Archives July 2010

Arriving in London was quite the experience having been at sea for the previous week. We caught a bus from Southampton to Victoria, the transportation hub of London for metro, bus and train. The National Express bus service was amazing, with good service and arrival ahead of schedule—for only 12 pounds a person.

London is a beautiful city. We managed to drop off our bags at a friend’s apartment before venturing out on the town. First there was an impressive walk around the Tower of London, then a glance at London Bridge and the even more impressive Tower Bridge. We strode through the memorial park and monument to those lost in WWI, and jumped on the tube (subway) to the British Museum.

For anyone even mildly interested in history, the British Museum is a must-see. For me, it was an experience that was shrouded in finality because with our travels abroad we’ve heard many folks from around the world say they wanted their artifacts back from the British Museum. Now, seeing the world’s cultural relics in one place in the UK, I felt a bit sad that the items were not left in their original locations, with monuments of information and research set up around them. In some cases, as with the items collected in China prior to the Cultural Revolution, the removal of the artifacts ended up being a good thing in terms of preservation. But, by and large I’m starting to wish these amazing treasures were back where they belonged. Seeing the Rosetta Stone (image), for example, was amazing. What an important and beautiful piece of world history. However, it might be more appropriately returned. Same with the thousands of other Egyptian artifacts in the museum. I felt similarly about the multitude of Greek and Roman artifacts remaining in the British Museum. It was amazing to see them, and we’re lucky they are compiled in one location so we can soak it all in conveniently. But history is such an amazing thing it is worth traveling to the real location to learn about and see. For places to stay in the area, check out Holidaycheck.com.

After the British museum we jumped on the tube to the V&A museum, which houses a strange modern display on tiny architecture as well as artifacts from around the world ranging from clothing to pottery to statues larger than a three story house. Another must-see for any tourist to London, or any history or culture fanatic.

With all the iconic things to do in London, we’ve been quite busy doing things like riding in the top, front row of a double decker, red bus. Taking a cab ride in one of the black, antique-looking taxis. Trying fish and chips by the Thames. We have quite a few things remaining while in London. I want to shove as many people in a red phone booth as possible. I want to see if I can make the guards at Buckingham Palace laugh. I want to check out the parliament buildings and then stroll through Hyde Park and see if the Queen is free for tea this afternoon.

Nothing can compare with the Cunard line when it comes to luxury cruising. We found this out in vivid detail over the course of a seven day, transatlantic cruise from New York to Southampton, UK. The cruise departed on the 6th of July. The first night was an elegant casual affair with beautiful cuisine in an even more luxurious dining hall. Since we had booked so last minute we received no prior cruise package outlining what to expect, etc. We did not, therefore, book a seating. When we arrived at the late sating for dinner there were limited seats available, so he put us at a beautiful, 6-person table by the window in the corner. Arguably, this was the single best table in the room because we had a beautiful view of the ocean not a foot from our chairs, and the corner was quiet enough to hear our other table guests. Meanwhile, it was a preferred location for waiters so we ended up with one of the best servers on board! But the real jackpot came with the company!

We met, at our table, the most amazing, adventurous and memorable couple you’d ever hope to come across. Born in India during colonialism, the lady had deep insight into the region, and considered it home. Her love of Indian culture and cuisine ran deep, and she regaled us with stories that were so enthralling it was literally the best entertainment on board. Her husband was a Brit from Rhodesia, and together they lived wonderfully in that country experiencing so many marvelous things that the stories seemed to weave together in a cloud of awe. Mike and I sat enraptured in the life experiences of this couple night after night, and looked forward to dinner time throughout the day. By the end of the cruise we felt we knew them very well, in the way one comes to know a character in a good book. We asked them if they would be writing a book about their amazing adventures, and they seemed to favor the idea. As humble as they were, though, it’s hard to tell if they will do it or not. If they did, it would be an instant hit. Aside from their many adventures in Africa, they also lived in Europe, the UK, Ireland and America, and traveled around Asia to boot. When it comes to lotteries, Mike and I really hit the jackpot with this couple at our table.

The other entertainment on board came in the form of the Royal Cunard dancers, who were absolutely amazing, and the Royal Cunard Singers, who had someone in their midst who had the aggravating problem of being entirely off key 90% of the time. There were piano players, a harp player, a comic singer, a violinist, trivia crew, game staff and much more. One big band on board played for the gala balls and there was such talent on the dance floor that the 80 year old women could give Dancing with the Stars a run for their money.

