Category backpacking

This post was written by Bear J., who recently spent a week in the Boundary Waters with his brother. Read more about their trip, or read on to see how the canoe trip was planned.

The Boundary Waters of Minnesota are unlike any other wilderness. For one, a canoe carries your packs for most of the trip. And when its time to carry your pack, you may have a canoe on your shoulders as well! But it’s the pristine nature, the loon calls, and the fishing that brings people back year after year. This would be our 10th trip into the wilds of the Boundary Waters.

There are a million acres of lakes on the U.S. side, and twice as much on the Canadian side in the Quetico Provincial Park. The lakes have many similarities, such as many campsites, fish, mosquitoes, ruggedness and solitude.

Here are photos of the Johnson Brothers’ Canoe Trip

Planning Your Trip to the Boundary Waters

There are many outfitters in the Ely area of Minnesota that have planning guides online, and who will start up an email and phone dialogue about what to bring, when to go, and what you will need. I would recommend using one of them to plan, and outfit your trip. Especially if it’s your first time up north.

Plan and practice everything. Test everything. Know how to use that water filter, start the stove, turn on your head lamp. Load your pack and try carrying it. Load a food bag and carry it. Try out all your fishing gear. Find the deepest darkest swamp, and test your bug dope. Serious bug dope. Seriously.

Route Planning

There is a saying up in the Boundary Waters. With every portage you see half as many people and twice as many fish. This is very true. This trip we went nine portages in and saw no one, and the fishing was phenomenal. You could see 12 lb bass and 18 lb Northern swimming around the canoe saying ‘pick me.’ We ate our fill of fish every night. We planned for 10 miles a day, and 5-7 portages the first two days. We made that easily. If you have never canoed, or portaged plan for less, and make contingency plans. For your first couple of trips, plan an up and back route, so if you fall behind, you can stop. Later, you can make a circular type route through Canada and the BWCA. I recommend going in two days, and setting up a base camp, then exploring from there minus most of your gear.

Maps

There isn’t much choice in maps. Fisher Maps has detailed topographcial maps of the U.S. side, but I have not found good ones for Canada. Fisher does carry the Canadian side without topo for $6.90 each. Bring two sets just in case a mosquito carries yours off.

Staging Your Trip

You will need to park your car, and get a canoe in Ely, unless you live close enough and have your own. There are many good outfitters in Ely. They are all about equal. I tend to pick one with a base camp on Moose Lake, where I like to launch. Moose Lake offers easy access to Canada. You can pull up and be met, outfitted, packed and ready to go in two hours. Since Ely is about 5 hours from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, I like to arrive in the afternoon, take in Ely, head out to the outfitter, pack, have a nice steak dinner, and relax in the bunk room. First tow heads out after breakfast the following morning at 7:30 (the Canadian Ranger Station does not open until 8:00). Regardless, arrive early enough to load and pack everything, test everything you get from them, and try out your fishing gear.

Here are photos of the Johnson Brothers’ Canoe Trip

Canoeing into Canada

If you want to go into Canada, you have to plan it three months in advance.

You will need a Remote Area Border Crossing Permit (RABC) and a fishing license for Canada. You can find the form here, and you will have to mail it in to the address in Canada listed on the form. Permits are numbered and a limited number of  people are allowed in to any one area. This is a good thing. I have gone four days before without seeing anyone.

You have to enter Canada through one of the Ranger Stations. We chose Prairie Portage. This allowed us easy access through Carp Lake to the Man Chain of Lakes, five lakes with “Man” in them, such as Other Man, No Man, This Man, That Man, and He Man. Bring your credit card and I.D to the station to pay the rest of your fees and register your route. Prices are $110 per person for the Quetico permit, half up front, the rest at the Ranger Station, plus $40 for a fishing license. The fishing license you can obtain here.  Order one well in advance.

Bring special bug dope for Canada.

Picking a Canoe

Unless you have your own lightweight canoe, you will be renting one from one of the outfitters. The plastic composite canoe that is fine for your neighborhood park will not make it up here. The last thing you want is a damaged canoe 25 miles into your trip. It is a long walk back to civilization, through many mosquito nests. My first trips to the BWCA were with fiberglass, later aluminum canoes. This trip we tried the new Kevlar canoes. They are amazingly light.

Pick a canoe to your ability and planned activities. For example, if you plan to do 10 miles and 5-7 portages a day, take Kevlar. If you have not canoed much, or if you plan on taking your time or fishing en route, take aluminum. Kevlar trades off some stability for lightness, while Aluminum is more forgiving in big wind, rocking, or with younger folks. Kevlar is $42 per day, aluminum $25, roughly.

Who can go to the great Northwest? Everyone. There is a trip to meet your ability, experience, and party composition. I’ve had 5-year olds on trips, and even teenagers. It will be an incredible adventure for them if you let them experience everything, and have the right gear to make it fun.

Portaging: The Muscled Side of Canoeing

If you have canoes, but have never portaged, it’s an art form you’ll need to master. It is not as easy as picking up your canoe and walking up to your car. Portages come in all sizes and shapes. Some are a mile long. Some are straight uphill, then straight downhill. This trip we found several with trees down across them paths, meaning pulling and pushing your gear, and canoe, through some pretty thick stuff. If it’s been raining anytime that summer, some portages are ankle-to-shin-deep in muck, with crawly bitty things and mosquitoes and biting flies waiting until your hands are full and you are stuck in mud to strike. They sense weakness, waiting to attack, in swarms, on que.They look for weak prey, struggling under weighty gear.

Many portages are easy to find, but if there has been a windstorm, some portages may be impassible. Canoeists before you will have made another trail, and it will not be pretty. The place you make landfall may have a nice place to pull up your canoe to unload, or you may be balancing on a log, or standing in knee-deep water to unload and pull your canoe up on your head. Use much bug dope prior to hitting the portage, especially right after rain.

Equipment

There are many lists of what items to bring on a canoe trip in the BWCA. I suggest laying everything out, taking a third away, then packing and carrying it around your neighborhood. Here are a few tips based on many excursions over many portages.

Here are photos of the Johnson Brothers’ Canoe Trip

Bring less of everything than you think you need.

• Headlamps. Night illumination is a must, and hands free is best. Worth any weight.
• Bring bug dope. Enough to share. Have I mentioned there are mosquitoes?
• Water shoes with enclosed toes that will stay on in ankle deep mud with 80lb on your back and your hands full killing 8” long mosquitoes. JK. Maybe.
• Quick dry clothes are great, you will get wet, and if you don’t. you ain’t trying hard enough.
• Wide brim hat that covers your neck. Paddle all day and you will burn.
• Rain suits are a necessity. Otherwise you may miss out on a few days of your trip while sitting in a tent swatting mosquitoes. Make them breathable, cause it can be hot in June and July, and warm in August.
• It’s cool at night, so bring a sweater, and camp shoes cause your water shoes will have to dry.
• A good tent with a rain fly is critical, else the Minnesota State Bird will carry you away (the mosquito).
• Bring a tent one person larger than your party, so you have room for gear, and moving around during the frequent rain squalls, and if you find yourself spending an entire day inside during a storm, you will appreciate the elbow room.
• A game (cribbage) or two. A notebook to jot down ideas for your next trip.
• A good waterproof camera that fits in a shirt pocket. You will want to snap pictures of your partner struggling under the canoe in shin-deep mud.
• Leave the cell phone – there is no coverage of any kind other than satellite and its against the rules to bring any electronics into the BWCA, and Canada. If another camper finds you with a cell phone, or iPhone, they are legally allowed to throw it in the lake. Its the only littering allowed. Carry everything else out. Well, there is one other thing you can leave in a hole there. Ween yourself off your cell early so you don’t suffer too much on the first day.
• Bring a compact fish net, some of the Northern will tear your fingers off trying to de-hook them or bring them in the boat. Bring pliers to extract hooks from the fish, and a leader!
• A water purifier that fits right on you water bottle (bring two bottles). There are a bunch of good ones, I have two that I like, the Katadyn Pocket Water Microfilter, and the MSR.
• Make sure you have water bottles that fit your filter, or you end up balancing on a rock, or over the edge of the canoe trying to pump and hold your bottle. If you lose your filter, go to the center of the lake with your big cook pot and dip out water. Giardia lurks around shore, and moving water, not in the center. You can fill your water bottles out there also, or while crossing a lake.
• Bring some drink mixes-it’s nice to have something different once in a while.
• Quick dry towel for after your swim (Saturdays in the BWCA are swimsuit optional days). JK
• Small foldable camp stools – one thing I would never canoe without. Get the kind that can fold small enough to fit inside your pack – you would not believe how many things there are to grab ahold of anything on the outside of you pack trying to get it in or out of the canoe, or portaging. I have one that has a folding back on it.
• Instant coffee and a insulated travel mug, stainless. I bring a coffee press for my Espresso, and i’ve used a French Press too, depends on how vital coffee is to your morning.
• Ziplocks for everything. Plan on dumping your pack into the lake once, or getting a downpour, and I don’t mean that west coast drizzle, I mean more rain that a bucket challenge.
• Camp shovel for digging those morning holes.
• Small foldable saw for cutting fire wood. I used to bring a hatchet too, but the small stoves to what I need now.
• Lots of paracord. It’s amazing what you will need to tie up. Duct Tape too. Works great to fix a tent, tent pole, fishing pole, snoring tent-mate…
• Bungie cords make tarps go up easier.
• Rain tarp for your cooking area, and if you have enough people, for your eating area. I use 12×16 for two people.
• First Aid Kit: burns (sun and cooking), blisters (hands-paddling), Trac Kit (fish bones in the throat. Maybe JK, maybe not. Try eating a Northern once.
• Suntan Lotion, and put it on your hands. While paddling this is the most exposed part other than your neck.
• Clothes pins for hanging wet clothes on your laundry line.
• Sun glasses, reflection can make you blind.
• Watch cap for sleeping – it can get cool.
• Bug dope. Seriously.
• Wash cloth.
• Kerchief

