As I write this, I’m listening to some of the cheesiest pop you could imagine!

Although I’m currently on the road with my husband, I’ve done the solo travel thing and found companionship and comfort in my headphones at times when I’ve felt unsociable, insecure or unsure of my surroundings.

In the same way that some sights, sounds, smells and tastes can bring back vivid memories of your travels and adventures, what you listen to as you travel can enhance the experience and ensure you remember it for years to come.

For me, there was the time when I was inter-railing around Europe with a friend. We arrived, after a 4 week stint of staying in the cheapest hostels and camp grounds, at the apartment of a relative’s distant relative in Berlin.

Barely able to contain ourselves at the thought of a clean bathroom, a proper bed and some good old home comforts, our host opened the door with music blaring from the radio and led us into the apartment which was not quite as we expected…

Huge, bare rooms with a massive palm tree in one room and nothing else; no hot water unless she stoked the boiler with wood; and no bed just a mattress on the floor covered in a sheepskin rug. That plus the fact that she got up naked every morning, walked round the flat and did her stretches. The saving grace? She’d made us home-made soup and bread rolls.

And the music on the radio when we arrived? OMCs “How Bizarre” – so, so apt.

What are some of the favourite tunes you’ve traveled with that bring the memories flooding back?

By the way in case you’re interested, I’m actually listening to Nelly Furtado. Must find something more memorable to accompany my time in South Africa.

I don’t mean in terms of packing, or reading and re-reading a guidebook, or even booking your flights. I mean preparing for the place itself – the landscapes, the music, the food, the history…

I usually try to read up on a bit of history and maybe catch a movie or read a good novel about a place before I visit. I read Rudyard Kipling and Rohinton Mistry before I visited India, and watched Manhattan and Annie Hall before heading to New York City for the first time. But right now I’m preparing for a month-long road trip around the American South, and I’ve taken my “cultural” preparation to a whole new level. I’ve been reading books and articles on the history of blues, country, gospel and soul music, and digging around on YouTube for clips of the songs and artists I’m reading about. I’ve taken half of William Faulkner’s works out of the library and I’ll be renting Gone With the Wind and Fried Green Tomatoes this weekend. I even bought Gourmet’s special “Southern Cooking” issue and tried to figure out how to make a proper biscuit! (Okay, who am I kidding – I skipped straight to the recipes that involve bourbon and a tall glass of ice.)

I’ve basically been trying to eat, sleep and breathe Dixie. And someone asked me recently if I wasn’t going a bit overboard: was it possible, they wondered, for me to ruin the trip by discovering too much before I even got there?

What do you think? Is it possible to over-prepare or over-immerse yourself in a destination before you’ve arrived? Do you have any pre-trip rituals involving books, movies, music, food, or something else I haven’t even thought of?

For myself, I don’t think any number of Muddy Waters clips on my laptop will spoil the experience of seeing a guitar-pickin’ contest in a small juke joint somewhere in the Mississippi Delta, should I happen to stumble upon one… and it’s those lucky finds that we never can prepare for, right?

A hairdryer with the wrong type of plug.
Books you’ve already read.
Clothes that are off-season.

Once priceless, now practically worthless. What to do?

Even when you simplify your belongings at the start, that moment months later in front of your backpack is inevitable. All of the things you accumulated don’t seem to fit inside, and the only apparent choice for that shirt that you’ve been wearing so often seems to be the garbage bin.

Once while about to leave Sydney, only mid-way through my trip, I ran into two strokes of luck: friends who were visiting me agreed to take some of my things with them; and a hostel happened to be hosting a sale. The sale was easy—everyone at the casual marketplace was responsible for pricing, setting up, and selling his/her own goods. And after getting rid everything that I was selling, I considered it a few hours well-spent: earning money, lending others a hand, and reaping good karma in one fell swoop. Most things were right there and easy to carry out of the hostel, but if I remember correctly someone was selling his car, which he advertised with a photo.

What are the options?

