This morning we got up early to record our third in the series of Reader Questions. Today we address 2 questions that are on the minds of readers:

• Do you guys ‘check’ out the places you visit and think ‘hmm, this is where I’d like to spend my retirement’? – from Joanna
• Can I ask what you do about your mail? I looked into mailboxes and post office boxes but it seems they want you to physically empty them regularly. Also I have found that most banks dont accept PO boxes as an address, so what do you do for a postal address in this situation? – from Rob

What a great way to start our day here in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We are loving our time and will continue sharing our experiences through video, photos, and words with you all.

As always, if you have a question you would like us to address in a video please drop us a line (wtalbot (at) marriedwithluggage (dot) com) or include it in the comments below. We love to be able to share these videos with you and are open to answering virtually any of your inquiries.

At this time last year we were glued to the laptop in Seattle for news of the erupting coup in Ecuador, the first destination on our long-awaited RTW (round-the-world) trip. Would we be able to leave? Would we have to start somewhere else at the last minute? It was exciting and unpredictable from the very start, and that hasn’t changed much throughout our 365 days of travel.

How exciting and unpredictable, you ask?

We experienced a Force 12 storm in the Drake Passage on the way back from Antarctica that lasted for 2 days.

We camped overnight on Antarctica downwind of a giant fur seal, whose pheromones reminded us all night that he was tougher than we were.

We arrived in Baños, Ecuador the same day Volcano Tungurahua decided to start erupting, and she spewed rocks, grumbled, and shook the ground and windows for 2 weeks while we were there.

We went camping with friends in Argentina and had to make camp in a swamp in high winds with no matches and a frost coming on. (We remembered the boxed wine, though.)

We camped in the jungle, sleeping in hammocks in a shelter and hoping the nearby footsteps in the middle of the night were from the guide taking a midnight potty break. They weren’t.

We descended into a pitch-black (a phrase that has new meaning!) coal mine in England for 1-1/2 hours to learn how men, women and even small children worked to support themselves in the last 100 years. We’ve never been anywhere so dark or lonely.

We trekked through mountains and jungles, survived dry heats and torrential downpours, and witnessed dramatic changes in climate in almost every place we visited. (If you don’t believe in global climate change, you must have your eyes closed.)

We saw governments doing good things and governments doing lots of bad things, too. We saw racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-US sentiment, and lots and lots of poverty. We also saw people coming together to help complete strangers, equal rights in the unlikeliest places for the least powerful people, an appreciation for US culture (hot dogs in a foodie town like Brussels?), and luxury beyond compare.

We’ve been sick in foreign countries and gotten fast, inexpensive treatment without having to make a backpacking travel insurance claim (nice to know it is there if we need it, though). We’ve also been worried that we’ll have a medical catastrophe and wonder just where we’ll go to recover since we are not insured in the US. Then we remind ourselves that millions of people in the US live with this risk every day.

(Track the map of our posts and journey throughout the first year here.)

Live the Good Life: What’s next?

We’ve seen and experienced more in this year than we ever dreamed, and our personal views and global perspectives have exploded with the amount of information we’ve processed during this time. It is a sensory and information overload that is hard to describe, and at times it can be really unsettling. But if you want to know if this year has been worth it, the answer is YES.

It feels like we’ve barely seen the tip of the iceberg (that phrase has new meaning, too!) in this journey, and we’re excited to see what the next year brings into our lives. On the agenda:

• Launching our first digital guide on October 18. Find out more here.
• Creating a movement of discovery with our Try Something New ezine
• Modifying our website development business over the winter to sustain us long-term as we travel the world
• Writing new guides on various topics around Living the Good Life
• Embarking on a Super Secret Adventure of Summer 2012…details to come

We wrote at our six month anniversary how this RTW trip has changed us, but this time we want to change it up a bit. Has following our trip changed you in any way? If so, how?

*Like our new photo on the home page? It was taken by the talented Alison Cornford-Matheson of ACM Photography in Brussels.

If you have a blog you know the joy of connecting with people on a subject you love, discussing the pros and cons of a variety of topics, and teaching each other things along the way. It is a pretty fantastic experience, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Strangely enough, though, we feel more connected to you all now after writing a book that you haven’t even read yet.

Let me explain.

We’ve been working on this secret project for almost six months now, and we’re excited to finally release it into the world next month. You’ve heard us mention it a time or two over the summer – this big guide we were working on – but until now we haven’t really spilled the beans on what is inside or why we’ve been doing it.

Today’s the day. (Feel free to share on Facebook.)

About the guide

The guide is called Dream.Save.Do and is a step-by-step guide for amassing the cash you need to live your dream. It is the same plan we followed to save a 5-year travel budget in just 25 months, and it includes all the “mental health” lessons we learned about ourselves, our friends and family, and how to live a life differently than what is expected of you. It is about 35,000 words, with pictures, videos, PDFs, and audio. We even have a special extra bonus on how to sell your junk to fund your dream (though you certainly don’t have to go to the extreme we did) as well as a video chapter contributed by Adam Baker of Man vs. Debt on credit card debt elimination. As a final perk, we’ve included 3 months of followup with emails, videos and encouragement for you to start saving for your big dream.