Fishing… and Other Food

If you’re an expert fisher, good, you know what to bring. If you are not, ask the outfitter, and stop at an outdoor store in Minnesota and ask them.

Food is an entire category to itself, critical to you energy from the exertion of paddling and portaging, and one of the areas where you can gain a sense of comfort.

Bring less than you think. Plan to eat fish every day.

We like to bring real food for the first day or two. By real food, I mean food not in aluminum pouches. You can go freeze-dried, or you can try to make a menu that will leave your camp satiated. Try potatoes, carrots, onions, and frozen steak for day one. Apples travel well also. Don’t bring garlic, bears love it and can smell it 20 miles away.

• Clarified butter, or Ghee, for cooking your fish in – does not need refrigerating.
• Home-made gorp – or granola mix. High energy and tasty. Most good grocery stores have a place you can make your own. Keep some handy in the canoe to snack while paddling, especially easy if you are in the back of the canoe and the person up from can’t see what you’re doing while he paddles.
• Shore Lunch of Planko for breading your fish.
• One of those little plastic lemons for the fish.
• Old Bay, and other spices and salt/pepper.
• Soup mixes are good too.

Bear Bag

As I said, each time you leave camp, or go to bed, you must raise your food bag, and ALL food including those Oreos you snuck into your pack. You do this by loping your rope around a rock, then throwing this rock or log over a limb of a tree in camp. Then you and everyone else in camp pull up your 50 lb bags. Or, you throw a rock with para cord tied to it over the limb, then tie off a two-pulley three snap link munter hitch belay system to two trees and you can pull it up and lower it with ease. Practice this.

Fires

Sometimes, it is too dry up there to have camp fires. Check with the Forest Service, or Canadian Mounties. If it’s safe to create fires, know how to make a fire in advance, and bring waterproof matches. You’ll also want a backup in case your matches run out. Fire can mean life if it gets cold or a freak snow strikes.

Cooking

You will need a stove. A variable speed stove is nice, but expensive. JetBoil stoves are amazing. Pressurized gas is lighter, but takes longer to boil on some stoves. White gas is heavier, and takes priming, but boils nicely. Two stoves are nice, in case one fails. Did I say test it and test it well, and boil water on it. Get really good with your stove. I have two, a MSR Whisperlite International and a Coleman Peak One.

Other cooking essentials:

• One big pot for boiling water.
• Pot scrubber, small bottle of dish soap, sponge, drying towel.
• Aluminum foil.
• Two fry pans.
• Now I bring a cast iron skillet for fish. It’s heavy but worth it.
• Filet board and knife.

Now they say to clean your fish and do your dishes away from camp, so as to not attract the bears and other critters, like Raccoon, Seagulls, Porcupines, Pack Rats, Mice, Beavers, and Alligators. But, no one does this, so try to do your cleaning on one side of camp, and your tooth brushing on the other, or you may bend down to wipe off your toothbrush and snag a fish liver.

Other lessons:

Visit one of the big outdoors stores in Minnesota before your tip, and get some expert advice on lures, rods, line, and other gear. Talk to the people at the outfitters where you will rent you canoe. Find out which fish are biting on what lures. I’ve found ten lures in a floatable Plano box will do you, steel leaders for the Northern, 10-12lb line and two rods and reels. It sucks to lose you gear two days into a week-long trip. Tie one rod/reel into the canoe. I have found Daredevils, spinners, Mepps, Silver Minnows, Jigs, and poppers will do. The purple worm (Chuck’s) works well (no live bait is allowed in Canada).

When portaging, you can do one trip across or two. If you can go super lightweight, and are experienced at camping, you can put your pack on, flip the canoe up on your shoulders, and walk across many portages that way. If you like a more leisurely trip, make two trips across, one with pack, one with canoe. For two people, you will have three packs. One per person, and one food pack. You must have a separate food pack because when you are done eating, you need to haul it up in a tree, away from the trunk at least 3 feet and at least 8 feet off the ground to keep furry critters off you Pop Tarts.

Bring three paddles. Tie one in with your extra rods. Bring some of those large twist ties, about 12” long, and when you reach a portage, tie in your paddles and other rods, so you can have hands free to assist with crossing the portage.

Practice picking up the canoe and putting it on your shoulders. There is the two person technique, but after a few tries, you can master the one person lift, flip and duck.

Have fun!

Here are photos of the Johnson Brothers’ Canoe Trip

We escaped up to the mountains again last weekend for some R&R in the woods. Nothing clears your mind like a long hike in the deep woods. On the hike, I brought my trusty SLR and snapped a few shots of the surroundings. From sunshine through the trees to wildlife and even growth from detritus, it was an all around beautiful escape.

At the Julien Price campground, there are thin trails woven through the woods that are underpopulated and ready for exploration. Where the paths get muddy, rocks have been placed so you can keep your boots mud-free. Where the path is covered in roots, someone has lovingly inserted steps or sprayed the roots so you don’t trip. Usually I’d find this type of action distracting and invasive, but at J.P it was done well, using natural elements, and added to the mysterious beauty around each bend.

Although we set out in the early afternoon, the light was ideal for great woods shots. I’m a fan of the early morning light, but this afternoon it was just a stunning, and made for some epic shadow pictures.

Hiking along one trail, I heard a branch snap up ahead and began to creep through the woods, hoping it was a deer and not another hiker. My wish was granted when this mother doe popped her giant ears out and looked right at me. I snapped a few shots as I inched closer. Suddenly, her fawn bounded around her side and she panicked. The dashed off along a stream and I chased them through the woods snapping shows as I ran until, as expected, they outran me. As soon as I stopped moving, they halted and went back to eating.

One of the most interesting aspects of the mountain hikes are the strange mushrooms. I became fascinated with the range of colors, shapes and textures, and snapped this photo of the red mushroom early on in my first hike.

Eventually we made our way to Moses H. Cone house, which is a stunning piece of old architecture with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains that is to die for.

Not all wildlife has to be exotic to be charming. This little squirrel was a riot, and hopped around on some sort of secret mission, snatching up acorns and tossing them about before diving back into the grass. He must have been humming the James Bond theme song in his head.

Another little creature hopped up to the path while on a hike near the Moses H. Cone building. He was undisturbed by people, and continued to munch his lunch while I got ever closer with my camera.

You cannot tell from the photo, but this mushroom is about a foot in diameter, and about a foot off the ground. Essentially, it’s taller than the two animals whose mug shots preceded this. Another thing my camera failed to capture was the array of tiny gnat-like bugs who were swarming the top of the mushroom. Apparently they live there, or dine there, or else just like to hoover above the spores. Either way, I find it a somewhat disgusting existence. Poor bugs.

My father and daughter head into the Moses H. Cone building. If you have excellent vision you can learn a bit about the area from the sign.

And, at long last, a beautiful shot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Worth the scrolling wait, eh?

Going on a day-long canoe trip with a toddler doesn’t seem like the most relaxing way to spend a weekend for most, but relaxation isn’t what we look for– it’s adventure.

Kayaking, Canoeing, Rafting and Tubing all available on the New River

Anything related to water with kids is nerve-racking because they can’t handle themselves well enough in the water to be self sufficient. For us, that means a life jacket, low-weight clothing, no shoes and we watch her like a hawk. All the preparation and paranoia is worth while when we get to see her love of the water blossom along with her budding interest in the great outdoors.