One of the most amazing things happened while on board as well. Mike and I are traveling to Europe to embark on the Mongol Rally, as many of you know. So, we had with us our backpacks filled with outdoor clothing. We did not have a tuxedo. Mike and I found out the first evening on board that you would not be permitted into the dining hall, or really anywhere on board after 6pm, if you did not meet the nightly dress code. This was a bit shocking. I had packed an evening gown for the cruise that was wrinkle-free and fit in a sandwich bag when rolled up. Mike had nothing. He ran down to the pursers office (a lovely group of folks) who directed him to tux rentals at Hermes, the luxury designer clothing shop. A tux rental was something we didn’t really budget for, but Mike talked with the sales clerk who listened patiently about the rally, Mercy Corps, the adventure, and why we were on the QM2. She nodded politely and at the end she handed him a suit on the condition he dry clean it before the last day. We were astounded! She was such a lovely lady and did us such a huge favor. Without her, we might have missed every dinner on board because it turned out every single night until the last was formal. While all this was going on I was at the on-board movie theatre watching Invictus. Suddenly, Mike came into the theatre in a tuxedo and a million-dollar smile. I was amazed! I jumped up and we ran to the room where I quickly got ready and we dashed to the champagne captain’s gala and then a lovely dinner with our adventurous couple. It was an amazing evening, a truly epic and memorable day made possible by a very friendly lady.

We met several very interesting people on board, including a US Navy veteran of WWII who showed us his original military ID card. We met a man who was in charge of the horse racing commission in the UK, and a man who headed up the UK football league. There were very few people our age (read- none) and yet we had the best time talking with interesting folks who had already experienced a great deal. Two thumbs up for Cunard, and two more for attracting such interesting folks to their cruises.

We spent the night in New Jersey at the airport hotel, and fell asleep somewhere around 4am after a silly sprint around the city returning the rental car, finding the hotel, moving our luggage and finding a place to pull out some cash. To make matters more interesting, New York was then experiencing record high temperatures and it was 104 degrees that day, with a projected new high in tomorrow. To our endless surprise, everyone we met in Jersey was helpful, friendly and wonderful. We expected the opposite for some reason.

In the morning, we grabbed a sandwich from a small shop, took the free shuttle from the hotel to the airport, and then took the airport tram to the Amtrak-operated line that connects Newark with New York. What follows is no exaggeration, and my firm loyalty and love for Amtrak was put to the test that day.

We boarded the Amtrak train and it left some ten minutes late. “ok, not bad.” But, with our 70lb backpacks, a ukulele, my camera bag and mike’s laptop case it was a very long ten minutes. We boarded, tossed our bags at our feet and watched sweat roll over our eyeballs. We didn’t know that could happen. The record 105 degree temperature was made hotter by high humidity and a fully booked train. We made it one stop down the platform before the train broke down. A cynical and wholly unhelpful man came on the intercom and explained that we should all get off. We did so, which broke Mike’s bag in the process. So, there we were, running short on time, short on energy and extremely dehydrated. We stood on the platform with our bags for a few minutes, no easy feat I’ll remind you, before the same man came on the intercom and asked us to go to another track. We went underground, down the steep steps crowded with grumpy New Yorkers, and up the steps on the other side. We stood there dripping sweat, looking like Angel Falls was pouring over us. Five minutes later, as I felt my tendons start to give, the announcer asked us all to go back to our original track. We went back down the stairs, back up the other side, and with angry city folk all around us we looked off into the distance truly exhausted. The train came some while after the bags started to slip off our shoulders from all the sweat. We nabbed a seat and gave sympathetic looks to the poor huddles who had to push past our giant bags to find a seat.

We arrived at Penn Station still alive, which was more than we had come to expect. It was easy to find the connecting subway we needed to reach Brooklyn, so we took the metro to the southeast. When we reached the final station we got out and asked the attendant how to reach the docks. She said it was a fool’s errand to walk in the heat, but when we insisted she pointed and we scampered outside. Heat really can hit you like a slap in the face, and this slap was so hot it felt like it was delivered with a recently-used frying pan. We strapped on our bags and set off…. In the wrong direction.

