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It’s been nearly eight consecutive years now that I’ve been living in a semi-permanent state, taking a bare minimum of possessions with me as I travel and take up various expat gigs. I haven’t really missed all the “stuff” in my life — but as a longtime music enthusiast, I’ve always missed having access to my full CD collection. I even went so far as to write an essay about my yen for those missing tunes, which appeared under the title “Anthem Soul” in World Hum, Best Travelers Tales 2004, and on public radio.
Hence, the advent of Apple’s iPod
Just for the sake of documentation (and because I’m kind of a music geek), I’ve detailed my playlists below. These albums account for 3000 songs, which fill up 60% of my iPod. Nineties-era alternative/indie music is heavily represented (probably because this was the last era when I was actively buying new CDs), but I do have good selections of classic rock (which I listened to while growing up in the mulleted Midwest), country/bluegrass (a recently acquired taste), classical, jazz, blues, pop, and techno. Oddly, I don’t have much world-beat music on the iPod, since most of my Syrian techno, Burmese hip-hop, and Mongolian throat-singing tunes are on cassette tapes.
The list is below. Let me know if you have any playlist suggestions that would make for good travel music.
“It’s much cleaner to hook up with someone in a foreign city, or even across the state line, than to have a one-night stand in your own bedroom, where you partner sees the actual you and leaves the residue of his or her existence in your life. A new environment gives you the permission to be someone else, and desires that ordinarily would not be contemplated may quite easily be indulged.”
–Sasha Cagen, quirkyalone (2004)
I’m currently back in Baja after a weekend trip to Los Angeles, where I had the rare opportunity to hang out with two other guys named Rolf. The weekend was initiated by filmmaker Rolf Gibbs, who read Vagabonding and decided to take a year (maybe more) off and travel India. I never knew Rolf G. until he met my friend Alyse, who told Rolf G. that she knew a travel writer named Rolf P. Rolf G. told her that was an amazing coincidence, since he’d been reading Rolf P’s travel book that morning (he had, in fact, originally noticed the book in the travel section because it was authored by a Rolf). So Rolf G. invited me up for his bon voyage party in LA’s Koreatown this past weekend, where I met Rolf G’s friend Rolfe Kent, who composes film scores for movies like About Schmidt and Legally Blonde. It was a great night, but very confusing since three of us turned around every time someone said “Rolf” (though they were usually calling for Rolf G, since it was his party).
At one point I made the observation that if I ever wrote a screenplay, Rolf G could direct it and Rolfe K could score it, thus making it one of the most Rolf-centric films ever made. If you are an actor, producer, cinematographer, editor, grip or gaffer and your name is Rolf, we’ll be sure to find a slot for you!
I have one more piece of advice to share from the Vagabonding.net Q&A. The question comes from David Kliman of Canada, who writes:
“Your book has inspired me greatly. After reading your book, my fiance and I went to Asia. We taught English in Korea for 9 months, and then traveled another 8 countries. It was amazing. We want to go away again and see a different part of the world, but there always seems to be one thing nagging us: our careers. We are both graduates in technical fields. We feel that if we don’t get and keep jobs in our fields we may be unhireable in a year or two when when we decide that settling down a bit is the thing to do. Employers may feel that we are not serious about being career-minded people, and I fear we will have a difficult time finding work when we get back. Any advice?”
This is what I told him:
“I’m glad to hear that my book was an inspiration, and that you and your fiance were able to travel Asia — a region I know and love well. I wish you many more enriching adventures! As for your question, it certainly is a common and valid one — and perhaps there is no universal answer. My best advice would be to side-step the “resume-gap” issue by presenting your travel expriences right there on your resume. You say you’re in a technical field, right? So I would just strategically write your resume so that any relevant “technical” experiences you encountered on the road — from helping in internet cafes, to teaching and volunteering in your discipline, to actually working overseas tech jobs — appear as part of your work history. This might require a slight bit of embellishment on one hand, but on the other hand you should be able to design your travels so that tech experience is a part of it. Granted, I don’t know what kind of technical work you do, but it isn’t that hard to seek out colleagues in your field as you travel overseas, and/or volunteer your tech skills in certain situations. Even if it isn’t a full-time pursuit as you travel, you can present it on your resume in such a way that it fills that employment “gap”. Some of your friends from professional and volunteer situations overseas might even write you letters of recommendation!
“Again, I don’t know exactly what you do in the tech field, but I’d say that creative resume presentation of your travels can go a long way. Another option, should travel be a big priority, would be to shift your career to something more portable, such as teaching (which it seems you have already done) or health care or hospitality. Overseas working and volunteer opportunities abound in these sorts of fields.”