New River, North Carolina, USA

We decided to head up to the Appalachian Mountains for a weekend of canoeing on New River. The river isn’t deep– and the segment around the outfitter we choose is especially slow and gentle– allowing us the opportunity to relax along with our daughter. We could kick up our feet and point out the horses, river snakes and birds along the bank.

Exploring the New River

We started off in a rather large canoe, gently flowing down the New River at a slow clip. Our daughter sat up front with me, rendering my ability to paddle obsolete. We just slowly floated down the river, at the pace of the current. A much different pace than our normal, fast-paced lives.

Cruising on the New River, NC

After the first 2-hour run down the river we decided to do a second run with inner tubes– what most of the people on the river were using to drink and drift down the river. The ourtiffter we used was Woohoo’s Adventures, of Boone. From here, you can rent the equipment you need as well as pick up a snack, sunblock and other essentials. You park at Wahoo’s and then the handy folks on site load your boat or tube onto a trailer and drive you in vans up the river where they drop you off and then you float merrily down the stream until you reach the outfitter again. Wahoo’s is also a campground and has tiny huts for rental, but for us one day in the sun was enough, so we headed home after the second run.

Wahoo’s Outfitters, Boone

And at long last, we drove home from the sun and damp from the river– but happy.

August, 2015 was a monumental month in the lives of two brothers. Although they disagree on the optimal facial accessory of beard or handlebar, the two Johnson brothers set out into the wild together on a week-long canoe adventure aimed at following in the footsteps (or, rather– the paddle strokes) of their father.

See the Gallery:

We know you’re really here for the photos. Skip right to the visual awesomeness by viewing the Boundary Waters Photo Gallery, with photos from the brothers.

Follow Their Adventure:

The Launch:

Before & After Photos:

Photos:

Here is a sneak peek at some of the beauty they saw in the wild. For more, view the Boundary Waters Photo Gallery.

The view from the outfitters (above).

Best Wheeled Backpacks

For travelers who spend a good deal of time in urban areas, or flying a great deal, a wheeled backpack is a great option. A few years before these babies were common place I had a long conversation while lugging a giant rucksack through Bratislava that wheels would be a nice addition for urban travel. Apparently the travel gods were listening and some of the best luggage companies are out there making awesome wheeled backpacks.

The Victorinox CH 22 Tourist Expandable Carry-on is an excellent bag for versatility and urban travel. It seems to have everything a seasoned travel dreams of: front load, comfortable straps and supports, wheels and expansions. If you’re looking for something that can go from rugged terrain to urban jungle, this is your bag.

For something with a bit more color, try the Eagle Creek Activate Wheeled Backpack, which is expandable, wheeled (of course) and has a sleek design that is perfect for flying because there are no lose straps, flaps or hangers on. And since the wheeled backpacks come in bright red and neon yellow, you’ll be able to identify your bag easily on the carousel.

Osprey consistently ranks highly for their quality and design. The Osprey Ozone Convertible is great because it features a zip-off day bag, carry straps, wheels, sleek design and decent colors. It’s another slam dunk for Osprey. My favorite part is the zip-off pack perfect for exploration with the essentials when you can check your big bag behind.

Best Backpacks for Women

Bar none the best backpack for women is the REI Venus 75, which is the pack I use. The frame is curved for a woman’s shape, the hip supports carry more than the shoulder straps, catering to a woman’s lower center of gravity. But while the design features female features, it remains tough, versatile and ready for rugged use. With both top and front-load options, this is great for all packing types, and the compact design makes it perfect for air and train travel. Unfortunately, this  pack is no longer available, which is a real shame because it was a slam-dunk design. The replacement seems to be the REI Flash, which by all accounts has the same features and similar design. The big sell here is the claim that it will swivel and twist with your spine, and its lightweight design.

For women who plan on spending serious time with a backpack on, the Ospry Aether 70 is a great option. It doesn’t have the features I love so much in the Venus, but it’ll do. The removable hip belt is an interesting feature but perhaps not the greatest idea for longer expeditions where secure, snug fit is key.

The Terra 65 by The North Face is reported to be a great design, and offer a hydration pouch, female frame and Optifit design. It is lightweight and hardy, but since it is marketed as multi-day and not long-expedition wear I’d reserve this pack for shorter backpacking expeditions.

Best Backpacks for Photographers

Photographs have too much gear. It’s true. We all know it and yet we’re still lugging around DSLRs and tripods because hey, night shots of the Hagia Sophia are worth it. If you’re willing to bring less clothing, then there are travel backpacks for photographers that can handle your gear and your garb.

The Loewpro Photo Sport 200 AW is a great option because you get a top loader backpack for your personal stuff (what more do you need than a toothbrush and a change of clothes?) and then most of the pack is for your photo gear, which is housed in a separate compartment along the base so the weight is evenly distributed.

The Rover Pro AW Series is great because you’ll find enough space for all of your personal stuff as well as a laptop, lenses, a DSLR and a few special pieces like a tripod on the side. This sexy blue bag is pictured above, tripod in place. Check out the waist strap, which adds to the stability needed for clear, crisp shots.

One of the down sides of a photography backpack is that in third-world regions you’ll be quite the prepackaged target for pick pockets or thrives. The Rover Pro AW Series doesn’t look so much like a camera bag that you could be singled out for it, but those looking for cameras will spot them.

Best Tactical Backpacks

This section is sure to garner the most comments and debate, and for good reason. A tactical pack is designed to be durable, strong, versatile and easy to access. You need to be able to get to items quickly and, sometimes, silently. And (apparently) most importantly you have to look cool doing it. A ruck that can meet all of those requirements is hard to find– well, it was twenty years ago anyways. Now there are all manner of tactical backpacks on the market. Now we did get some insight from one Marine, and one Green Beret before suggesting the backpacks below.

The Maxpedition Falcon II Backpack offers a fantastic design, structure and fit, but still offers tactical options like a water pouch, strap on options and is made of nylon– strong and waterproof.

Grey Ghost Gear Wraith Pack Kryptek is a great bag for anyone in love with serious tactical packs. You’ll get superior quality, versatility, durability and of course the tacti-cool points you’re looking for. This comes with the hydration pouch, which is key for serious expedition hikers, backpackers and long-haul explorers.

If you’re looking for something segmented, compartmentalized and yet compact, look no further than the Velox II Tactical Backpack. This epic find is perfect for the hyper-organized (like me). There is a compartment for everything, specially designed to keep your organized and chaos-free. And it’s all easy-access, and yet with a few ratchet straps you’re able to keep it compact.

Best Carry-on Backpacks for Flying

Flying is tough, and it’s tougher when you don’t have the right gear. The Timbuk2 Aviator Travel Backpack is great because it’s versatile and can handle fragile items like a laptop and camera as well as a book, notepad, pens, and a few clothing items. If you’re the kind of person who can travel light, this might even be all you need, and the shape is perfect for fitting into the overhead bin. One of the things I like best is that it is tall and thin, so your elbows wont’ rub against the sides, back or waist support. For someone with a small frame, this is paramount, and if you’re on small planes, trains or buses it’s imperative to fitting down the aisle.

Another great carry-on option is to go with what’s winning awards- the Goruck GR1 is a great backpack, slender and contained. It has a laptop pouch and sleek design, but is durable and sturdy enough to toss around for a person constantly on the road.

While the words “bachelor holiday” inspire a certain level of apprehension in parents, other halves, hotel and restaurant owners and flight attendants, getting away with your mates isn’t always a sordid, drunken affair filled with bright blue vomit, public urination and questionable sexual escapades.

However, there’s a wide range of things, some of which are listed below, that groups of male friends can go abroad to experience and do without their wives or girlfriends fearing the worse about what they might get up to. Every holiday needs the perfect soundtrack so that, when a certain song comes on the radio in twenty years, you’ll immediately flash back to the magical week you spent getting sunburned and drunk in Malia after your A-Levels. Here, then, are the songs that will soundtrack any lads’ holiday.

The island holiday: Get Lucky (Daft Punk)

There’s one tune every year that becomes the world’s unofficial “song of the summer”, leaking out of bars and clubs from Ibiza to Miami. It dominates the season (often being released in April or May so it can build a reputation before June-September), has an infectious beat and singalong lyrics and is usually crowned the biggest-selling single at the end of the year. We’ve had “Crazy In Love”, “Umbrella”, “I Gotta Feeling” and “Gangnam Style” in years gone by, but nobody yet knows what the 2014 song will be. With that in mind, we’re going to go with last year’s song of the summer, “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, as the track of choice for your island holiday.

