Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Travel the World for a Year

*UPDATE: See Part 2 of this list here: Walking Amadeus: Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Travel the World for a Year (Part 2)

Sure, it seems glamorous, exciting, challenging... an opportunity of a lifetime, yadda, yadda. Travel around the world for long periods of time is hard, and you should consider these reasons to just stay home:

10. All Toilets Are Not Created Equal
Sure, they serve the same purpose in every country, but you like having toilet paper, do ya? You like knowing you can sit down if you need to, do ya? Not every culture does. You just might find yourself hovering (hope you have good knees and good aim) and in a bit of a pickle that could ruin a good portion of your day. The good news is that you may just find yourself inclined to the habit of A) economically utilizing the tissue you've learned to bring with you, and B) finding cool new ways to form disposable balls of used said tissues for the bin on the floor... even if there isn't one.

9. You Will Probably Get Sick
It could be a mysterious rash, some sort of gift from a random insect, or Delhi Belly, but unless you are rich enough to stay in nice hotels and eat at great restaurants all the time, you are vulnerable to all sorts of things that might put a damper on your travel plans (or life). The good news is they oftentimes have medicines for those things, even in developing nations... and sometimes toilets to sit on.

8. You Will Miss Lots of Birthdays
... And graduations, and holidays. It's no fun for an American to spend Fourth of July in a place where nobody cares, and some places you just can't source turkey or cranberries for Thanksgiving. You will probably miss your favorite sports, because people in other countries don't watch it, and if they did, it might be on at some strange hour when you should be sleeping. What you will get to do is turn on the Facebook and see lots of pictures of your friends and family celebrating and having fun without you.

7. You Will Be Ruined for Proper Croissants and Great Ceviche
Yes, for the rest of your life you will resent all failed attempts at replicating the best foods of the world. That juice in a can will never be as good as fresh buko juice that your friend's grandfather climbed the tree to get for you. The list can go on and on, but I think you get the point.

6. You Will Lose Things
I prefer the term "liberate," because it sounds like I'm doing something good for the world. Sometimes it's the little things like a phone charger at the hostel or one of your favorite socks at the laundry service. Other times it could be your purse or your cell phone that walked away when you weren't looking. The good news is you just enriched the local economy, and that is admirable, my friend.

5. Home Will Annoy You
Now, not everything, of course; you will always love your In-N-Out Double Double, your dog, and your mother (not necessarily in that order). However, the more you learn about the world by being out in it, the more some things will seem petty when you return. See those little kids over there happily playing with marbles or playing some sort of dodgeball with their sandals? Yeah, it makes mandatory gift bags after soccer matches and other eccentricities seem horribly unnecessary when people on the other side of the world live very full lives with much less.

4. You Can't Take It With You
So you would love to collect great bottles of wine to take home with you? No. Maybe you found some great antique bookends in Morocco. No. Artwork? The answer is no. In most cases, what you want may be too heavy, delicate, perishable, or bulky to add to your already overloaded backpack. No.

3. You Won't Be Comfortable
What's that? You don't like the feeling of a stranger's elbow, thigh, two small children, or chicken touching you for three hours on a bus built for 2/3 the capacity it is carrying? You like the feeling of not being lost every other day? You know that couch with pillows or that glass full with ice? Get over it.

2. People Will Rip You Off
See #6. Yes, there is no better deed that gifting your weekly travel budget to a community in need, but sometimes you want to hold on to as much money as you can. There are bad people everywhere who target travelers, and unless you are always on your A-game, you are the target. Cheating tourists is a $2 billion a year business (I made that number up). Taxi drivers, street vendors... sometimes policemen or even your own hotel are all in on it. I got stuck paying $200 extra to enter a country, and my own airline had me detained overnight in an airport. You will learn to trust no one.

1. The People You Will Have to Leave
You will meet some of the best people in your travels. In some cases, you might think, "What if this person lived in my same city?" You will have random discussions with strangers that will enlighten you. You may share moments with someone who could be your best friend. Most of these people you will never see again. You will say a lot of goodbyes... if you're lucky. The people you leave may be the hardest part.

