On the Road...
(February - November 1998)
a nine-month living travelogue of world adventure

with your host,
bruce
Email me at travelbruce@oocities.com,
or sign or read my guestbook.


Winner of the Life In Africa
Award for Cultural Excellence!

The time had come for a change in my life. My job at a startup company had petered out. After eight years of working for the man, and being stuck in the machinery for far longer than that, I was ready to get away for a while. After some deliberation, I decided to go ahead and do what had always been at the back of my mind - travel. But this was not to be a holiday - no vacation trip to a single destination. What I had in mind was a journey - a nine month escapade around the world. With gathering momentum, and slowly moving conviction, I began plotting my escape.

The hardest part of planning a world trip is figuring out where to go. Luckily, as things progressed, my itinerary seemed to fall into place. I had initially been planning to go eastward; through the familiar Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Himilayas, parts of Asia, then Down Under. Then I discovered a friend between jobs that was also interested in travelling. Jason had a friend near Tokyo and was going to visit him for the Olympics. First stop: Japan! As we both wanted to get down to Australia, we strung together a course that hopped southwards: the newly reabsorbed Hong Kong, a week of scuba diving in Indonesia, Australia gatewayed through Sydney, and New Zealand. From there Jason's two months expired; he would fly back to LA and I would continue on.

Coincidentally my grandfather was making plans to tour China - would I like to tag along? So I would head back north: a brief stop with relatives in Singapore, through Thailand, then into China at Beijing and out at Hong Kong. From China I would fly through Thailand again, then on to Nepal - hopefully beating out the rainy season there (and the leeches!). I wanted to be able to do some trekking among the Himilayas. From Nepal I would train through India, from Delhi to Bombay. I had a bit of trepidation about this - I was going to be in India in the full heat of summer, and was also racing against monsoon weather. But as the French like to say, c'est la vie!

From India, I would join up with two programs in Africa. The first was a volunteer work-camp for three weeks in Tanzania. I would live in a rural village, helping the villagers with projects they had initiated. Frommer describes the Global Volunteer programs as a "mini-peace corps" - I was as interested in experiencing their lifestyle as offering them my services. From Tanzania I would make my way North via train to Kenya (was Kilimanjaro in my future?) to attend a NOLS course. This would be three weeks of wilderness hiking, education, and hopefully fun.

After Kenya I would make my way to Turkey, via Egypt, then to Greece and a ferry across to Italy. From there my plans were fairly ambiguous - they could afford to be as I would be travelling the continent by train. I had vague notions of Eastern Europe, and I knew I would fly out of London, but besides that, time would tell!


Recommended Resources:

If you're headed out, or just thinking about it, you might want to check out the following:


Finally, here is something I wish I had while travelling: an always-on web-enabled Palm cell phone!