The football tour: Three Lions ’98 (Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds)

With the World Cup in Brazil just around the corner, what finer adventure could you have this summer than following and supporting the England team around the country? Not only will it be relatively cheap (because there’s no way that England are going to qualify from their group, and you can save money on flights at http://www.easyvoyage.co.uk/flights/comparison), but you’ll get to experience the entirety of one of the most vibrant countries in the world, rather than just Rio or Sao Paulo. When you’re four hours into a baking hot minibus journey to the next game, there’s only one song you should be playing on the stereo: the immortal “Three Lions ’98” (it’s lyrically better than the ’96 version). Football’s coming home…but probably not this year.

The stag do: White Wedding (Billy Idol)

These days, more and more men are embarking on stag weekends, rather than stag nights, as the demand for extravagant celebration of the death of a man’s lothario lifestyle grows. Whether you’re travelling up and down canals on a barge or having a few days in Prague, Billy Idol’s sneering ode to matrimony, “White Wedding”, offers the perfect hard rock alternative to all of those disco classics and saccharine-sweet love ballads you’re going to be subjected to at the wedding itself. Try not to let it get into your brain, though – it won’t make a particularly good impression if your bride hears you humming it to yourself at the altar…

The ski trip: Surfing With The Alien (Joe Satriani)

Obviously you’ll be listening to music while you’re enjoying yourself après-ski, but many people like to listen to music played via their iPods or iPhones while they’re tearing down a mountain at fifty miles an hour. Unless you’re an experienced skier, it’s probably best to keep your hearing clear, but it can be hard to resist the driving tempo and spacey solos of Joe Satriani’s signature guitar instrumental, “Surfing With The Alien”. Just make sure you use your hands to guide yourself down the run and not to play air guitar – you don’t want to ski off the side of the slope!

The Vegas/Monte Carlo blowout: Luck Be A Lady (Frank Sinatra)

If you decide to push the boat out and hit the casinos of Las Vegas or Monte Carlo, then you’ll need all the luck you can get to ensure that you don’t have to declare bankruptcy when you get home. The best Sinatra version of “Luck Be A Lady” from Guys and Dolls, the quintessential musical ode to gambling, can be found on his album Duets II and features Chrissie Hynde as Lady Luck. With just the right amount of swing and style (as if Ol’ Blue Eyes would have had it any other way), this is the song to play to get you in the right frame of mind before you hit the casino floor.

Traveling: I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (The Proclaimers)

Finally, you might decide to travel around Europe or America or the Far East for a few weeks, and there’s only one song that you should be uploading to your iPod to pass the time spent on trains, buses and planes. It has unlimited re-play potential and a jaunty tune that no-one in the history of the world has ever got bored of. It’s also a one-hit wonder by two identical twins from Scotland who, presumably, have also never become bored of playing it instead of the hundreds of other songs that they’ve presumably written and recorded. Yes, it’s “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers, and it’ll make you feel excited for the journey you’re embarking on and wistful when you think about your eventual homecoming.

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 get a lot of questions about how we manage different aspects of full-time travel. To answer them, we’ve put together a special Resources page on the website that will hopefully help people find out if they can Abandon their Cubicles, how to do it, where to get the things they need to do it successfully, and just some general information on traveling. We’re not claiming to be any authority on the topic, we’re just hoping to help! here’s what the new page covers:

Is It Feasible. The ‘should you?’ the ‘could you?’ and the ‘how to do’ of abandoning your cubicle. Whether you are thinking of a leave of absence to travel for a few weeks or months, or a full out Jerry Maguire storm out,t hen this will help you assess if now is the best time, and some of the things to consider before you flick off your boss.

Insurance. Lots of people need this to travel. Although we don’t personally have any travel insurance (yet) we’ve checked out some of the options and we have a few links posted that could maybe provide you with what you are looking for. Coverage for a short-term trip shouldn’t run you more than $250, so be wary of people who charge by the month or who promise you year-long coverage for less.

Visas. These little stamps can cost you big bucks, and be a royal pain. But thankfully there are some easy ways to tackle visas like nifty visa services. For some countries (Russia) you’ll have to use a service if you want it done right, fast and without hassle. For others you’re better off doing it alone. We give you some tips on the resources page, as well as at the bottom of every destination page.

Guides. Seasoned travelers always have their favorite guide books, and hardly ever deviate from those. We use a mix of our favorite guide book (which we won’t give a free promo here) and online sites like travel blogs for the area, or wikitravel. We have more info to be found about guides on the resources page!

Languages. The number one thing people ask us about is how we get around without speaking native languages. The answer is that we try really, really hard to learn. We do that with language guide books, i-touch programs, online sites and a lot more. Its important to us to try to talk to people in their native tongue, and we use a lot of different resources to try to achieve that aim.

Equipment. People get really excited about the equipment we use. We’ll meet someone on a camping trail and spend the first fifteen minutes talking supplies before we even get around to introductions. A good tent can make or break the whole trip, and everyone who travels full time has very strong, very serious views about cook stoves.

Expat and Teaching. Many people go overseas for a change of pace to look for an expat-style job or to teach English while they enjoy the local culture. We have some resources for you to do both, including how you can get your teaching certificate (which we did last year, just in case!).

Social Media & Staying Connected. We also listed some nifty travel websites, travel tools online, and ways to stay connected with your loved ones while on the road.

So, to see all that info and more, check out the new Resources page!

Abandon the Cube has been around since 2008. While we’re not into celebrating a massive birthday party for the website or the concept, we’re excited about reaffirming our travel philosophy and taking stock of where we are, where we’re going and what we’ve seen.

By Ground Travel. By now you’ve all learned that we like to travel primarily by ground transport. Any flight across open land or water leaves the earth beneath you undiscovered, which we find goes against the spirit of how we enjoy experiencing the world’s most unexpected places. Over the past two years we’ve formed this website of travel tips, destination guides, humorous pictures, influential travelers who have inspired us and more so that we could share what we see and hopefully encourage other people to abandon their cubicles and see some of the world’s least trodden paths.

Time as the ONLY vital factor. To date we have inspired no one to quit their job. People look at us with raised eyebrows and wonder why any sane person would throw away security and comfort in exchange for several meals a day made out of rice. To us, time is the one thing that can really be stolen from you while you are on this planet. Nevertheless, people still think that if you work hard now by the time you are 45 you’ll be able to retire. In reality, who has ever retired at 45? The plan simply doesn’t work. Meanwhile, you throw away the best time in your life working, stressing and acquiring status, money, security, etc… but you can’t get that time back. Its a trade off and an unfair one in our opinions. I’m personally willing to work longer in life rather than abusing the time I have now. They say youth is wasted on the young, but I’m hoping they won’t say that about us. The reality of the situation is that society is designed to ensnare people. Right out of High School you have either college loans to pay, or else housing so you are independent. Now you have a car payment, insurance, health costs, food, your cell phone and internet….. even if you wanted to quit your job you can’t because you have bills coming in. That’s the way it is designed, and to an extent that’s why the machine of our economy works. However, if you take away all the things that require you to have a job then you no longer are in need of one. I do some writing for money here and there and make enough to cover my college loans. Outside of that, traveling full time costs us less than any apartment would, and we pay for that with money we saved while working in Shanghai for a year. We were able to save so much because we did not have a car, cell phones are pay-as-you-go rather than a 2-year-death-contract and we choose an apartment that was extremely affordable (if not minuscule). We figured out a way to Abandon our Cubicles and still meet our obligations, and that makes me confident that you could figure that out as well.

Experiences are Everything. I suppose it goes without saying that we weigh experiences very highly. We signed up for the 2010 Mongol Rally, as you know, because we saw the experience as an amazing opportunity to meet new people, have a great and daring adventure and travel 1/3 of the earth’s surface by land. Planning is still underway and we launch July 26th from London. Experiences and relationships are so important, and we hope to have an amazing adventure meeting amazing people on the Rally. Likewise, we’re excited about the new experiences coming our way after the Rally when we backpack through South East Asia and hopefully land in Thailand for a while as a place to kind of rest for a while, look for a part time job and save up so we can have more adventures down the road.

Reflections on an Amazing Year. Its is easy for us to say that 2009 was one of the best years of our lives. We left Shanghai on May 1st, 2009 and traveled by land all the way to Seattle, USA by December. In that half a year we saw and did so many amazing things that we’re likely to always look back on 2009 with a whimsical smile. From visiting Kashgar in summer, to driving across Uzbekistan with a giant; from standing near a burning crater in Turkmenistan, to living in a tent in Turkey during Ramadan; from roughing it in a cheap Bulgarian hostel, to riding a luxury cruise ship through the Virgin Islands. We nearly circumnavigated the globe (minus only the Pacific Ocean aspect of returning to Shanghai). That is why 2009 was a rich, and beautiful year. We’re hoping that the 2010 Mongol Rally that takes us from Seattle (where we are now) to Thailand via land and sea is as enriching, enchanting and captivating as the adventures of ’09.

