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Archive for October, 2008

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Trying To Capture My Wants & Desires

Saturday, October 25th, 2008

An old journal of mine reveals a long ago list I made in trying to quantify the things I wanted out of life.  Here they are:

  • Knowledge & Adventure
  • Relocating
  • Exploring The World
  • To Understand The Mysteries
  • A Vision Quest
  • To Move, To See, To Do, To Be
  • For My Life To Flow To Significant Places, With Significance
  • Discovery
  • To Expand My Senses and My Understanding Through Movement And Search
  • To Go All The Way
  • To Become a Spiritual Vagabond
  • To Be a Happy Wanderer
  • To Express My Spiritual Purpose on This Earth
  • To Find Myself At Home In Strange Places
  • To Explore This Universe
  • To Go Freely Anywhere
  • To Follow My Nose To Meaningful Adventures
  • To Answer God’s Call To Me

To Lightly Travel, And Lightheartedly, With All Needs Met

Let Me Sup From The Bottomless Cup; Let The Means Flow For Me To Go! 

Posted in Can Words Contain Your Wishes? | No Comments »

An Update On My Application To Guinness World Records

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

I forgot to let you know how that application to Guinness World Records for me to claim the title of  The World’s Oldest Around The World Solo Backpacker turned out.  I had asked them to open a new category….because no one has gone for this one before…so that I could qualify with my second RTW in 2009.  I had visualized going to all the arrangements of getting official documentation in various cities on my journey and then getting “crowned” upon my triumphant return.

Ah well.  They, the Guinness Committee in London, were very nice and they did seriously consider my application, but their final answer was “No.”  Apparently, they feel that there simply isn’t enough of an interest in this field to open the category.  Surely, they reasoned that there would never be any people silly enough to challenge the record since they would have to be around 72 years old to beat me.  I can just hear them at their boardroom table:  “Don’t be daft, man!  What are they going to do?  Wander out of the nursing home and just happen to get around the globe?  Ain’t gonna happen!”  Personally, I believe that they don’t know yet what this upcoming Boomer Generation is capable of.  You just watch your new crop of senior citizens.  I simply wanted to prop open the door for them.

They may have had some perfectly good reasons for their decisions and these things are final, so there’s no arguing.  Actually, now that I think of it, it’s quite a relief.  I can simply begin to call myself that now, without all the trouble of having to prove it.  In fact, taking a gander at the map of the Southern Hemisphere, and pricing the tickets and checking my current bank account, I may just want to spend my time poking about on the various continents down there rather than zipping around in the time that I have free this year.  Might put off my technical rtw until I’m even far older, a few years hence.  If I had a title to win, I’d be locked into the idea of now or never.

So, who’s the oldest rtw solo backpacker on the planet?  You’re lookin’ at her!  Unless you know of a challenger and then I’d like to meet them.  We would get along.  By the way, I was on TV recently.  Pop over to my other blogsite, heyboomers.com and have a look.  The video clip is on my book reviews page. 

Posted in My Strange Crowned Head | No Comments »

There’s A Big Difference Between The Northern & The Southern Hemisphere

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Well, Duh?  You might say…and you’d be right.  It’s no wonder that the around-the-world backpacking crowd sticks so consistently to the upper half of this planet.  There is a whole lot more surface to walk upon.  Or, more to the point, to bus and train across.  It is so much more possible to slide across the borders with nothing but the usual show of passport and payup of visa and entry fees when those borders are not wet and vast.

But, if you are trying to go around the Southern Hemisphere in the same easy-going manner… Good Luck!  As I’m finding out, having finally buckled down to the serious business of figuring out how to make this next dream a reality.  A post or two back, I wrote about discovering a website to match travellers with boats going almost anywhere.  Www.findacrew.net.  And that’s an interesting site, which surely does a very good job and an important service, and I’m checking it regularly.

I might well wind up using it.  But, the time factor is a great unknown.  I haven’t any idea how to tell the number of days, weeks, months that it might take to sail across the Pacific Ocean, for instance.  Plus, many vessels have different purposes in mind and a lot of them plan to wander the islands and coasts in-between, which is very pleasant for someone who can travel full-time.  For awhile, I thought to stitch together commercial flying and recreational boat travel but that very uncertainty factor might scotch the idea.

Today, I spent a little time entering possible itineraries into the Airtrek.com trip-planner in a return to the fly-all-the-way-around idea, and I learned several things:

1.  It’s expensive.  About twice the cost of a circle of the Northern Hemisphere. 

2.  You have to go up and down just to hop continents.  You can’t, apparently, fly from Sydney, Australia, to Capetown or Johannesburg, South Africa.  You must go up to Singapore or Amman in order to fly down the continent.