Now... given all these warnings, if you still want to go out and see the world - actually live out in the world - I've done my part to admonish you. I can't be held responsible. And good for you.

Episode One - Departures

Mothers Day - Philippines

I was fortunate to meet some great mothers in the Philippines, and every face tells a story. Happy Mothers Day to you all, and thanks for showing all those kids how to smile.

What We Miss - Inside the Mind of a Long-Term World Traveler

Tacloban Seaside

When traveling far from home for extended periods of time, it's normal for even the most seasoned traveler to have things that he misses. Usually, we find substitutes to fill the void, but ideally the new experiences are so fulfilling that there just isn't time to miss much. In my current position, I have been able to interview many travelers from different countries. In addition to the queries regarding what makes them tick, I usually add on the question, "What do you miss about home?"

I can remember on past trips, we would all sit around and share those answers, maybe directly related to some deficit in our then current situation, but usually they were all very specific things, all something we all could relate to, and all put a smile on each of our faces to imagine. Digging a well in 100 degree heat in Malawi, we tried to be content with the little things, but someone had to mention something as usually commonplace as "ice." We all stopped to think about the miracle of ice for a moment. Then we dared to go a step further and imagine "pina colada!" Now of course that was directly related to an extreme circumstance, but a lot about travel is relatively extreme in one way or another.

Now, the people I have been interviewing actually surprise me. Besides the standard "my parents," "my dog," and "my bed" answers, most of my interviewees have very little comment on the subject - many with kind of a blank look in their eyes. All of these people are volunteers with an NGO, and most are in their early twenties, so I'm guessing they are just so excited to be out and free or there are many whom I can tell are long-term travelers precisely because they don't want to be at home, and some even show disdain. Furthermore, with a near free-flow of internet connectivity these days, your internet reality travels with you wherever you go, so there is less reality reality to miss!

I don't know, but everywhere I am, I miss some other place. From past experiences, I know others feel the same way. Usually it's a food item; sometimes it's a steak, good beer, In 'N Out Burger, Prosciutto di Parma - something very specific. Other times it is an event - 4th of July and Thanksgiving are tough times for Americans to be abroad. I'm not even a huge sports fanatic, but I still get goosebumps seeing an NFL game on in Prague or an NBA playoff game in the Philippines. In talking recently with a fellow American, who has been gone longer than I have, we both agreed we missed the certain chill in the air that autumn (usually) brings or something as simple as a sofa and a warm blanket. Of course we miss our families, and though we may not be in contact much, we really enjoy seeing photos of Tae Kwon Do practice or silly videos that would otherwise soon be deleted. At the beach, we might miss the snow, and in a remote landlocked location we probably miss the ocean.

Perhaps it's a function of where we have been and lived - what attachments we have made, what we have tasted, what we have seen, and whom we have known. Does the person who has traveled to one hundred countries miss more than the one who has never left the island of her birth? Is that why as soon as we get home we start planning our next trip? Or is it just that we are not content? Perhaps the world is so captivating, that we seek out new places, people, and experiences despite what we miss, because we know the deprivation will be worth it.

If we would miss something enough, does that mean we would never leave? Not sure, but I'll let you know if I ever find out.

Walking Amadeus Series Premiere Trailer - Nov 1, 2015 release

The Project - A Walking Amadeus Video Expedition Around the World

I suppose there are two types of travelers - those who try to get away and those who try to get somewhere. Sure, the categories are not mutually exclusive, and different trips have different aims, but sometimes people who love to travel the world get painted with the broad brush that they are simply wandering, shirking the responsibilities of "real life." Well, I'm no hippie.

I'll confess, I do have a rather laid-back way about me, but it is important to note, the now underway video project with the same name as this blog - Walking Amadeus - is a dedicated expedition with certain goals and a purpose. I take my motivation from a woman from my Shoshone tribe, Sacajawea, (you may have heard of her). She was compelled to join Lewis & Clark's Corps of Discovery and ended up acting as an integral part of their success as a guide and interpreter. She helped us discover parts unknown, and she did so courageously. She didn't go where none had before, nor did she test the bounds of science, but she certainly facilitated human exploration.