My nephew Cedar, who is now five years old and attending kindergarten in north-central Kansas, has written a new poem. Here it is:
A monster is scary,
a monster is deep,
a monster likes to fall asleep.
When it awakes,
it finds its dinner,
of rabbits, bugs, and feathers.
A monster likes to growl at people,
a monster likes to howl.
But if you have a shield and armor,
He’ll run away and yowl.
“It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world occasionally swap history books, just to see what other people are doing with the same set of facts.”
–Bill Vaughan, quoted in The Sun, July 2004
If this blog has fallen silent late this week, it’s because I’ve been at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Georgia, where I’ve been serving as a media panelist along with Gary Lee of the Washington Post (and doing some kayaking on my own in the barrier islands near Brunswick). I’ll be back and blogging from California next week.
[This appeared today in Travel Weekly. See above for comment.]
By Casey Kittrell
Jenny Froelich sits beside the Futaleufu River, blissfully exhausted after another day of rafting some of Chile�s best white water. Her gear hangs from a nearby tree, drying in the late afternoon sun. The expedition�s guides busy themselves with preparing dinner for the group, while the river roars on.
With nothing pressing to do, Froelich is free to read, write in her journal or just absorb the natural splendor around her. Instead, she opens her backpack, digs out her Iridium Motorola satellite phone and calls her mom.
Froelich�s phone call is not unusual. Once the exclusive tools of war correspondents, remote-based oil and gas workers and long-distance sailors, satellite phones have entered the leisure travel market.
“Unaccustomed to direct experience, we can come to fear it. We don’t want to read a book or see a museum show until we’ve read the reviews so that we know what to think. We lose the confidence to perceive ourselves. We want to know the meaning of an experience before we have it. We become frightened of direct experience, and we will go to elaborate lengths to avoid it.
“I found I liked to travel, because it got me out of my routines and my familiar patterns. The more traveling I did, the more organized I became. I kept adding things I liked to have with me on my trips. Naturally I took books to read. Then I’d take my Walkman and the tapes I liked to listen to. Pretty soon I’d also take notebooks with colored pens for drawing. Then a portable computer for writing. Then magazines for the airplane trip. And a sweater in case it got cold on the airplane. And hand cream for dry skin.
“Before long traveling became a lot less fun, because now I was staggering onto airplanes, loaded down with all this stuff that I felt I had to take with me. I had made a new routine instead of escaping the old one. I wasn’t getting away from the office any more: I was just carrying most of the contents of my desk on my shoulders.
“So one day I decided I would get on the plane and carry nothing at all. Nothing to entertain me, nothing to save me from boredom. I stepped on the plan in a state of panic — none of my familiar stuff! What was I going to do?
“It turned out I had a fine time. I read the magazines that were on the plane. I talked to people. I stared out the window. I thought about things.
“It turned out I didn’t need any of that stuff I thought I needed. In fact, I felt a lot more alive without it.”
–Michael Crichton, Travels (1988)
Over at the Vagabonding Q&A, Andy S. from Woodbury, New Jersey writes:
“I am currently 18 years old and have recently graduated from high school. Having done a bit if traveling with my parents during my high school career and loved every minute of it, I’ve had the ‘bug’ for quite a while. I’m wondering if it is common, or acceptable, for a person of my age to head off for an extended trip? Or would you suggest that if college is in my future, which is most definitely is, to pursue college first and then head off?”
This is what I told him:
“You ask a great question. Should one go vagabonding right out of high school, or wait until college is finished? To be sure, the vagabonding road is full of intelligent, energetic, and capable young people traveling right out of high school. Many of them are from Europe or Australia (where long-term travel is more of a cultural norm), but young Americans have been prolific overseas travelers since the days of the 1960′s Hippie Trail, and before.
“Personally, I chose to go to college before I traveled. For me this was a good choice because I wasn’t quite psychically ready for it at age 18, and four years of college gave me some extra maturity and confidence. It helped that, with the help of scholarships, I was able to get through college without much debt (which, admittedly, is not possible for everyone), and hence I was able to go vagabonding within a year of graduation (after first working as a landscaper and saving money for eight months). In this way, college was a good prelude to my later journeys.
“At the same rate, however, some people are ready to travel right out of high school. They can find decent jobs to fund their travels, and avoid the financial debts that college might incur. And, even more importantly, some people simple aren’t ready for college right out of high school, and travel can be a good way to add focus to one’s life. Whereas an 18-year-old freshman might have no idea what he wants to study, a student who has a year or two of travel under his belt will start college with a lot more passion and focus for what interests him.
“In a way, travel (if done mindfully) is a complete education unto itself, and can be implemented either before or after formal university studies. In the end, it’s a matter of personal inspiration, preparation, and attitude. If you think you can travel the world right out of high school, you probably can!”
@Backpack Foodie & Kim:...