3.  From Africa, you can’t fly across the Atlantic to Rio or Buenas Aires.  You must go to London or Paris first

Now, maybe there are direct flights connecting those cities, but they might not be companies that this consolidator deals with and perhaps they are very expensive since you would be buying a one-way ticket each time to just walk up to the counter and not have consolidator tickets in advance.  Anyway, I’m suddenly thinking that it might be much more cost-effective to sign up for varous Bootsnall.com trips and let them provide the bargain airfare to go with them.  That way, I’d get to run around more within the continents and give up the hard and costly work of simply moving between them.  I’m sure that it’s possible to delay one’s return flight for awhile to give more time after the group trip for more exploration of the nearby countries.  Maybe that’s what I’ll begin to look into.

Anyway, I’m learning that the Down Under half of this Earthbowl is not a piece of cake.  As any Aussie could have told me.

Posted in How to Circle The Water Planet | No Comments »

Life Aboard A Nile River Felucca

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Vegetarian meals cooked by Captain Ayoub over a propane stoveVegetarian meals cooked by Captain Ayoub over a propane stoveExactly three years ago today, on October 6, 2005, I was enjoying life aboard a Nile River felucca.  Here is an excerpt from pg. 154 of my book, Hey Boomers Dust Off Your Backpacks: Travel The World On a Limited Budget, which you can soon buy on Amazon.com and can now buy on my own blogsite www.heyboomers.com, plus see a few pictures of this.

“The group is aboard our Nile felucca, home for the next two days and nights.  We are thirteen souls, plus two captains, Ikamkani and Ayoub, and that’s the perfect number for the large, square rose-print-covered mattress which fills the entire high deck of this sailboat.  We recline along the sides of the vessel and there is a clear space between our extended feet, now filled with daypacks and books.  Just overhead is a flowered awning and above that, a wind-filled triangular sail.  Underneath our deck is a large storage space for our luggage.  Reggae music is playing on the portable tape player.  We are drinking hibiscus tea.  Oh, this is the life.

One of our captains is cooking lunch in a small area in front of our raised platform.  He has been peeling and chopping vegetables and now those are bubbling away on a two-burner propane stove.  Another felucca sails close and its captain tosses a plastic bag containing a cereal, which Ayoub explains will help his stomach during fasting.  Meanwhile, our vegetarian meal is beginning to smell fantastic.”

Posted in Cruising The Nile | No Comments »

Two Ways To Travel Around The World For Free!

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

Slowly, I’m beginning to turn my attention to the fast-approaching 2009 departure date for my next around-the-world junket throughout the Southern Hemisphere.  I know that I want to begin in South America, due south of my home in Florida, and until last week, I didn’t know of any other way to make it between continents than to order a string of one-way tickets from an rtw air planner, just like last time.

That worked well and it was probably beneficial to have a schedule of flights in place to give my freeform trip a little structure.  But, I did wind up changing departure dates several times and found myself wishing for the freedom leave a continent when I wanted to, not when I had arbitrarily decided to, six months earlier, when I’d booked my tickets.

As you might imagine, I perked up my ears in a chance conversation with Michael Sterns of www.grasshopperdreams.com, a children’s book author and world traveler himself, when he mentioned two websites that provide huge opportunties for backpackers to cut way down on overnight lodging and intercontinental travel.

First, he told me about a way to really save money on nightly lodgings:  At www.couchsurfing.com, you can become a member for $25 a year and join a group numbering close to a million world travelers who offer their couch or spare bed to other members free of charge.  You search for availabilities in the same way you look for a hostel while you’re on the road.  If you find a match – meaning that the person is home and able to absorb a guest – then, that’s your bed for the night or the week – and there is no money exchanged, though you try not to be a burden on your hosts, by helping out with housework and maybe taking them out to a meal, or something.  Just as you would do when visiting friends or family. 

It isn’t necessary to offer your own home in an exchange arrangement, but many people do, when they are not on the road.  It sounds like a great way to save lots of money, but also to locate the at-home backpackers in any city.  You can find members all over the globe, so it might cover your overnights in a large chunk of your trip.

Then, there’s the major transportation in getting from one country to another.  I think it surely applies to both hemispheres, but it really makes sense in the water-covered Southern Hemisphere, where I plan to be next.  The website, www.findacrew.net enables both boats and crews to locate each other and make a match.  It is free unless you want to get really serious and go a bit deeper, at which time you become a premium member at a cost starting at AU$49.  But, everyone can do a whole lot without becoming a paying member…or certainly, try it on for size until you decide that it makes sense to join more completely. 

If you have a boat and need one or more people to sail with you, then you fill out your profile and post your pictures (optional, but it helps).  You will list your planned ports of call and sailing dates, details of the ship, and what you want in a crew.  The surprising and confirming thing to me was that many had no age discrimination, listing the possible ages as, say between 18 – 99.  Well, hey!  I have nothing to worry about.