• Ship it home—On the slow boat home for cheap.
• Send it home with a friend—Safe and secure (as long as it’s not to the detriment of your friendship).
• Sell it—Post an ad at an internet cafe or hostel. Or organize a grassroots sale of your own with other travellers.
• Swap it—A win-win situation, if what you get in return is something that you need.
• Donate it—Give it to a local charity if it’s in good shape, or to a fellow traveler who is staying in the area.
• Keep it—If there’s no parting with it, maybe you can be creative and use it differently. Or else wrap it up tightly to take up less room.
• Toss it—If it’s on its last legs.

Any other ideas?

The term “ecotourism” is turning 25-years-old this year.

It’s growing up, isn’t it? I’ve never been good at determining ages, but somehow I would’ve thought that it was younger than that. But at the same time I’m glad that the environmental and cultural sensitivity of this travel niche has been around for a while (though not long enough, one might say).

The World Conservation Union defines ecotourism as having the following:
• Conscientious, low-impact visitor behavior
• Sensitivity towards, and appreciation of, local cultures and biodiversity
• Support for local conservation efforts
• Sustainable benefits to local communities
• Local participation in decision-making
• Educational components for both the traveler and local communities

Planeta writes up a Q&A with the man who coined the phrase back in 1983, Hector Ceballos-Lascurain. As an architect, environmentalist, international ecotourism consultant, and author, Ceballos-Lascurain has assisted ecotourism projects in more than 70 countries, including several in his native Mexico. In the discussion, he doesn’t celebrate the anniversary blindly for the sake of cake and streamers and presents—he takes a realistic view of the industry and acknowledges areas for improvement.

Also worth reading is a longer article at ECOCLUB.com, from October 2006.

Here’s to the wisdom and experience of age.

Travel trouble-shooter Chris Elliot has just released the first of what will be a series of video-casts. It is only a minute long and gives you tips on how to avoid the one problem that we often face when we travel: losing luggage.

Now, I have to admit that I have been very lucky that airport/airline authorities have never lost my luggage — but, I, because of lack of caution, shamefully on more than one occasion, have not recognized my own bag. Ever since, I rather have a big, ugly, yellow and black spotted ribbon tied onto my bag, so I can’t miss it. Although I’ve often felt embarrassed to take ownership of a bag with a hideous ribbon on it, I have never again had problems recognizing it.

This is exactly Elliot’s first tip refers to:

• Separate your luggage: I was thrilled to see how Elliot does this.He covers it with a bag rag — a cloth sack that lets your bag in like a glove — and the one shown in the video is shocking-pink with a leopard skin print(!).

• His second tip is to pack smart: Don’t put anything valuable into the bag; your bag might be returned, but anything that costs more than your underwear, probably won’t be.
• Go beyond your luggage tag: Other than having your bag well-tagged with your name and contact information, it is also handy to have some business cards inside the bag so there is no reason for people not to have your contact details.
• Or, the best tip of them all: Don’t check-in any luggage! It’s great not to check-in your bag. You are allowed 10-kilograms in your hand on a flight, try to travel light and stick to that weight, it’s not difficult and it makes things so much easier!

If you want to be notified when Elliot’s next video-cast goes up, you can subscribe to his YouTube channel.

In case you missed it, last week I announced that Rolf’s book, Vagabonding, will be going into a second edition within the year, complete with a fully updated resources section. We put a call out for you to help us update that resource section for the second edition, and this is the first week in a 10-week-long series asking for those website links, books, and other resources that fit into the various categories found in the book.

Chapter 2 of Vagabonding deals with four topics ranging from quitting your job, to finding careers overseas and general travel safety. Let’s first look at the resources for each category in detail as they appeared in the first edition of the book, and then I’ll start things off with some suggestions of my own.

I’ll get the ball rolling:

For Finding jobs and careers overseas, I highly recommend Susan Griffith’s Work Your Way Around the World, and Mark Ehrman’s Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America. And for Travel Safety, I’ll offer Robert Young Pelton’s website, ComeBackAlive.com. The Australian government also keeps a handy travel advisory website called SmarterTraveller.

Now it’s your turn. What websites, books, or other resources are missing from the list? It’s important to suggest web resources that are going to have some kind of permanence; a blog that’s only been around for a few months, for instance, wouldn’t be a safe bet.

Now let’s see what you come up with!

