travel — Page 4

Good, Bad, Ugly: Visas

August 11, 2011 By Jillian

Traveling overseas usually requires visas, especially if you’re not traveling within a defined geopolitical area, like the European Union or the Commonwealth. As we traveled around the world we collected visas and visa stories. Fees, processes and paperwork differed in every county, some were a breeze, others were so painful they overshadowed nearly the whole visit. Interestingly enough, our good, bad and ugly are all from Africa. I’m not going to lie, obtaining visas there sometimes felt like catching Harry Potter’s snitch leading us to write an African Visa Guide.

The Good: Mozambique

Like so many visa processes, we had read differing accounts as to whether visas were available at the South Africa/Mozambique border. Unsure we were walking down the street in Buenos Aires when we came across the Mozambique consulate. The next morning we arrived at the consulate during business hours prepared to spend our day filling out papers. To our surprise we were met by a housekeeper who showed us into what could only be described as a formal diplomatic receiving room. The two of us, dressed in our travel best we looked completely out of place in the lavishly decorated room. We heard the clatter of breakfast dishes and shortly the consul came to greet us and inquire about our business. He was clearly surprised, but incredibly gracious with us. He spent several minutes socializing with us about our travels, our background and our itinerary in Africa. Eventually he disappeared with our passports leaving us as fish out of water again in the receiving room. When he returned, we had Mozambique visas and a new friend.

The Bad: Egypt/Sudan

A tourist visa for Sudan can take months to process and you have to send your passport to Khartoum. That clearly wasn’t an option for us, so we found a legal work around- a transit visa. The transit visa allowed us 15 days in the country without a problem so long as we had a visa for our next destination – Egypt. We assumed we’d have no problem getting Egyptian visas so we went to the Egyptian Embassy with our South African friends to apply. That’s when we were hit with the catch, processing time for South Africans was less than 4 days. For Americans it was a 10 day minimum, no matter what. Frustrated we politely explained the situation to the consulate officer, who empathized and offered to talk to the consul for us. She was unsuccessful and we ended up having to stay an extra week near Addis Ababa waiting for our Egyptian visas. Not the worst situation by any means, but 10 days is a lot of extra time when our Ethiopian visas were limited to 30 days in country.

The Ugly: Ethiopia

And that brings us to the ugly. It wasn’t that the experience was so long or painful, rather that it was overtly unfair. By the time we arrived in Ethiopia we had been traveling well over a year and were used to special rules or fees for Americans and Europeans. Usually our fee was within the same range as those for other Western nations, but we were shocked when we stood in the consular office in Nairobi and heard we’d have to pay $70 instead of the $20 for everyone else, including their colonial oppressor – Italy! The consulate explained, sanctimoniously that Americans can afford to pay $70 and therefore they should. Never mind that if Americans fly into Ethiopia they only pay $20 like everyone else for a visa on arrival. We were subjected to a patronizing lecture on how we can pay therefore we should and how unbalanced our own immigration system is. While I can’t argue that our immigration system isn’t broken, I’d be lying if we didn’t point out to the officer that at least the fees are EQUAL for everyone. (And we never once complained about a country that charged us a reciprocal visa fee). We left frustrated, enraged and thought seriously about not going to Ethiopia as a matter of principle. In the end, we got our visas and left for the border. You can only imagine our rage when we showed up at the Kenya/Ethiopia border and the first sign we saw in the customs building was stamped USAID: A gift of the American people. Awesome.

If you’re interested in an interesting statistical breakdown of our trip around the world, check out our trip by the numbers!

Flashback: The Road Thru Mexico

May 6, 2011 By Danny

Heading south and out of Northern Mexico we stopped in the colonial town of Zacatecas. It was an old silver town and we went because we’d read in a magazine that you could buy some kind of cool home made shoe there but when we got there we couldn’t find any of the frigging shoes. We toured the sites ranging from the old silver mine to the historic bull ring that had been recently transformed into the fanciest hotel in the city. Looking back on it, we did all the things that by the end of the trip we tried to avoid because they simply bore us.

On the other hand, this was also a region that helped to shape how we would travel long into the future. With a group from the hostel we set off on our own to hike in the nearby mountains and check out the random street festivals we happened upon in the lead-up to Semana Santa. We started to shop for our meals in the actual markets rather than in tourist centers and we enjoyed cooking with ‘authentic’ ingredients; one night we enjoyed a cactus salad at our hostel with some other travelers. (Just for the record, it was kinda weird.) Mostly though, we started to get into the rhythm of passing our days by enjoying the city parks and public spaces and watching as local life passed by right in front of us.