Walking Amadeus - the video project and the blog - seek to serve a similar purpose. In travel, we encounter new ideas about the world. We pick up where others have left off and add knowledge to knowledge. Ideas, points of view, passions of people a continent away are indispensable to a world in which a lack of enlightenment can lead to chaos on a grand scale. In my country, I see children of all colors playing together. It is not until they are taught that they are different that the seeds of racism are sewn. Then those of us who care to, spend the rest of our lives trying to reconcile our contrived differences. It's madness, and it's the same on the world stage, only it's more difficult for an American to hang out with an Iranian or a North Korean and get to know their stories. I may not find myself in either of those two countries anytime soon, but hopefully some great stories are out there, and I intend to document them.

Those who know me well, know that my project will also not lack for a certain sense of humor; I actually don't know how you can travel at length without one. Furthermore, my interests in all things culinary will lead to discoveries of food and beverages, and the photographer in me will seek out certain beauties that may have nothing to do with anything else. I have also studied economics; not sure if that will make itself evident.

Taking all of this into account, I plan to venture from California, to Hawaii, to The Philippines, to many parts of Asia en route to Africa, then up through Spain, into France, up to Ireland, and back to the US. Travel plans are somewhat flexible, just because I know things always change and I will need to be able to respond to that. Videos will be posted on YouTube and can be found by seeking the Walking Amadeus channel. One goal of this project is that it be interactive and influenced by the viewers. My director and I can both be reached by email at walkingamadeus@gmail.com, and you can be a part of my journey as well. Otherwise, I will be mostly solo - traveling and shooting.

Thank you for your interest, and I look forward to your suggestions.

Special Thanks to:

Ryan Connolly - my editor and director
Rich Delos Reyes - musician extraordinaire

Unfinished Business - Directions of Life and Travel Intertwined

In all the journeys a man might make, the most profound might actually be the one he didn't start. Every president gets asked about his legacy, and it usually pertains to what he did in the up to eight years he spent in the White House and how those decisions and actions portend some major consequence on the the future of the country or the world. Some people yield a tremendous influence, and that is more easily ascertained (or magnified) by the position they held or the fame they enjoyed for a time. However, the effects of the lives of others is often more subtle and uncelebrated, and what they achieve resonates in reincarnation. If for some reason what we do in life echoes for eternity, but no one writes books about us, it could very well be because someone else carried our torch.

I recently read something by a grieving widower of a friend of mine. I could tell the wound was still fresh, and he seemed a bit lost. When you lose someone close to you, there are the sincere, yet predictable, attempts to provide you with some sort of solace: "If there is anything I can do...", "she's in a better place now", "you are in my prayers"... etc. No one can fault people for the unoriginality of these statements; nobody knows the right thing to say, and odds are there is nothing you can say to help the bereaved feel some comfort during the aftermath of their loss. You're just trying to be a good friend, and really, that may be the best you can do. However, what struck me on this occasion was something that has become evident in the last year or so, in that those who pass on before us live on in what we do in their honor - because we are finishing what they started.

Life masks these kinds of truths in our youth, mostly because we are thinking primarily about ourselves. However, somewhere along the line we gain something called "perspective", which is a byproduct of wisdom. The clarity of a situation often does not present itself until the end; any moment of truth is the result of culmination, not prediction or snap judgment. Sadly, someone's value is not always appreciated until they are gone; then we are left with the context of a world without them. It is the void, the loss, or the failure that informs and instructs us on how to carry on - that is, if we choose to learn.

Every endeavor needs clarity; without is mere frivolity. Therefore, it is imperative that we recognize when we are called upon to contribute to a legacy - to help someone else live forever. It is then that we realize that we are not victimized by others leaving us, but blessed that they were ever there in the first place. If they were that special, then they bestowed something very profound, which is the gift of a challenge to finish the job they left. Like I told my friend's husband whom she left here on Earth, what's left to do after losing someone so magnificent, so young, is, "now, you have to be awesome for her." And, we go back and make whatever that is happen.