s epic journey around the world. When they finished PC in 1974, they took their readjustment allowance and the cash-in-lieu payment instead of a ticket back to Wyoming, shipped all the stuff that they wanted to keep back to my dad’s mom and left the Philippines with two backpacks. They traveled for about 9 months all through Asia and then through Europe. They missed Albania since it was still closed by the paranoid communist dictator, but they hit some places that are now completely inaccessible to tourists like Afghanistan (they have some amazing pictures of the giant Buddhas that were blown up by the Taliban). I grew up hearing stories about things like the bus full of Australians that they traveled across most of Asia with and seeing the collected artifacts and pictures that fill our house. At every party, I usually hear my mom start at least one sentence with something like, “When we were in Nepal . . .”

This week I read a book called Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Goldman Gelman (highly recommended). The author basically dropped her life at age 48 and started to travel. She learned Spanish and Indonesian and lived with amazing people all around the world. She had the advantage of being able to live off of the royalties of her many successful children’s books and found material to write more books along the way. I enjoyed her stories and her self-reflection about her life, her choices and her travel. And the book really got me thinking about my own wandering ways . . .

I have been in Albania for exactly a year this week. I have another year and some months to go in my service and then I have to figure some things out. Because of the nature of PC as a limited engagement, you tend to come in thinking about the next step almost from the first day. Go home? Travel more? Try to find a job here? Go back to school? These are all attractive options to me in some way. I think that I most pulled either in the direction of Denver or traveling. It really depends on the day. I really miss home (more than I thought I would I think) but a big part of me thinks that if I go straight there that I will regret not traveling more- I mean I’m already half a world away, I might as well get as much out of it I can. Most days, I want to keep traveling, at least for a little while.

My first thought is money. For all intensive purposes, I’m broke. Unlike the female nomad I do not have many successful children’s books to live off of. What I have, like my parents, is the PC readjustment allowance and cash-in-lieu of a ticket home. Unfortunately for me, the readjustment allowance has not increased significantly since my parent’s day and the several thousand dollars that I will get will probably not get me quite as far as it did them.

The next thought in my mind is mode of travel. I don’t mean bus, train or plane, I mean approach to travel. Last year I read another travel book called A year in the world by Frances Mayes- the author of “Under the Tuscan Sun” (PS- I don’t recommend it, I didn’t really like the book). Her way of traveling was completely different from the female nomad’s. She tended to take long vacations to off the beaten path, but still kind of glamorous locations, rent a house or stay in beautiful bed and breakfasts and eat at 5 star restaurants. If I had the money, then maybe this would be the way to travel, but even then, I’m not sure that I would. At this point in my life, I only how to travel one-way, and that’s cheaply. The female nomad inspires me by her traveling style- she chooses a destination and then figures it out as she goes along. She meets people on busses, in hotels, in the airport terminal. She trust perfect strangers to get her where she needs to be, to help her find her way and to take her into their homes. She goes to the really off the beaten path places where most tourists would never even think of trying to go. And when she gets there, she settles into a village or town and makes connections with people in amazing ways. I think what she has done (and I assume is still doing) is beautiful, but frankly it scares me. I have a hard time approaching strangers, a hard time asking for help and a hard time traveling without a plan. I also am nervous to travel alone. The book calmed some of my lone-travel fears by reinforcing what I have always heard but never quite experienced- you meet people on the road. I have never traveled for a long period of time by myself (I’ve only taken short trips alone- I don’t count PC, I have never really been alone here after the first days of training . . .).

My dream trip right now would be something like this: travel over land through the parts of Europe I haven’t been to yet (Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine) maybe take some time in the Baltic States or up to Norway (I have a good friend living in Oslo) and then to Russia. Visit both St. Petersburg and Moscow and maybe take and intensive Russian class. From there, on to Asia; by what route I’m not sure yet- maybe the Trans-Siberian railway, maybe down through the Stans (but not the currently scary ones like Afghanistan). I would love to go to India, Nepal, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and maybe more, maybe ending up in the Philippines . . .

Almost like the trip my parent’s took, in reverse.

I have a year or so more to think about it. I welcome your thoughts . . .