Next week, we’ll be tackling chapter 3, which includes resources for lifestyle simplicity, money management, and vagabonding with children.

It’s difficult, not to mention unwise, to make sweeping generalizations about entire cultures and societies. But in the case of modern Japan, it’s hard not to. I’ve always found there to be something a bit eccentric– though endearingly so– about modern Japanese culture. And when I stumble across things like Chindōgu, it only reinforces that belief.

Chindōgu is the Japanese art of inventing gadgets that solve everyday problems, but in an entirely impractical way. The word Chindōgu, literally translated, means “weird tool,” and it’s easy to see why. Chindōgu has been called “part Rube Goldberg machine, part Zen,” and that seems to be an apt description.

Here’s the perfect example of Chindōgu: Tired of falling asleep on the subway and having your head bob forward? You’re in luck– there’s a hat with a plunger on it that will stick to the window next to you, keeping your head in place.

Or tired of risking your life to cross busy streets? Here’s the thing for you– a do-it-yourself crosswalk. (Careful laying it down though.)

There are entire websites devoted to tracking these entertaining inventions, complete with the “Tenents” of Chindōgu. This site has lots of examples (but be sure to turn the sound down).

Here’s one of my favorite examples of Chindōgu:

You cannot not read a headline like that; it sums up every traveler’s eternal wish. There are endless ways to do this and resources on how to are abundant, you just have to look and be able to choose ones more reliable than the others. What you choose depends on the price (not monetary) you are willing to pay for it: for example, will you be happy always sleeping on a stranger’s couch?

A recent article on Vagabondish has picked out 8 online resources that, depending on your personality, can make this happen for you. Here they are:

• Caretaker’s Gazette:People looking for caretakers in exchange for rent-free living.

• WOOF: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms — it is an organisation with which you can exchange your services for accommodations, food, and training.
• House Carers: House-sitting opportunities when you travel.
• Organic Volunteers: Alongside berry-picking jobs, here you will also find hostel management jobs and artist retreat internships that will allow you to pay expenses when on the road.
• Couch-Surfing: We are all familiar with this concept and it’s one I’m looking forward to trying soon. I’m a little afraid of doing it on my own though!
• Global Freeloaders:Similar to couch-surfing, but you are required to be able to host as well as travel.
• Servas: Apparently the original couch-surfers!
• Hospitality Club:A group of people willing to host people visiting their country in different ways: giving them free guided tours or a bed.

Have a look at the full article here.

I’ve lived in or around 5 very different cities this past year – Panama, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Dubai and now Cape Town. Not being a “city” person anymore, I have to admit that this post likely comes with a certain bias against cities….

However one question I’ve been wrestling with recently, having arrived in Cape Town and been distinctly underwhelmed at first, is this:

What makes a city “great”?

What makes one city better than another?

There are clearly some cities which are unarguably great – London, New York, Rome and Paris spring to mind. But just what is it about cities that qualifies them as better than another?

For me, I believe it’s a combination of the following:

1) The people and how friendly, welcoming and helpful they are
2) The range of activities within and around the city
3) The ability to get out of the city easily
4) The level of traffic and pollution
5) The architecture
6) The cost – or at least a good range of costs to suit all budgets

But as I said, it’s totally subjective. What makes a city “great” for you?

Pilgrims’ Progress is up and running, the blog written by the Kiwi family that is planning a round-the-world trip with eight children. Vagablogging profiled the family in September.

Now, they have received some of their gear and are further along in the planning stages of their trip, scheduled to depart in August. However, they are also wondering how their family will be received abroad, especially when traveling to China with eight children. Their blog discusses their concerns about whether or not Dad will be issued a work visa to teach at a university with ties to the government.

Though the Andrus family did not seek employment in China on their round-the-world trip, they found themselves to be the center of more attention than usual, as they were a family with four children in a land where the law allowed only one child per family.

Atlanta Life Magazine wrote a wonderful feature article on the family, including the reactions they received in China (pages 58-62).

Travelers with tots and older kids can exchange information on a variety of forums, such as Lonely Planet’s Kids to Go forum and Bootsnall’s Traveling with Kids message board.