The co-author of “100 Things to Do Before You Die,” Dave Freeman, died two weeks ago at the age of 47. Here’s a short article. Perhaps this will help to persuade those of you putting off a RTW until you have more money, more time or fewer commitments that life is short.

One of the questions I often get from people starting to plan an around-the-world trip is “where should I go?” There are many ways to start to put together a trip:

1. Get idea from your picture books in the library
2. Paste a route together from the “classic routes” in the front of Lonely Planet Guides
3. Think back to the “far away, exotic lands” you read about or the stunning articles you saw in National Geographic as a child
4. Plan a route based on a theme (museums, tallest buildings, festivals)
5. Grab inspiration from historic explorers

If you’re interested in in #5 this site (flash) might be of some help. It has potential to be much more than it is but it does give an overview of historic explorers’ routes like The Silk Road and Marco Polo’s route from Europe to Asia (two that I briefly followed). I wish more information was listed on the individual route pages but this is something to start with.

The email just came… my photo of a lemur in Isialo National Park in Madagascar will definitely be in Issue #4 of Everywhere Magazine! I haven’t seen a publication date for the issue yet (I’m guessing August/September) but you can catch a sneak peek or click through the whole issue here. My photo is toward the end of the National Parks stories on a spread with a bunch of wildlife shots. Despite the fact that, as a graphic designer, I’ve had the opportunity to have my photos and illustrations in numerous books and even photoshop my face into a spread or two this is still very exciting.

Hi loyal readers, long time no see! I have been incredibly busy the last few months and my intended posts are piling up. I did receive an email yesterday that should be of interest to the travelers reading this. Everywhere Magazine has been put on “hold.” Although my article on the national parks of Madagascar didn’t make it in what will be the last issue, I was asked to write a caption of one of my photos and was told it was already placed in the layout. I am not sure if it will still be appearing in issue #4, I’ll let you know once I hear anything. It’s unfortunate that this magazine, which let regular travelers participate in the publishing industry, couldn’t make it.

Below is the email I received from Everywhere yesterday:

To the Everywhere Community,

Launching a travel magazine was always an ambitious undertaking, but 8020 Publishing is committed to the idea of creating beautiful publications that combine the vitality of the Web with the richness of print. You made it possible for us to produce four terrific issues of Everywhere, but sadly we must now suspend publication of the magazine.

Why? At the end of the day, we just aren’t where we need to be, business-wise, with the website or magazine. Suspending publication of Everywhere will enable 8020 Publishing to focus on improving the community platform behind JPG Magazine, 8020’s other title. That, in turn, will benefit all the future titles 8020 plans to produce.

In the meantime, the Everywhere website at www.everywheremag.com will remain online so you can continue to share your travel stories and photos. If you subscribed to Everywhere, you will be contacted in the upcoming weeks with information about refund options. Selected contributors for our upcoming issue, Issue 04, will be contacted later this week with their payment information.

It goes without saying that this is a disappointing turn of events. Most of all, though, I can’t tell you how much we enjoyed having the opportunity to collaborate with so many intrepid travelers, wonderful writers, and talented photographers. It’s been a privilege working with you all, and we had a ton of fun along the way. You’ve inspired us, entertained us, awed us, and given us an incurable case of wanderlust. Thank you.

Best wishes,

Everywhere Magazine

I came across a few fun travel links today for everyone. First off, a t-shirt for those of you looking to pretend to blend in (or just be ironic): The I am a local photographer (I am not a tourist) t-shirt. This is a limited edition so order before the end of June.

Finally, here’s a fun little video from Lonely Planet TV about Bolivia’s volunteer zebra crossing guards:

I was searching for an email address last night and came across this appropriate email from my dad, who passed away almost three years ago.

Megan,
It is over. Kerry conceded this afternoon. He couldn’t win Ohio even with the provisional ballots yet to be counted. Bush gave his triumphant winning speech.

The stock market went up dramatically today. The really big winners were the oil and drug company stocks. They will benefit greatly from the Bush victory. I guess that Bush subscribes to the trickle down theory that if these industries do well it will somehow benefit everyone.

At least Crane is out and we will have a great new senator from Illinois (Obama).

Love,
Dad

At the time of the 2004 U.S. election I was traveling by bus on dirt roads from Jinghong, China to the Vietnamese border. Besides a horrible Danielle Steel novel, the only thing that helped pass the time was the anticipation of election results once I got back to civilization. Email and TV access in SaPa, Vietnam was scarce and my dad sent me updates on the whole vote counting mess. I knew about Obama from his campaigning before I left for phase I of my trip and I was just as excited to see him elected as I was the see my long-time nemesis Phil Crane defeated.