Those were the good parts.

This was also the time where we really started to appreciate just how difficult our lives were about to become. We spent an entire day trying to contact an outfitter that we’d be able to go kayaking with and then working to figure out the rest of our time in Mexico so that we could book our start date for our Spanish classes in Guatemala…we needed to choose a start date to make a reservation. If that sounds like a run-on sentence its because that’s how we felt…we weren’t used to dealing with all these planning factors and stressors all at once yet and it wasn’t so easy. Oh, and Semana Santa was due to start in a week…no bus tickets available then….

Things weren’t all bad though, once we worked it all out and left Zacatecas we were with two other traveling souls who wound up in kayaks going over a few waterfalls with us, an incredibly fun day and one of the best of the entire trip and had the added benefit of introducing us to another region’s cuisine. After the ride down the falls we visited the strange yet beautiful site of Xilitla before continuing onto the urban feel of Jalapa where we did some more kayaking and exploring of archaeological sites. These parts of Mexico are some of the reasons we loved the country so much, one day in a kayak (Jill got destroyed on a some pretty large rocks) and the next day touring an archaeological site. Jalapa itself was a university town and we enjoyed a meal of falafel and shwarma for dinner one night….quite a change from the Mexico we’d come to know so far and a world away from the one portrayed on the nightly news back in the USA.

One of those two with us at the waterfalls was the same Swiss girl was who had been with us in the Copper Canyon and had been with us ever since we left Baja. She was our first ‘backpacking’ friend, most of whom we’ve completely lost touch with. We stayed in our first two hostels with her and shared a great many laughs and memories. Suddenly, just as soon as we’d met, it was time to part ways. Like I said, we’d only been hanging out a few weeks but as we said our goodbyes the road suddenly seemed so much more lonely. Sure Jill and I were still together but the realities of the road really started to settle with us and began to make us very uncomfortable. We knew we’d meet people along the way, but suddenly I felt far more lonely and homesick than I did even on that first day of the trip….but stay tuned, it wasn’t long before we found our mojo.

Returning to the Boxes

April 6, 2011 By Jillian

Two years ago we were officially on our way, traveling the world with our entire journey before us. We had sold it, quit it, packed it or gotten rid of it. We quite literally purged our small one bedroom apartment in Washington, DC, donating hundreds of household and clothing items to any cause that would take them. We neatly packed everything in cardboard boxes and tucked it away in my parent’s basement. Two years later it’s time to unpack and staring at the boxes before us I can’t help but wonder if we didn’t get rid of enough.

We sorted and packed for weeks before we carted boxes to my parents. I thought moving day would be a breeze and we’d just carry out our boxes and be out of there, on our way to traveling around the world.

Life it seems, had other ideas, and we stayed late in the afternoon sorting, packing and throwing out things that somehow we had missed. The afternoon passed so quickly I can’t remember what was saved and what was tossed. Going through our boxes now I find myself saving over and over again, didn’t we have a… or where did we put the… and ultimately not finding it. And you know what? I don’t miss it at all.

Interestingly enough, the sort of the opposite has happened. I want to ger rid of more. The stuff I cared so much about saving I’m now ready to pitch in the can. Some of it I can’t believe we saved. At the time I thought we had gotten rid of everything we could. Now, I see more.

Perhaps distance and time were all I needed to realize that this stuff doesn’t define me.

In fact, it weighs me down.

All this stuff keeps me tied to something that I’m not anymore. To a life that I no longer live. We lived with 50L backpacks for two years and you know what, I hardly missed anything material. I want to keep it that way. I don’t want to surround myself with stuff I don’t need.

Maybe it’s just that time of year- spring – that makes me want to fling open the windows and rid myself of all this stuff. Maybe it’s because we’ve just hauled it 1,000 miles to our new home, or maybe it’s that we are putting down roots again. Either way I’m looking forward to going through those boxes a second time, this time as we unpack and getting rid of even more.

Two Years Ago

March 14, 2011 By Danny

Two years ago….

Barack Obama had been president for 2 months. There was a lot of snow on the ground over the prior weeks as we said goodbye to friends and family. You had never heard of Justin Bieber and Snookie was not someone you watched on TV.