When ever you get to the point, if this actually happens, that you feel like there isn’t anything else you could do to top what you have already done, come look at our new page of Influential Adventurers and Explorers.  Lauren put together this list of some absolutely amazing trailblazers, some of whom are classic and some who are modern and not so well known, yet.  I want to take a moment to mention some of my personal favorites, but I urge you to check out our entire page which is complete with books and movies which were written about or by the explorer or adventurer.

Zheng He Painting

An ode to China, probably because of personal ties and interest in Chinese history – Zheng He.  There have been several books written about him recently and a lot of research about his accomplishments under the Yongle  Emperer.  He commanded a fleet of around 300 ships and over 20,000 men and possibly sailed as far as the Americas. See:  1421: The Year China Discovered America.  Moreover, he did all of this without his genitalia as he was a Eunuch.  Quite impressive if you ask me.

Zheng He and Christopher Columbus Ship Model

Not only was his fleet probably the largest of his time, the size of his ships was 10 times that of European mariners of his time period.   We were lucky to see Zheng He’s tomb in Nanjing when we visited in early 2008.  For connecting China to the rest of the world and bringing back cultures from every end of the known world, as the time, to the Emperor, Zheng He deserves a place on our list as a recently well known explorer.

In Expedition 360 Jason Lewis, a modern day adventurer, circumnavigated the globe by human power only – absolutely no engines at all.   He taught children while he traveled and raised money for charity along the way.  Hats off to such a brilliant accomplishment.  It is great to see people of our time still finding things that have not been done before and pursuing the impossible.  Jason wrote about some of his experiences in a book titled: Flightless: Incredible Journeys Without Leaving the Ground.

Benedict Allen

Benedict Allen is another personal favorite, and recently discovered adventurer of our times.  Instead of using all the fancy gadgets we have now, Allen has reverted back to the way of the original explorers in an almost necessary way.   His ability to leave his laptop and GPS behind deserves him a spot on our list.  Allen relies on embedding himself with indigenous people and learning their ways and culture and hoping they, and sometimes children, will take him in and teach him their ways.  He uses the skills they teach him to get through their terrain and survive in their environments as well as get him from A to B. Into the Abyss.

If you have any more influential and perhaps not so well known adventurers / explorers to add, please comment below and we will add them to our Influential Adventurers page on www.abandonthecube.com.

Trying to Hug a Redwood

I’ve always wanted to go to the Redwood National Forest in Northern California.  While we were out in the Pacific Northwest, we decided that it would be the perfect time to go.  So we packed up the car and picked up some friends in Eugene on the way down.

After the Greyback experience in Oregon, we packed up and crossed the border into California the next day.  Immediately, we were forced to pull over and go through a sort of customs.  We were a little concerned, as we had an entire car full of trash containing beer and wine bottles from the previous night of camping.  Luckily, a very mild Department of Agriculture employee walked out and asked us if we were carrying any fruits into California.  I paused, not wanting to get the apples we had saved for breakfast confiscated by the Agriculture Gestapo, but said, “we have some apples.”  Apparently, you can not transport citrus or avocados into California. Luckily we got away with the apples and continued our weekend venture down to the Redwood Forest.

The drive down to Crescent City was beautiful.  We went through several forests and drove down roads which wrapped around downs and large hills for the duration of a little more than an hours drive.  First thing we noticed was the curve speed / warning signs in California are not really recommendations like most places in the US.  You pretty much have to go exactly that speed, or less, around the curves to avoid rolling your car.  It was a pretty intense drive.  Right before you reach Crescent City, if you are coming form the North, you will go through a redwood forest grove with a small pull over area for cars.  We highly recommend you stop here and take the 3-5 mile hike through the groves.  It was well worth it and had trees that were completely different than elsewhere in the forest.

Fallen Redwood

We also did the famous “drive-thru tree,” which the Park Ranger was pretty upset about and said they would never do that to a tree.  However, this tree is on private property and it is still a good experience to drive an entire vehicle, in this case a van, through a tree with plenty of room to spare.    There are signs all over Highway 101 for the tree; the 101 is a highly recommended as it goes right through the national and state parks.  Make sure you stop at the information center in Crescent City as the rangers there will give you the perfect trip tailored to you time schedule.

They also recommended several camping spots in the State Parks.  We chose one and drove off 101 for about 30 minutes and came to a cliff overlooking the Pacific.  We parked our car, and hiked all of our supplies up the hill to find a phenomenal campsite surrounded by redwoods with a view of the ocean.  We could hear the Pacific rolling below us all night long while laughing and talking over a few drinks.  The majesty of the redwoods and their unworldly presence was an amazing experience making it easy to understand how sci-fi and fantasy writers have used the Redwood Forest as inspiration for their books and movies.  Planet Endor, in Return of the Jedi was filmed in the Redwood National Forest.  A perfect set for what truly looks like another world.

Into Cave Abyss

After a great two days in Eugene, we packed up the old trusty mini van once again and decided to hit the road and head south. With all four of us in the minivan, things were lively and the drive flew by quickly. We reached the creepy town of Cave Junction around 10pm and decided to see what these Oregon caves were all about. Mike ran into a terrifying-looking gas station to ask directions to the caves. They replied, “its near the greyback.” Mike nodded knowledgeably and ambled back to the van to report the directions. We sat in the van blinking at each other. “What’s a Greyback?”

After passing several casino games, we pulled into Cave Junction’s only hotel where a lady with 1980’s makeup and shoulder pads so large they hit her in the ears told us to head for the greyback to find a camping spot. She gave us a free local newspaper (aka, a tiny pamphlet of nothingness) and pointed up the road. “To the greyback!” We repeated her mantra back to her with a bit less gusto, “to the greyback?!” and made our way out the door.

Eventually, after a beer stop and a few more inquiries, we decided to just find out for ourselves what this mysterious greyback was. Twelve miles up a horribly-constructed road we found a campground and Mike ran past a “CLOSED” sign to inquire again. From deep in the woods a woman’s voiced yelled out, in true Goonies style, “We’re closed!” and then a dog began to bark very close by and Mike and his friend sprinted into the van. No help at the camp site. We drove back down the road and saw a lit phone booth. A mirage in the woods that seemed beyond creepy. I took a picture (yes, its on flickr, no it didn’t turn out very well because the car was bumping along a dirt road as I took it). It turned out the phone booth belonged to a man who ran a camp site. Score! He installed us in an RV lot for 16$ and we set about making a fire and cooking our dinner. Only after we finally figured out how to assemble the tent did we realize the rain cover was full of holes.

Mike and Lu in Oregon Caves

In the morning, the forest seemed only slightly less creepy. We packed up our camp site  after making some breakfast on what was left of the fire, and headed deeper into the woods to solve the mystery of the greyback. You just can’t stop for intrepid explorers eager for discovery.

The Oregon Caves system is a national monument. And we learned from our 90 minute tour of one of the caves that a monument is a presidential decree rather than an act of congress.  Hopefully that helps you down the road in bar trivia. Our national monument ranger wore the typical OD green suit and funny ranger hat, and talked to our group of adults like we were perhaps 6 or 7 years of age. She told us stories in a drawn out tone, and even called us kiddos. She led us deep into the heart of a cave, some 200m underground. It was a dark, creepy and yet beautiful experience. Unfortunately, in our attempt to preserve the cave someone cut it all up to put in cement floors, stainless steel stairs, railings, ramps, lighting, cables for lighting and emergency exits. Its really not much of a natural thing anymore, its more like a movie set on Batman. My hypothesis– if humans find it, its screwed.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed the tour through tiny, musty cave rooms that looked very strangely like our first apartment in China. We scaled up and down slippery steps, around hanging stalactites and over pointy stalagmites. We even had to duck once. Eventually we left the caves without interacting with any live nature, and we drove back through Cave Junction (still creepy in daylight) and onwards towards California. While we never did learn what a greyback was, some mysteries are better left unsolved.

REI -Recreational Equipment Incorporated- started out as a club of like-minded outdoorsman who wanted equipment that was not being provided in any other location. They wanted climbing, hiking, survival and camping equipment, and there were no specialty stores at the time selling that type of outdoor stuff with any validity or certainty.

Now, REI has stores all over America as well as a vast online catalogue. The stores are usually fun and adventurous, with climbing walls, rough-terrain indoor hills to test your boots on, and plenty of interactive displays so you can find the piece of equipment that will suit your needs, like a pond full of water filtration devices so you can find the style you adore. Its easy to spend several hours in REI without noticing time has gone by. They even stock clothing now, including the much-coveted quick-dry, rip-stop fabric that outdoorsmen find so valuable.