I’ll spare you the Brooklyn saga, but suffice to say we finally reached the cruise terminal by 2pm. A good two hours after our check-in time. We had missed lunch on board, and we were desperate to find some water. Nevertheless, we were in high spirits when we walked into our inside cabin and found a bottle of complementary champagne waiting for us. I’ll tell you one thing about going through a trial like the one from Jersey to Brooklyn by public transportation—when you get to the other side it sure is a beautiful thing. We drank some champagne, changed into clean, sweat-free clothing and rushed up on deck to survey the ship and say goodbye to the USA. When we were up on deck with our drinks waving, it looked like Lady Liberty waved back.

On the 3rd of July, we booked a boat leaving from New York on the 6th of July. Since I don’t fly (and most un-winged mammals shouldn’t) we decided to rent a car and drive from Chicago to New York on the 5th. It all seems very logical and organized, but behind the scenes it was a bit of a chaotic mess. We decided on taking the Queen Mary II Cruise in what can only be described as a truly epic moment. We had been debating the cost, the time it would take, and the cheaper option of flying. Finally, at about 9pm on the 3rd I was sitting outside on the deck with a gin and tonic (how all good ideas start, really) when the sun began to set (yup, it sets that late in the summer near Chicago) and I had the most beautiful feeling of calm and happiness wash over me. It really is the simple things. But then I decided to make it much more complicated. Mike came outside and I turned around in my chair and said “what have we been worrying about? Let’s take the %@*#)( cruise!” I laid out my argument, which was a simple ATC-type argument that went along the lines of enjoying the moment, carpe diem, and the fact that we would make more money once we got done with the rally and found jobs overseas somewhere. Really, the only question left was why wouldn’t we take a cruise across the Atlantic. In a big wave of excitement and principle we dashed around the house getting the required paperwork to book the cruise.

The next day was the 4th of July. For our non American readers, this is the American Independence Day. To celebrate, Americans usually purchase ridiculous amounts of alcohol, beer and wine and then purchase a trunk-load of fireworks. Seems intelligent, I know. We incorporate a BBQ into the mix and gather all our family and friends to one yard for the food, drink and explosions. Since my family was in Washington I missed out on the legendary bonfire, which was a disappointment. But Mike and I went to a family friend’s dinner for a fancy picnic on the patio, and then to a friend’s house to watch her inbred neighbors light fireworks directly above their house. It was a wonderful, all-American evening. And in true 4th of July style we got home exceptionally late, smelling of sulfur and Budweiser.

The following morning we awoke at 5am and packed, registered our passports for the cruise, and then picked up the rental car. After a teary good-bye to Mike’s family, we set out in our tiny car with the aim of reaching New York city by nightfall. Anyone who has driven across country knows the sinking feeling in your gut when you come to the first toll booth in the Midwest. I wrote an entire blog about the toll processes along the route before reaching Jersey. Despite that, the roads were nice, direct and well kept. It was only nearing Jersey that traffic picked up even the slightest bit. We sang along with the radio, had debated with NPR, played license plate bingo and even did some typing on the laptop. The 14 hour drive went by quickly, and although the toll situation was frustrating, at least they ended when we hit Pennsylvania.

Arriving in New Jersey after such a long trek was a great reward. Everyone we met was friendly and we easily found our way around- despite the turnpikes. We found our airport hotel (across from a prison) and the rest will have to wait for part two of the mad dash installment.

We’d like to offer a giant, humongous, ridiculously large, massive, heart-felt thank you to our sponsors!

For high-quality designer eyewear, sunglasses, and contact lenses delivered to your door, contact Smart Buy Glasses. With offices around Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia, there is an online store shipping to your area. Thank you to Smart Buy Glasses for their eyewear donations to our team!

Likewise, we’d love to thank Kelly’s Necchi New Home Sewing Center for our team uniforms! She did an amazing job. If you live in Illinois, its worth the drive to get to Kelly’s sewing shop for your quilting, embroidery and sewing needs. Thanks, Kelly, for your donation to our team in the form of amazing (pictures coming soon) uniforms!

Moreover, Nomadic Matt has sent some money our way for the Mongol Rally.   We are very appreciative of that.  Everything counts when you are trying to fill up your tank in the U.K or Europe.  We are just fortunate that the Dollar to GBP / Euro is at its best rate in a very long time.