On Friday, March 13, 2009, we set foot into Mexico with no itinerary and only a vague idea what we would do. The border was the busiest in the world and we nearly missed getting our passports stamped. We knew we were at the start of an adventure, but were really quite unsure as to what exactly it would be.

Over the ensuing weeks we survived a 7.1 earthquake and missed a coup d’etat in Honduras by 3 weeks. Local events, overtime, led way to bigger events like the earthquake in Haiti (and now Japan) and a near revolution in Iran. Sudan was one country when we were there, now it is two.

Two years ago it was time for us to begin making lots of decisions. Lebron had not yet made his. We made lots of mistakes, who doesn’t, and with time got better at the whole travel thing. Now we look back and realize how much we did and how little we actually even wrote about. I have 5 handwritten journals and 7 days a week I wrote more there than in any blog post.

For the next two years we’re going to re-live the last two. We aim to flashback to where we were two years ago about once per week and focus on what we remember now, what stood out in our mind. Looking back on our posts it is sometimes shocking to us to read about how we viewed an experience then as opposed to how we view it now. We’ve changed and so has our perspective.

Now it is time to retell our story.

You’re Married. Why Would You Stay at a Hostel?

March 9, 2011 By Guest Blogger

We all know the United States isn’t known for gap years or career breaks (that finally seems to be changing though). When mentioning long term travel, many think it can only be done by retirees or college students studying abroad.

When people find out that we, a young, married couple, quit our jobs and took off on a year long RTW trip, they have questions. Lots of questions. Family members, co-workers, friends, friends of friends, and even strangers are always intrigued when they find out about our adventures.

One of the questions people ask is where we stayed while traveling for so long? Many Americans are so unfamiliar with the term hostel that we usually get weird, inquisitive looks. Once we start talking about it, the questions start rolling in.

A hostel is like that movie, right?

In short, no, at least I don’t think so. I don’t know, I haven’t seen any of the Hostel movies. But I know neither of us has been bludgeoned to death while staying at one, which is what I believe the movies are about.

Many people have grave misconceptions of what a hostel actually is. The horror movie franchise (God, I can’t believe it’s actually a franchise) doesn’t help matters, while our doom and gloom media doesn’t exactly change perceptions either.

Too many people have this weird vision of what a hostel is without having ever been to one or spoken with anyone who has stayed in one. There are others who have some idea of what a hostel is, but when they find out that we, a married couple in our late 20’s/early 30’s, stayed in one, it throws them all off.

So it’s for college kids, kind of like a dorm?

We have gotten this question as well, and it’s usually combined with a judgmental look or smart-ass comment after we told said person that we stayed in hostels for the better part of a year.

While some hostels have similarities to a college dorm, what most don’t know is that ALL hostels are different. We have stayed in hostels in 16 countries across 4 continents, and ALL were unique in their own way. Most did NOT resemble a college dorm.

But you sleep in a room with other people, right?

99% of the time that answer is NO. We are married, a bit older than gap-year travelers, spring breakers, and study abroad students, so we like our privacy. While we have slept in dorms with other people, it was done a handful of times in more expensive places in the interest of saving money like Patagonia and Europe in high season. But the vast majority of the time we had private rooms with our own bathroom.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, that sounds like a hotel

Hey, hey, we have a genius on our hands here! Most hostels have a lot more similarities to hotels than college dorms, particularly in places like South America, New Zealand, and SE Asia. The great thing about hostels is that they can be like a hotel, but for outgoing people who love to drink socialize.

So they aren’t like college dorms?

All hostel rooms are different.

Well, that depends. Most hostels have options for rooms, just like a hotel, except those options are a bit different. If you’re one of those gap year travelers or college students traveling during your summer break, you have the option of sleeping in the aforementioned dorm rooms. Some may have 4 beds, 6 beds, 10 beds, even 20 or more in a single room. The more beds in a room, the cheaper that bed is.

While some hostels only have dorms, there are many which have private rooms as well. Some may have their own bathrooms, some may have shared bathrooms. Some may be tiny, closet-like rooms. Some may be huge. Some may have tv’s with cable and desks. Some may only have a bed and that’s it. Some beds may have sheets and blankets and pillows, some may just be the mattress (see, I told you they’re all different).

That sounds pretty nice, actually.