While REI stocks only the best brands, we’ve experienced a few REI brand products and have come away very happy. My women’s frontloader backpack is beyond ideal, and the frame is designed with women in mind, so it rides atop my hips. The frontloader means I’m packed and ready in under 5 minutes, and the high-quality fabric means it just might be Lauren-proof (we’ll see! I’ve ruined 4 bags so far, this is the only one to last this long!) I also have several pairs of REI hiking socks, and at any given time you have a 50/50 chance of catching me in them because they are so comfortable, breathable and versatile than I hardly wear any other type of sock. My silk inserts when hiking for long durations make for a wonderful combo.

I’m in the market for a water purifier. Anyone have any great recommendations? I’m fond of the lever pump designs myself, but with the costs so high, I’m wondering if boiling and iodizing isn’t just faster. Ideas?

On the road last year I read several travel books. Below are a few reviews of some of the amazing adventure tales I’ve enjoyed reading, I hope you’ll find something you enjoy from this list as well:

Road Fever, by Tim Cahill. It is a rare thing that I read a book in one sitting, but that is exactly what happened once I started reading Road Fever. Cahill and long-distance driver Garry Sowerby race to set a new world record from the furthest southern point in South America, Tierra del Fuego, to the furthest northern point of Prudhoe Bay Alaska. They did this amazing feat in 32 1/2 days, a Guinness World Record. It isn’t just the feat that is amazing, it is the fun series of adventures Cahill and Sowerby find themselves enjoying while setting new records. I left this book in Turkmenistan.

COVER

Riding the Iron Rooster
& Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, by Paul Theroux. While it is no secret that I dislike Theroux’s writings for their stuck up, holier-than-thou feel, I did enjoy reading these two books in so far as they provided insight into the areas we would be traveling through by rail. Theroux is notorious for his use of ground transportation, an idea we can fully support. Nevertheless, his constant complaints about food and sanitation become pestering the more pages you turn. In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Theroux retraces a route he took as a young man, and notes the changes. This had real potential, but fell short because he brought along a cell phone, laptop, and an older man’s need for amenities. I left one of these in Shanghai, and the more recent book in Uzbekistan.

Chasing the Sea, by Tom Bissell. Another former Peace Corps volunteer becomes a writer. Bissell became deathly ill while serving in Uzbekistan, and was sent home before completing his two years of service. Once healed, the more-healthy and mature Bissell returns to Uzbekistan to finish what he started– a trip to the Aral Sea. Filled with historical insight and a bit snobbish critic of the area and its people, Bissell is no doubt an expert on the country’s water waste and the diminishing Aral Sea. Nevertheless, it is a bit long-winded and egotistical, focusing on his own return to Central Asia and his misadventures more than the people or region. Ironically, I left this book in Central Asia when I departed.

Flightless, by Lonely Planet Publications. This compilation of tales focuses on people who have chosen to travel without leaving the ground, proving that getting there is more than half the adventure. Some of these amazing folks are featured on our Famous Adventurers page but since the book details the by-ground trips of some 26 adventurers, we could not feature them all. Traditional ground travel includes trains and automobiles, but some of these adventurers travel by camel, Vespas, canoes and bikes, some even crossing the oceans in man-powered vessels for charity. This book will really make you rethink your next flight, and consider how much you are missing by flying over the adventure instead of going through it. This book is in my collection in the USA.

Oracle Bones
& River Town, by Peter Hessler. Like many great travel writers, Hessler got his taste for travel in the Peace Corps while assigned to a small town on the Yangtze River teaching English. He studied Mandarin Chinese daily, and slowly became fluent in the world’s most difficult language to master. Meanwhile, he spent his time trying to understand the people he worked with and around, and to delve into the culture without holding back. As a result, Hessler’s books offer genuine commentary on the Chinese and their massive country, as well as an un-egotistical vantage point from which readers can enjoy a foreign country. River Town, his first book, is the tale of his Peace Corps assignment while Oracle Bones is a montage of information Hessler gleaned while living in Beijing, interviewing locals and learning more about Chinese history and language. I lent a friend one of these books never to see it again, and the other is in my collection in the USA.

Race to Dakar, by Charley Boorman. Charley Boorman and longtime travel partner Ewen McGregor have set off around the world together on their motorcycles and then composed Long Way Round.  In Race to Dakar, Boorman sets off on his own. While the writing is not 100%, the adventure is, and Boorman details his planning, launch and then start in the Dakar Rally. While he was injured and did not finish the rally, Boorman healed up and continued on several other adventures, including another trip with Ewen McGregor called Long Way Down. We were excited to read about these rally adventurers because of our own upcoming Mongol Rally adventure. This book is soon to be shipped to a friend in Central Asia, which I think Charley Boorman would appreciate.

Traveling is a great way to learn. Every new city visited is a deeper insight into the region’s past and why it developed as it did. We traveled from Shanghai to Seattle by land and sea, and all the while reading. While the books did not always reflect the location we were in, they were insightful in different ways along our journey and helped to paint a more clear picture of the past, and explain why some areas we visited were in poverty and others in plenty. History is the only real explanation for how diverse and varied our species is, and its an amazing story more fascinating than fiction.

COVER

A Peace to End All Peace, by David Fromkin. This telling Pulitzer price book finalist tells of the causes of World War I (on the Eastern front between 1914 and 1922) and how the policies before, during and after the conflict have resulted in the most tumultuous area on the planet– the Middle East. The book begins with a young Winston Churchill visiting the Bosporus and concluding that any army hoping to take the Ottoman Empire would only have to control the Aegean. This thought came to fruition later in Churchill’s life as he sent British troops during WWI up the straights in a failed attempt to destroy the Ottoman Empire and end the war. It is shocking how daringly close the plan came to success. The war rages on and the Ottoman Empire collapses, and is ruled eventually by Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal). They gain in power and reinforce the German’s advances, further prolonging the war on all fronts. Eventually the dust settles to reveal the Central Powers have been defeated, but what is less commonly known is that each government in the Allied Powers Alliance has fallen and their internal opposition parties came to power. Essentially, those who began the war were replaced in all cases except Germany, and the mission and goals of the war changed dramatically as a result of new voices in the arena post fighting. Thus, new faces sat around the table deciding how to divide winnings and the states of Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Lebanon were formed, and the Israeli homeland question was raised. The Allied Powers promised a homeland to the Israelites and set about making it happen, not knowing the cultural and religious currents they would stir in so doing with neighboring Arabs. This book explains the root causes of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, as well as why modern Turkey is so different from other Muslim countries. This book does not touch on the wars in Iraq (Desert Storm of Operation Iraqi Freedom) or 9/11 or Afghanistan.

Guests of the Ayatollah, by Mark Bowden. This book about the Iran Hostage Crisis read like an adventure novel, but was in fact very well researched. Bowden interviewed countless survivors, read everything he could get his hands on about the Iranian student’s movements, and fully explains the reasons why Muslims dislike Americans. For an American, this book is almost a must-read simply because Bowden is able to get inside the minds of the students who took the American Embassy hostage, and reveals their motives, desires and, years later, what happened to these children. His subtitle is: “The First Battle in the West’s War with Militant Islam,” and Bowden explains why the hostage crisis was a precursor to events that transpired later between the Muslims and the West, and why westerners often fail to fully grasp the rationale and motivations of those militant Muslims in places like Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

These are just two examples. Other historical books we’ve read and would happily and confidently recommend to any history or travel buff are : Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, by Peter Hopkirk; Afghanistan, by Stephen Tanner; and Charlie Wilson’s War, by George Crile. If it seems all these books represent a trend, then you are an astute reader my friend. We’ve been traveling through predominately Muslim countries, and our books of choice reflect a desire to better understand the historical context of our culture clashes. We are historians, so naturally our interest in understanding the present lead us to the past. At any rate, all of these books were also page-turners that we think almost anyone could easily enjoy.

From my family’s home in Washington State you can see Mt. Rainier. It’s one of the most majestic sights on the West Coast at almost 14,500 feet, and is the highest mountain in the Cascade range (and in the continental, contiguous USA). More than 13,000 people a year climb the active volcano in Pierce County, making it one of the most visited alpine climbing destinations in the USA. But more importantly, the mountain is a feature in the background in Washington that takes everyone’s breath away on a daily basis…. well, on the days you can see through the rain. It is only 50 miles from Seattle, and visible from almost anywhere along the Western Washington area. In our small town, the mountain is so prominent in the background that it dwarfs every feature, even the massive evergreens that grow on almost every square inch of ground not taken by houses or roads. If you come into Washington via the north on Amtrak you get one of the areas most beautiful and stunning views– Mt. Rainier in the background as the train curves around the Puget Sound, with amazing views of the mountain reflecting off the water. Evergreen trees are everywhere, and when my train was pulling around one corner a bald eagle swept over the treeline for an afternoon fishing hunt. Yes, it is breathtaking.