More recently, I had some long conversations with locals in Africa who were incredibly excited about Obama. A 15 year-old Kenyan boy asked me about the odds of him winning the Democratic nomination and we talked about racism vs sexism in the U.S. The conversation was one of the few highlights of my overland trip in a cage from the Ethiopian border to Nairobi. All of Kenya must be going nuts right now (in a good, non-riot way) with the news that Obama is the presumptive nominee. When entering Kenya from Uganda the border guard noticed my place of birth on my passport (Illinois) and with a big grin asked me to tell Barack she said hello.

My dad would have loved this election and I’m sorry he won’t be able to cast a vote in November. He always supported my interest in politics and never discouraged me from setting out a democratic-themed pumpkin on Halloween in my heavily Republican town. I was only 15 in the picture below, and wasn’t old enough to vote for either candidate on my pumpkin but today I feel the same sense of excitement and hope for the future of U.S. politics that I felt back then.

One thing I hear all the time is “when are you going to write a book?” I’m sure most RTW travelers hear similar requests and reply with the same ambivalence as I do. Every once in a while I ask what kind of book they suggest I write and I’ve been surprised by the answer.

One would assume that they mean a book about my travels, maybe an anthology of short stories or possibly a memoir but that’s not the case. Although some people suggest a typical travel memoir, most suggest something entirely different. A number of people seem to think I should write a “how-to” travel advice book or even compile a book of photographs or drawings.

For my own curiosity I wonder what you, my readers, would have me write. I’m putting a poll in the sidebar, but feel free to leave any brilliant suggestions in the comments.

After returning home last fall I spotted a new travel magazine at my local bookstore, Everywhere Magazine. It’s an interesting idea, using a website to gather content rather than relying on professional travel writers. It also gives regular travelers a chance to be published. I’ve been waiting for the perfect “theme” to come up and issue #4’s National Park theme seemed like a great opportunity to write about one of the more exotic places I traveled to.

Madagascar is one of the places I haven’t finished writing much about on this blog, much to some reader’s dismay. Although this article doesn’t contain a lot of personal anecdotes (they don’t encourage anything over 1,000 words) it’s a solid overview of the features of the four parks I visited. In addition to the text, the accompanying pictures may be new or slightly different shots than you’ve seen on this site. Head on over to Everywhere to check out my story and the others submitted for issue#4: My story, titled “Nature’s Experiment”

This makes me wonder, what magazines is the traveler reading these days? Most magazines I see are aimed at the high end market, stuffed with resort ads. Leave your awesome travel magazine recommendations in the comments.

If there’s one thing that I could spend less on when I travel it’s souvenirs. When I first started traveling around Europe in 1997 I bought few souvenirs at all. Europe’s expensive and I couldn’t bear to pay for lunch, let alone cheap imported “stuff” to fill up my backpack. Over the years I’ve bought a lot more, especially when I’m on my way home or ready to ship a package.

There are a number of souvenirs from my two around-the-world trips that I love—like my Ethiopian chair, the paintings I bought in Udaipur, India and my Akha headdresses from Myanmar. Since you can see all of those over at my souvenirs page, I thought I’d show a few of my favorite souvenirs I bought on non-rtw trips. I use #1 often and it’s by far my favorite souvenir of all time. If any of you find yourselves in Rome and are able to find a similar object featuring Benedict XVI pick up one for me.

#4 Hand beaded traditional jacket — Budapest, Hungary 1998

#3 Wooden bracelet, Christmas Market — Prague, Czech Republic 1997

#2 Platform shoes — Barcelona, Spain 1998

#1 Popener — Rome, Italy 1998

Me-go Mix: Track 8
“Wanaume Mabinti” — Lady JayDee
To download using Windows “right click” and save to disk. Mac users, you know what to do.

At the end of my trip I wanted to buy some music that reminded me of my time in Eastern Africa. A lot of the music heard around town is not local (Shakira is quite popular), but the local music I did hear varied and no one song stuck in my head. I ended up buying a compilation called “Bongo Flava” from a music shop in downtown Nairobi. A quick listen at the shop confirmed it was the sort of music I heard around town. I don’t have a lot to say about this song other than Lady Jay Dee’s music was some of my favorite on the CD. It turns out she’s from Tanzania and has had a number of controversial hits in the past few years.

Below is a video for a different song by Lady Jay Dee, “Distance.” She sings in Swahili, Zulu, Lingala, Kinyarwanda, French and English in this song.