Most posts are free.  You don’t pay and you don’t get paid.  Some are cost-sharing arrangements and others might be commercial/professional with a salary attached.  There are lots of categories and the website says that this is so effective that some big companies are using this community of expert sailors and inexperienced travelers to fill their various positions.  Many spots do not require experience as the captain, often the owner/captain in a smaller vessel, assures you that he is an excellent sailing coach.  Naturally, you must be willing to do the jobs required, like keeping solitary watch on your rotation and sharing the general tasks of cooking, clean-up and sailing duties.  But, it doesn’t look like they ask you to soapstone the deck, or paint the hull, or even polish much brass, unless that’s in your original agreement.

Many lone sailors want someone to ease the loneliness of a long sea passage…and I’m sure that idea comes in many forms…also, hopefully worked out and well-understood before leaving the dock.  Their profiles are pretty upfront and there is a category for both boat owner or crew member to state an interest either in a romantic relationship or a platonic relationship, as well as an experienced or inexperienced hand at sea.  Companionship, in all its forms.  Sort of a little like classified dating advertising.  After all, occupying a small interior for long periods of time is a dicey situation when dealing with strangers and I think that the boat owner takes just as much risk as we hitchhikers do, because he’s opening his home and personal space to someone he doesn’t know.  That’s why this service is so good.  Once a possible match is identified, all parties can email back and forth to get acquainted.  That’s where the premium membership earns its keep.

Non-smokers have a very definite edge.  Sounds like seagoing people are healthy sorts and don’t want their immediate airspace polluted.  Yay!  I don’t smoke and that’s very good news to me.  Sometimes, a heavy smoker still smokes even when they have run out of cigarettes.  It’s in the pores by that time and people in their vicinity become secondary smokers just being near them.  But, on the other hand, there are smoking captains who welcome smokers and let it be known that any passenger must put up with his own happy habit.  So, you can see how the selection process works, right at the beginning.

Female crew members have an edge and are much more frequently specified.  Not always for the jump-to conclusion, I believe and hope, anyway.  Personally, I think we gals are much easier to get along with in small quarters and much more pleasant, in general.  Plus, we smell better!  Don’t you agree? 

I have no idea if this plan will work for me, but I truly hope so.  My hesitations are in the amount of time that might be consumed making a passage, versus the time I might then have to explore around in a country.  If I could just be out as long as I wanted to, with no need to return home on any deadline, then that would be grand.  You might never see me again because the laid-back, vagabonding life really sounds good right now.  But, if I can’t find a ship or a boat out of a certain port, halfway around the world….then what?

Anyway, I’m early in my investigation, but I’m already dreaming big dreams.  Did I mention the title I have chosen for my next book…the one about said Southern Hemisphere?  “Age Schmage! Money Schmoney!”  So, if I could discover this great money-saving secret and get around the world, this time, on even LESS than my Social Security…what a publicity coup that would be, in this time of supposed wrack and ruin.

Posted in Around The World For Free? | No Comments »

Gee! If I Start Like This…What Might The Morrow Bring?

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Well, I promised to share a review or two.  So, here we go…

Angie DiMauro, of Clearwater, Florida, wrote this to me, and also said that she had written Oprah the same suggesting that she have me and the book on the show.  Hope Oprah is listening:

“Hey Boomers, Dust Off Your Backpacks” by Linda J. Brown is a superb travel odyssey.  Between the pages you will meet a diplomat who is going around the world and reporting back that the people in other countries are our friends.  When for selfish reasons, the politicians and religious leaders want to keep us separated, Linda is proving them wrong.  Perhaps, Linda dropped the biggest bombshell when she says, “Pretty awful…today the low and middle classes still struggle so mightily for every scrap they put in their mouths.”  Give Linda a seat in the United Nations – she will accomplish what all others fail to do, extend the loving hand of friendship and harmony.  Because of Linda, God’s Will shall be done on the Earth as it is in Heaven.  If you want to meet a living prophet, read this book.”

Debra Neisler, of North Carolina, wrote: 

“Just got the book in the mail today.  I am on page 30 and you are just arriving in Bulgaria.  I see you had some travel experience under your belt.  Love the descriptions of the towns and people.  I think that is what I long for…to see how the rest of the world lives… I can only imagine how a trip like yours changes you.  Oh, loved the opening story about your mountain climb.

And later, she sent another email:

“I wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed the book.  I finished it on Saturday and as always with a good book, I hated for it to end!  I especially enjoyed your travels through Egypt and India.  As a matter of fact, I can’t wait to plan my trip to Egypt, after I tackle Europe…. Your descriptions of the train rides were fascinating.  Keep in touch!”

Marsha Reiniers, of Spring Hill, Florida, writes:

“I’m only about 10 pages in, but I’m loving it!  I can’t wait to give my sister and sister-in-law their copies so we can discuss together on our “girl’s” weekend in Hilton Head later this month”

Later she wrote: “The book just gets better :)”

Posted in Rave Book Reviews | No Comments »