We’d also like to thank our ridiculously supportive families. Throughout the last year (while we were excitedly stuttering through explanations about the upcoming event) our families remained positive, supportive and eager to help. Luckily, our families love travel as much as we do, and their passion is infectious. Thankfully, also, they opened up their wallets and purses to us. We’d like to thank them all (and have done so personally) for their love, support and interest in our upcoming adventure. Most folks hear what we are planning and shake their heads sadly at our lack of foresight, lack of equity and totally devastating credit scores and write us off as bums. Our loving and understanding families continue to support our traveling lifestyle and encourage us to do as much trekking as possible. So, thank you to our biggest sponsors and the people who make this all possible- our parents, our siblings, our uncles and aunts, and our grandparents. Thanks!

If you are interested in sponsoring our team, you can do so online, or you can donate to Mercy Corps-Mongolia on our website.

I noticed something recently on an American TV show called ‘Pawn Stars’ and that is the fact that Americans have no idea how to bargain. You’ll see the same thing on ‘American Pickers’ and other History or Discovery Channel shows. It is a common tale, you take something into the pawn shop and they talk you down from your original asking price and in the end they get the upper hand. Since we’ve been traveling quite a bit, I think we could take on the folks of ‘Pawn Stars’ and the ‘American Pickers’ with the bargaining skills we acquired traveling through Asia. But, in case you are new to the concept here are a few tips in the event you are traveling to Asia or are about to pawn an item.

As a Seller:
• Find a realistic and well researched asking price for your item by doing your homework. Look online for other items in similar shape and of similar age. Get a number from an expert, if possible.
• Now head to the market or pawn shop and ask for literally three times the number you are willing to settle for.
• Do not hesitate to turn a buyer away. You are one person with one product, and there are millions of people who are potential buyers, you don’t have to land the first one.
• Stick to your bottom-line price and do not go lower than that. Always attempt to go higher.

As a Buyer:
• Remember all the techniques you used as a seller and try to preempt their game by cutting their original asking price into 1/3rd of what they asked. This is a safe maneuver.
• Don’t be uncomfortable bargaining. In the bargaining game the goal is to end up with a number you are happy with as a buyer. Don’t worry about the seller’s feelings.
• Arrive at a price in your head that you are happy with and take one of two roads: 1) if you really want the product buy it at any price, or; 2) separate yourself from your desire to have the product and only buy it when the price is right. Don’t say your final bottom line price out loud until you get towards the end of your bargaining spiel.
• Try the walk away method. If the price was right, the seller will stop you from walking away. Naturally they are trying to get as much out of you as possible so don’t be the weak link. Hold your ground. Sometimes you will lose and your walk away bluff will result in you losing the item. Most of the time, however, the negotiations will reopen as soon as you take your first steps.

It is supremely important to stick to a deal once you make it. You don’t want to be responsible for making your whole country look bad by going back on a deal. Despite what anyone tells you, you are somewhat of an ambassador for your homeland. While some sellers overseas may change a deal once it is made, it is important to always uphold your end and take the high road. It is not at all uncommon in Central Asia and other nearby regions for a deal to be reached and then, as the product is being delivered the deal will change. Keep a level head and don’t ever give in to someone who breaks a deal. For example, we set a price for a cab ride in advance across a section of desert in Uzbekistan, as is the custom. Mid way across the desert, to no one’s real surprise, the driver pulled over and demanded more money to finish crossing the desert. When something like this happens, even if it makes your life a bit more difficult, you have to hold your ground. If they really won’t honor the original deal, get out of the car with all of your belongings. Someone else will pick you up. If you do pay someone extortion like that you make it worse down the road for the next guy, and make the scam artist a life-long fan of continuing this practice. We forced a driver to pull over and got out with all of our gear, leaving him with nothing for driving us half way. He could either stick to the original deal or get nothing. Naturally, he got us back into the car and we paid the original price. He tried the entire drive to get more money out of us, which is always annoying, but sticking to something you shake hands on is important as a person, and as a representative.

One of the most common questions we get is about financing our travels. We left Shanghai, our apartment there and our jobs in May of 2009. It is now July, 2010 and we’ve traveled for over a year. It is a fair and understandable question when people ask if we are secret millionaires or if we recently inherited some money. The answer to both of those questions is a firm, “no.” How we make our money is simple.

