nothing’s new under the sun
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008Our *Live and Learn* section in the sidebar has seven categories, and I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but they are in alphabetical order….m..n..o..p..q..r..s…only problem was, we didn’t have anything for *r*. Then one day the inspiration came “R is for Room”. But a picture of every room we stay in may not be too gripping (how many bedbugs in cheap hostels do you want to see?), so I thought a little further. How about the view from one of our rooms each night? That seemed a much better idea. So Room With A View was born, a photo gallery of the views from our aeroplane, hostels, guest houses, trains, yurt, ferries…indeed, from wherever we end up laying our heads to rest.
But I just discovered it wasn’t a new idea. Look here: Room With A View. I only just found it today, five days before we leave.
I had been planning on linking to a different travel blog each week, in the lead-up to leaving, but somewhere about three months ago the preparations got on top of me and I barely managed to keep up with reading the blogs, let alone writing an informative review of each. But finding the almost-original-Room-With-A-View (even that one was an idea borrowed from elsewhere) prompted me to finish off the plan.
You see, taking a trip around the world is not a new idea. It’s been done. Over and over and over. And we have made use of other people’s experiences as much as we can. Some blogs we just read, some we make contact with the writers.
For the record, the good repliers we’ve found are:
A Wayward Journey, a family with ten-year-old twins cycling from the Arctic to Patagonia. They have been most encouraging of our crazy plans to incororate some cycle-touring into our journey.
Richard and Amanda Ligato have been equally enthusiastic and ever-so-helpful. You see, Rob insisted I ask some People Who Have Done It some sticky questions…..and all that achieved was showing me that cyclists are a special friendly breed of people who really believe anyone can give it a go and succeed!!!! These guys put us in touch with a family of nine, who are cycle touring across America. Anything is possible!
Kyle Archer is another of the write-back-straight-away crowd Heading East. Cyclist too. Figures.
Not cycling, but I’m hopeful our paths might cross in Cambodia, is The Wide Wide World Family. Their blog is informative and thoughtful, and they reply to emails too!
Also in the informative and inspirational category are some blogs that we found in the early stages of googling; Six In The World, Armageddon Pills, and Me-Go Around-the-World. Give them a read if you’re thinking of doing something similar.
I think it was when I got to The Perrys in Wonderland that I stopped posting about particular blogs. Instead of having a quick squiz at their stuff and writing a nice wee reivew, I spent the whole night reading their website! They’ve already had all sorts of adventures, they’ve got a story to tell and they have discovered The Currency of Life.
See why it took so long to read?
But wait! There’s more!
There are Family Trippers, Family RTW, SoulTravellers3 and Four Go RTW (actually, they’ve just got back to the beginning). There are Welcome to the World, Everything Everywhere, Reid on Travel (we’ll be using his Free Online Guide to Vietnam), Burton Danes for a dose of Europe, One Year on Earth or how about Thirteen Months? There are Almost Fearless even if The World Is Not Flat, Bangkok to Krakow, Lives of Wander, Wandering Why. There are Escampette, Hobo-biker, Take A Seat or Bike It Solo. There are the Bowman Family, The Whitlocks, The Aiken-Widoms and the LEJOG Blog. And if you haven’t found something in that lot to whet your appetite, how about sampling Connor’s Mildly Thrilling Tales or Wild Hope Stories or Legal Nomads? If they fail to enthuse or inspire maybe Crazy Guy On A Bike, might be able to (in fact, that link will take you to lots of crazies; old ones, young ones, family ones and more).
You get the picture….there really is nothing new under the sun.
rayres