Most of the time, it is. Some of the times, it’s like the YoYo in Valparaiso, Chile, the worst hostel we have ever stayed in. We took an overnight bus there and arrived at 7am, greeted by a worker holding a glass of vodka in his hand, still trashed and drinking from the previous night (he was actually highly entertaining). I’m also pretty sure there was dried up vomit on the wall of our room. And let’s not talk about the bathrooms.

Um, OK, maybe I don’t want to stay in a hostel?

That was 2 nights out of 358 (yeah, I know, I can’t believe we stayed the second night either). Like a hotel, there’s always a risk. Most people who have traveled extensively and don’t have a high budget have hotel horror stories as well. So it’s all relative really. We’ve stayed in some pretty nasty, dingy hotels here in the good ol’ US of A.

There are some huge benefits for staying in a hostel, whether you’re young, single, married, or even traveling with kids. We LOVE hostels. Honestly, in our future international travels, I can’t see us NOT staying in hostels. Even when we’re 40, 50, and older. Even when we have kids and bring them on our travels with us.

Really? Why do you love them so much?

There are so many reasons that hostels are better than hotels, in my opinion. The only real benefit to staying in a hotel is that if you travel enough and stay in a particular chain enough times, you know what to expect. The consistency of hotels is a major positive for many people. But that lack of consistency is one of the reasons I really love staying in a hostel.

Hostels are always different- They all have their own unique flair to them, which is pretty cool. You never know what you’re going to walk into when going to a new hostel. This is a risk, but if you have the time and aren’t traveling in a particular region during high season, it’s nice to walk around a city and check out several places until you find the right one.
Hostels are great for meeting people- Common areas, communal kitchens, included breakfasts, and a bar are all amenities that many hostels offer. These are all aimed at getting the patrons to chat with one another and make friends. In hotels, people typically stick to themselves, and that’s OK, but when traveling long term, it’s nice to be able to meet other like-minded travelers. We have had so many great times just hanging out with other travelers from our hostel.
Hostels are cheap- Even if you are staying in a private room with private bath, a hostel is going to be considerably cheaper than a hotel. Since all are different, sometimes this works out well, sometimes not. The room may be tiny, and the bathroom may not have a vanity, but at a quarter of the price, it’s worth it to budget travelers. We averaged about $25US/night for accommodations during our year long RTW trip. Try coming anywhere close to that staying in hotels for a year.
Hostels have Communal Kitchens- A good number of hostels have communal kitchens for travelers to use to cook meals. Obviously this saves money, which is always a plus. But this is also a great way to meet new people. Kitchens are typically small with limited amenities, so sharing and helping is the norm in a hostel kitchen. It’s always a cool experience to work with one another to make dinner in a cramped kitchen with two pots and three pans and 20 other backpackers trying to do the same. To some, this may not sound like the most ideal cooking conditions, but there’s something about the communal aspect of helping each other out that brings out a camaraderie amongst everyone.
Hostels have bars– If you like to imbibe with some adult beverages while traveling, then the hostel bar is usually a good place to start. Many hostels have a bar somewhere on the premises, and partaking in some cheap drinks with your fellow travelers is always a good way to start the night.
Hostels have tons of information- From the owners to the workers to the travelers staying there, there is always a wealth of information around every turn for those staying at a hostel. For us, the people staying there typically travel in the same style as us, so getting tips or information from those people makes more sense than if we were to stay in a hotel. It’s usually easier to get the ins and outs of street food, markets, and grocery stores, plus the low down on bus and train travel from those working and staying at a hostel.

Even as a married couple, staying in a hostel is a great idea for those travelers who like to meet new people and save some money in the process. Private rooms are available in most places, and privacy has rarely been an issue for us. We have simply felt more a part of the local community when staying in a hostel as they are often owned and staffed by locals. No matter how old you are, what your relationship status is, or even if you have a family, consider staying in a hostel next time you take a trip. You may be surprised at what you find.

Author: Adam Seper is a traveler and writer from St.Louis. He and his wife Megan spent 358 days traveling the globe, through 11 countries and four continents. You can read his daily travel guides and advice at his blog, World Travel For Couples. We’d love to hear your reactions in our comments, or check out the original discussion on Adam’s blog. You can find Adam on twitter at @aseper or on Facebook.

If you’re interested in guest posting for IShouldLogOff, email us at info [at] ishouldlogoff.com!