Website funds:
We make some money on our website, but to be honest we spend a lot of time and money on the site so we do only slightly better than break even on that. Some costs associated with the website include: the hosting fee ($250 for two years, roughly) our pro flickr account ($25 a year) and the amount of man hours put into developing and maintaining the site and the blog. We make money on the site by selling some ad space on the blog, which is unobtrusive and we are very particular about who we will allow to advertise on our site. We turn down some offers for cash in exchange for links simply because the products would not match our reader’s interests or have anything to do with traveling or quitting one’s job.

Income:
Lauren makes money as a writer. She has a few solid contracts that help her make enough money to travel full time as well as cover her college loan payments each month. Meanwhile, Mike was able to save more than half of his earned income in 2008, meaning he is living off his savings. Considering we both made less than $30,000 in 2008, it is possible to travel for cheap on savings if you don’t spend money on frivolous things, or live above one’s means.

Lifestyle:
One of the main ways we save money is to live well below your means. We do this by living overseas, where we don’t have cell phone costs, or outrageous cable and internet fees. We don’t have an overpriced apartment, car payments or insurance fees due each month. Essentially, the money we spend each month living abroad is the total of our food, transportation costs and apartment. We live like the locals do (lower-middle class locals) and save a bundle by avoiding expat eateries and entertainment. For a month in Shanghai we were spending a total of around $350 each, counting everything from random purchases to rent to food costs. If you make $20-25,000 a year and only spend $350 of that each month, you are looking at quite a savings over time.

Traveling versus Staying Home:
Meanwhile, traveling full time is cheap because your only costs are lodging, food and transportation. Often, people spend most of their travel money on lodging, we avoid this by camping whenever possible or staying at hostels for less than $15 a night. In Asia, we spent around $6 a night and that often included dinner. We spend, on average, around $6-700 a month traveling full time abroad. These costs are higher than would be necessary if one traveled more slowly. However, most of these funds went to train and bus tickets. When we were moving slowly we spent roughly $500 a month. For most Americans, that is far less than they spend a month living in an apartment or home with a dozen or so monthly costs.

We’re busy brainstorming ways to make the Abandon the Cube website more accessible, easier to use, more graphically pleasing and better organized, and we’re hoping you can help us by sending in your ideas. Now you have a chance to help us make the site better. If you have some changes in mind, don’t hesitate to let us know! We know we’re new at this game, so your suggestions and ideas would be appreciated!

Since 2008 we’ve been teaching ourselves (through trial and error) how to make a website, how to market it, and how to maintain a constant level of new content. We’ve learned quite a bit since we first started, and although we’re still learning, we think its time for an overhaul.

Some of the areas we’d like to see revamped include:

• The website logo
• The graphics throughout the site, including specific graphics for each page
• Destination guides with more useful travel information
• More links to useful and related travel or job-quitting websites
• Maps, interactive and informative
• More interactive materials and concepts
• More resources for people hoping to ATC
• A database of information about abandoning the cube
• More films, books, music and TV related to Abandoning the cube

Please don’t hesitate to send us your ideas! Either post them below as a comment or send us an email at atc(at)abandonthecube.com. We are looking forward to hearing your ideas!

As many of you know, we’ve been busy preparing for the upcoming Mongol Rally. In so doing, we’ve been looking for a lot of equipment. We found a pretty sweet website called DiscountCoder.com that gives you discount coupons on a lot of great sites, from food to tools to Amazon, etc. This includes some of the biggest retailers across the UK! If you have ever shopped online and noticed the ‘enter discount code’ option on the website, then you know what I’m referring to. This is the best place in the UK to go for discount codes, and its helped us a great deal in buying stuff for the rally on a shoestring.

If you live on a dime (or on a pence, as us Yanks assume the Brits would say) then this is a great resource for you. They have deals on computers, discounts on clothing, ‘kids eat free’ discounts at restaurants and similar deals. They have discount codes on everything! You can even sign up for a weekly email of deals and coupons in the UK. It is categorized smartly, including a top ten section, or the ability to search by category. Its so smart, in fact, that even the Britannica has a discount code!

You’ll find amazing savings and discount codes on Thomson Discount Codes that will end up saving you hundreds every year. Check it out, give it a try, and let us know if you like it too.