Something strange about Mt. Rainier though, is that several people a year die climbing the mountain. Personally, I think this is because Americans climbing here don’t think of the mountain as exotic or dangerous because it is always in the background. Despite the cuteness of the mountain, and how prevalent it is in daily life here in Washington, you get several folks a year who go up the mountain without the right equipment, and without any training. Just because it is within driving distance of your house doesn’t make it safer than Kilimanjaro or K2. I mean, it’s a an active volcano covered in glaciers—what’s safe about that?   White outs are common on the mountain, and locals think the volcano could erupt at any time. Of the several deaths a year that are reported, most are attributed to avalanche, falls, rock and ice drops and hypothermia, which makes one of the most uninviting of destinations in Washington. Any serious climber would only tackle Mt. Rainier after successfully summiting several other smaller and more manageable mountains.

While it has always been a beautiful and meaningful part of the background, it is also a dangerous and extreme destination, and one I’m happy to visit again and again…albeit with the right equipment and usually, without leaving the paths.

When you are on the road, you occasionally find yourself in between places or in limbo waiting for the next leg of your trip.  That is where we have found ourselves for the next month or two as we wait for the Mongol Rally start date.  Currently, we are both out on the West Coast in the Seattle / Tacoma area.  Since we are still traveling, and the rally does not start until July 24, we can’t really get a job or search for any serious job during this time period – especially because of the current economic situation.

Route map?

We have taken this opportunity to catch up with family and friends and we’ve been traveling around the United States and trying to see as much of the US as we can, although we will still miss a lot because of its enormity.  What we can do is work on some projects at home or help out our friends and folks.  We are currently undertaking a variety of projects from painting the exterior of the house, which is hard in the State of Washington because it is always raining, but it is a great opportunity to fix up things without spending too much money.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and look for things on sale, discount, or discontinued products.  We have been able to repaint several rooms with $5 paint – previously mixed and returned because they didn’t like the color.  So for about $5 – %15 dollars we can repaint a room with what would normally cost $90 for the paint.  If you are redoing a bathroom, look for discounted marble counters, surrounds, flooring, or tiles.  My brother-in-law introduced this to me as he is quite the deal finder.  It helps to have an open mind about your room or what you are trying to change.  It may not be exactly what you want, but it can be a huge improvement to your home, and for as little as a few hundred dollars, you can easily make 4 digit value increases to your home.

Ask your relatives if they have any left over supplies such as brick, tile, or drywall.  You never know what someone may keep around.  We were lucky enough to have a relative give us their remaining marble tiles, which looked awesome and we can cover over 700 square feet with them.  Even though we didn’t think they would fit with the style of the home, once we got them there we found a place to make them work.  As long as you are personally willing to put in the time and research to teach yourself and learn how to do these projects. eHow is a great place to start, but you usually will want more detailed information.  Search a variety of websites and also consider going to your local library to find guides for tiling, flooring, carpeting, decking, etc.  If all else fails, go to a book store and buy Fill in the Blank, for Dummies. Moreover, don’t forget to ask for assistance at your depot stores as they are usually well informed and will be more than willing to help explain to you exactly what you need and how to do it.

We are planning to redo a gutted bathroom and refinish the hardwood floors in the hallway – all things that can be done on the cheap but make huge a remarkable changes to your home.  Make sure to call ahead and reserve the proper equipment for these jobs like an orbital sander and edger or tile equipment.  You may also want to check out www.youtube.com for what you are doing as they may have a step by step video for all of you visual learners.

Refinishing a hardwood floor:  http://www.ehow.com/how_1856_refinish-hardwood-floor.html

Tiling a Bathroom Floor: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,672069,00.html

We are still hoping to do some traveling while out hear, stay tuned for information on the regional National Parks.

Cover

If you have ever entertained the idea of long-term travel, or ‘Vagabonding’ as Rolf Potts terms it, then this book is an invaluable guide on how to get started with planning and logistics. It is a whimsical yet no-nonsense guide on how to take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years off to travel, and do so successfully.

Potts offers not only a philosophical journey through his decision to abandon his cube and travel, but pertinent information, like that on our resources page, about travel insurance, teaching English, and language software, etc. He makes the world of long-term travel see manageable ad available to anyone willing to try, and this is an amazing thing to achieve in around a hundred pages.

If you are already a life-long lover of travel than Potts witty and Buddhist-like rants about the necessity to experience the larger world will reassure you that the vagabond lifestyle you’ve chosen is not only zen-like, but largely practical and applicable in the ‘real world’ should you ever decide to return to it. Moreover, your blood pressure will rise and a smile will spread across your face as you eagerly turn the pages to devour more of Potts reassuring and inspiring rhetoric.

Not many people make backtracks like we do! To make my point, our trips inside America in the last several months

Route map?

have been hectic, repetitive and somewhat ridiculous. Just look at that map! We landed on the east coast, managed to make it to Illinois, only to jump to New Hampshire and Washington, back to Illinois, then to Texas, back to Illinois, then to Washington again. make any sense to you? Yeah, us neither. And we did it ALL by land only, no air travel. If you ever want to hear our opinion of Amtrak or the Great American Road System, pleas ask. We’d be happy to monologue for you, and since Mike plays the guitar, he can even do it to song, if that’s your preference.

I have to confess, a huge portion of America has been neglected in our ridiculous travels, and that area is boring– which is why we didn’t go there (California, Oregon and parts of Nevada exempted). I’d love to see the Grand Canyon, but they located it in the middle of nowhere, so until they get some interesting side attractions out there we’ll be sticking to the more densely populated areas.

One of the amazing things about ground travel in the USA is the gas prices. It can be high in, say, Seattle and low in DC. Explain this to me, someone please? Why do the people along the coasts, where oil is delivered, often pay more?  Isn’t Canada our biggest oil supplier? Why do northern states pay more than southern ones? Check out this map of gas prices in the USA– see a trend?

Another thing that surprised me was the tax rates in various states we traveled through. Texas, for example, had an 8% sales tax rate while Arkansas was 9% and Missouri was 7%.  Property taxes is not taxed, but everything else is. Washington has a $9.00 minimum wage while Wyoming gets a mere $5.15 an hour. Some states don’t even have minimum wage standards. Emma Goldman would be sad.

Nevertheless, the trip was amazing. I’ve never seen so many MAC trucks! Ya know, America, a railway system might solve the over-congestion of the roads. I’ve also never seen so many fast food restaurants. You see a lot of interesting folks in sweat pants at the McDonald’s, or rummaging in the trash at various rest stops. We even saw one man get out of the driver’s seat of his RAM truck and finish his beer then toss it in the trash before peeing in the grass NEXT TO the bathrooms. Also, at any given interstate gas station you’ll find a plethora of items for sale that no one would, or has ever bought. Like neon pink mud flaps with a naked woman outline on them. And the gas station check-out guy is always eating or spitting sunflower seeds while you try to check out.

So, the cross-country ridiculousness went well, and we’re in Washington now. believe it or not we’ll be heading back to the Midwest soon enough– enhancing the backtrack.

Cover Art

If you have ever been to China, then Lost on Planet China will be full of inside jokes only you and other China travelers will understand. His insight into the psyche of the Chinese was amusing and comical, but hardly deep. It would be fair to say that more than half of the book was taken with Troost’s comical musings on the Chinese way of life, with the remaining bit concerned with telling where and what he was up to while romping around the Middle Kingdom.

Troost, who is perhaps most well known for his forays on lost islands, isolated from humanity. Now he has traveled from serenity to the world’s most populated country, and at times his frustration with the density of human life is apparent. While many may feel this is a drawback to the book, anyone who has been to China can laugh along with him as he remains frustrated at people pushing him in line, cutting him on the subway and spitting all over ever piece of bare land.

He considers briefly bringing his family to China with him, but decides against it due to the excessive amount of pollution he encounters during his travels, and that’s not to say he didn’t try to find a breath of fresh air while in Asia. Having lived in China for several years, Troost was apt in his assessment of the state of air in China, but he is also a bit jaded since he spent such a large amount of time on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean—aka the epitome of a fresh air location.

Troost has a very unique writing style. At first it was hard to get into, but after a chapter or two his cheeky textual habits become cute in a quirky way. Having read another book of his, The Sex Lives of Cannibals, which describes his time in Kiribati, I feel that not only has his writing improved, but his sense of humor has expanded a great deal, making his new book a pleasure to read.

Cover Art

Chuck Thompson is an infamous name in the travel industry. He has been a long-time critic of how Americans perceive the rest of the world, that is to say – as a series of isolated resorts in various exotic locations ripe for development and full of charming tanned locals. Thompson’s uniquely bitter tone throughout the book lends to the overall sarcasm of his message– that the travel industry is flawed and presents only the best and most cheeky aspects of international forays.

In Smile When You’re Lying, Thompson gives perky little insightful tales from his own past that involve excessive amounts of cocaine and marijuana done with Alaskan State Government officials, various visits to go-go dance halls (aka brothels) and a ridiculous amount of drinking with all sorts of unsavory characters. Despite this, he manages to weave an attention-grabbing tale of what it is like to travel as a rogue (albeit flawed) writer, a tale that leaves me wondering what his wife (mentioned in only half of his trips abroad) thinks of his new book.

His brief stint as the editor of Travelocity Magazine gave him the push he needed to launch his travel writing career to new heights. While he has a job most travelers can only dream of, he does little but mock the industry, scorn the results of travel, and defend what “it used to be like” in Thailand, the Philippines and Alaska. Nevertheless, the book’s writing is top notch and the illustrious wordsmith has traveled to over 35 countries on assignment, making him one of the better researched travel writers in the business, and a very lucrative one for him at that.

Geography of Bliss

If you are interested in social psychology and how the conceptual understanding of happiness varies between cultures, then The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World is for you. Weiner travels across the globe trying to find the world’s happiest locations. He travels to the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India and America in search of this aim.

While the subtitle of the book is, “One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World,” this is hardly fitting as Weiner is nowhere near as grumpy as other travel critics like Chuck Thompson. His commentary, unlike Thompson’s, is not as amusing or funny, but is in depth and offers real insight into the nations Weiner travels to in search of happiness.

Weiner begins his search by visiting the Netherlands, where a group of sociologists study and document happiness. This concept seems not only wasteful (time, money, etc.) but ridiculous in that happiness cannot be quantified (or can it?). Nevertheless, these professors have found a way to measure and assess happiness across the globe.

It was discovered that the happiest nations are the Netherlands, Switzerland and, in general, Western Europe, while the least happy are Tanzania, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and former Soviet republics like Uzbekistan and Belarus. This is not very surprising, claim the sociologists, since there is an obvious correlation between happiness and financial contentment, wherein the poorest nations are hardly happy. Meanwhile, they have discovered (thank god for science) that people with unstable governments and piss poor economics tend to be grumpy (no kidding!) while those who do not live in fear of their government or financial ruin tend to be happier.

Americans rank towards the upper fringes of the middle of happiness, meaning they are somewhat content but don’t take it too seriously. This is not surprising considering Americans have a plethora of problems to deal with but usually manage to do so while laughing. Living in China, many Chinese would ask why Americans view everything as a game or a joke. I laughed in response, but seriously I don’t know the reason.

It is interesting to think of the places we travel through in terms of whether they are happy or not. Uzbekistan, which we spent about a month in last year, was hardly an easy place to travel, and the government and ridiculous policies kept us from enjoying ourselves on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the locals seemed less than content, which is not surprising for an impoverished Muslim nation without resources or sound allies run by a government that thrives on nepotism and corruption. Why are the pawns unhappy, I wonder?

China (along with most of Asia) ranks quite low on the happiness scale, which also does not surprise me. We have spent roughly two years in China and while I’m sometimes shocked and impressed with the Chinese sense of humor, most of the time I find it depressing that the Chinese put so much pressure on themselves all the time and, given the Confucian hierarchy, they hardly let themselves joke around or have fun. But then, the Chinese find themselves in the middle of their ‘industrial revolution,’ which can be an awkward time for anyone.

This is a great book for any traveler who hopes to gain deeper insight into the places he or she visits, but at the same time, happy or not, the world over can only be understood via experiences, so get out there and experience more of it!

Good news for travel buffs, Lonely Planet now has a program that features great travel blogs. This program has exploded in the travel community and you can now see select posts from ATC on related Lonely Planet destination pages. If you have not heard of Lonely Planet, it is a company well known to most travelers for their comprehensive guides that cover nearly 100% of the world (even Antarctica!).  For the international traveler there really is not another guide company that comes close to LP in terms of information at the country and major city level. We use LP guides when traveling abroad, and have quite a collection of their books, including some of their compilation books composed by travelers who have interesting stories to share.

Sunset

Now Abandon the Cube is part of this great endeavor to make travel information more accessible. On each Lonely Planet destination page you’ll find info on each country, including links to our blog, where applicable. There are not alot of people, for example, who have spent significant amounts of time in Turkmenistan, but we have. Thus, our blog adds new information and insight to the Lonely Planet reader. That’s how we help make Lonely Planet better.

If you found our site from Lonely Planet, welcome to ATC! Subscribe to the RSS feed for weekly blogs sent to your email, or you can follow us on facebook and twitter. Alternatively, check out the photo album, our guides, newsletters and info on the 2010 Mongol Rally.

Progreso

I suppose reading the blog might have been confusing recently for some of our more attentive readers. We posted blogs from Canada and Chicago nearly simultaneously, one praising the Olympic ski runs at Whistler, the other lauding a drive from North Carolina to Chicago. Meanwhile, posts from Mexico and Texas are also popping up. If you’ve been confused, you’re probably not the only one. Here’s what has happened since ATC returned to America:

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida- a beautiful and warm place complete with scenic palm trees and overpriced taxi rides – in early November, 2009. From Florida, we traveled by Amtrak to Columbia, South Carolina where our train arrived at the ungodly hour of 4:00am. We walked through the last of the hurricane season in Columbia while finding a hotel, and in the morning we booked it north….to North Carolina. We spent several days in the Carolinas visiting relatives and reacquainting ourselves with Krispy Kreame doughnuts and Starbucks coffee—two things sorely lacking in Serbia. No joke, the Serbians could use a few tasty treats to cheer them up a bit.

After our family time in NC, we rented a car and drove to Rockford, IL for some more family time before ATC was split as Lauren went to Minnesota and then Washington (and Canada) while Mike went to New Hampshire. Thus, the blog has postings from the slopes of Whistler, BC and the hills of New Hampshire almost simultaneously.

With the holidays safely behind us, Lauren and Mike have reunited and even managed to drive from Illinois down to Texas, where they were lucky enough to meet up with some Old China Hands (friends from Shanghai) who currently reside in Austin. Continuing on, they traveled south to find warmer weather and calmer skies on the gulf coast of Texas, where they launch mini-trips into Mexico weekly.

So, here I write from a windy but beautiful beach on South Padre Island, TX as the gulf waves crash before me and the salty sand and wind blow my hair into my eyes. The gin and tonics flow freely here, and while little on South Padre Island remains open past 4pm (this being a retirement community) I’m happy to report that this writer has finally found a quiet place to write, reflect and detangle.

Mongolians

Having done quite a bit of research on how to find sponsors for our team in the 2010 Mongol Rally, we thought it might be helpful to write about the process for other folks in the rally, or similar adventures.

Step one – analysis. We read as much information as was possible on the Mongol Rally, including the main demographic, audience, marketability, legality, etc. Once we were confident we could easily explain even the most obscure details of the rally, we moved on. We even purchased and read the only book published by a former rally adventurer.

Step two – organize. We created an excel spreadsheet and brainstormed backwards, thinking about the items our team would need on the rally and then compiling a list of companies that might be interested in sponsoring us. Our spreadsheet was broken down into sectors, like ‘camping equipment’ for example, and then companies, like ‘REI’, and then their contact information so we can keep track of our correspondence with each potential sponsor.

Step three — proposal. We created a snazzy sponsorship proposal that compiled information on the rally, our team, our charity and then listed how sponsors could benefit by helping out our team and charity. Then we sent the proposal to the companies in our spreadsheet from step two.

Step four – press. While contacting sponsors, we also created a spreadsheet for potential press and media coverage, and set about contacting local and international media about our team and the event. After the creation of the proposal, we simply morphed the same document into a mini press kit for interested media affiliates.

Step five—website SEO. While all of this was going on, we maintained the website and blog, and did a bit of much-needed SEO, including some link building and revamping the landing page and Mongol Rally page of our site, gearing them towards the rally and securing sponsorships.

Step six – phone calls. While all of these documents and online work can go a long way towards endearing the team to potential sponsors, nothing is as meaningful as a phone call. We followed up all potential sponsor leads with calls, because in the end it is about people helping people, and the human element is the most essential one.

Good luck with your own fund-raising, and have fun!