We know that a huge part of saving for your dream is the mental energy it takes just to be different from everyone else. We focused a lot of attention on the social and emotional aspects of saving for your dream and how that can be life-changing in itself (it certainly was for us), and we are really proud of the final product. (Check out my ambush interview from the “paparazzi” in Amsterdam below. Click here if you can’t see the video.)

Why we consider you all contributors

What’s been really great in this project is the fact that it has been a group effort from before it even became a project. From the comments you have posted on our blog over the past three years, to your personal emails, to the very insightful feedback several of you gave to us on the early drafts of the book (not only are you guys smart, you’re also very opinionated – and we like that). In fact, I don’t think there ever would have been a book without your frequent requests for the “inside scoop” or your emails requesting personal advice. So THANK YOU for pushing us to deliver something that we know a thing or two about to an audience that wants the information. You are the yin to our yang, and we love continuing this journey with you.

We’ve even been lucky enough to work with two readers professionally – Angela Barton is editing the book for all of our grammar mistakes, and Shea McGuier designed the cover, the interior layout, and the banner and graphics for the website. We’ve been lucky to meet Shea in person (at a train station in London as we were each going separate ways – you just never know how a brief meeting is going to impact your life) and we’ve gotten to know and love Angela online over the last 3 years as she documented her Year Without Spending. In fact, she was one of our very first readers.

The difference between blogging and writing

One thing we have learned is that writing a book is far different than writing a blog, and it has taken a lot more time and effort than we anticipated. From months of writing every morning at 6 a.m. so we could still fit in some sightseeing and travel, to learning how to take constructive criticism in two rounds of feedback, to letting go of our control issues to hand over our work to an editor and a designer to make it better, to learning how to sell our work for money for the first time.

In fact, we altered our travel plans and came back to Brussels at the kind invitation of Alison and Andrew of Cheeseweb to put in a solid week of work on the remaining tasks for the guide. There is still a lot to do in terms of promotion, final edit/layout changes, the back end of setting up the purchase/delivery, and all the guest posts/press releases/interviews, etc., that go along with a big launch.

(We’ll be writing much more about this after the launch – I think we can all learn a lesson or two about a big project that just keeps.getting.bigger and how to handle the stress and logistics of that. In the past, I usually just gave up. This time I had people pushing me to keep making it better and do more, and that has had a profound effect on my self-confidence and work ethic. Again, more to come on that subject.)

In short (one of my favorite phrases because it is never true for me), the difference between writing a blog and writing a book is huge. The blog gives us a daily infusion of feedback and connection with you, and writing a book is more of a gamble because we aren’t really sure what you’re going to think of it until it is done. Did we kick your ass too much? Were we inspiring enough? Are you going to take our advice and make big changes in your life? Are you going to store it on your computer and never even get around to reading it? Even though we don’t yet know the answers to those questions, we do feel closer to you now than ever before by reliving our experience with your needs in mind.

Will you help us?

The book is released on October 18, the same date as Meet, Plan, Go in cities all over North America. (You remember that we hosted one in Seattle last year.) But what is really profound to us is that we will finish the main work on the book on October 1, exactly one year to the day that we left Seattle on our big adventure to travel the world. Maybe we’re destined to do something terrifying and exciting every year at this time. We can only hope.

Something that would be a really big help to us as we gear up for the launch is if you would share the news of the guide with your friends and encourage them to visit the sales page. We have a signup form there for the launch date that will give people an early-bird discount, and we hope you and your friends will take advantage of it. You can share the news with your friends on Facebook by clicking here.

Share on Facebook

Thanks to you all for being with us on this journey and for inspiring the guide in the first place. Our lives are so much better with you in them, and we can’t wait to see what kind of great and fun things we’re all going to do in the future.

We love France. We honeymooned in Paris 7 years ago, where we became huge fans of the bread, cheese, and wine. It wasn’t until this trip, though, that we learned to appreciate the people of France.

Last year we met French couple Audrey and Pierre in Chugchilan, Ecuador, a remote little village in Andes Mountains. We were all there for the stunning views and hiking, and we stayed at a lodge that served communal meals. Audrey and Pierre were in the midst of a 6-month South American journey.  We talked over dinner one night, exchanged email addresses like you do with tons of other travelers, and went our separate ways.

We stayed in touch with Pierre and Audrey over the last several months by occasional emails, and when Pierre read that we were in Belgium he asked us to come to France to visit them. It is a fairly easy train ride from Brussels to Lyon, France, and wet me up with Pierre at the train station as he was getting off work.

What did we do that next week? Well, we learned a lot about France and got a much-needed dose of family time – even if it wasn’t ours.

French family dining

The French are famous for their food, and they should be. What is more remarkable, however, is the way they eat their food. Meals are hours-long events in France, and we were fortunate to attend two family dinners in the gorgeous area of Annecy in the Alps – a milestone birthday party and a baptism. Both came with lots of people, incredible food, and flowing wine. It’s a multigenerational thing, too: We talked with neighbors and children and watched briefly as a grandparent played chess with an 8-year-old neighbor boy. Warren played basketball with adults and kids outside by the pool (and fished out an opponent after he fell in). We shared stories of travel and adventure, recipes for new foods, and joked about the differences between people from the US and France as well as the similarities. It is those long evenings around a table, drinking wine, sharing stories, and laughing into the wee hours of the night that are the most memorable parts of a trip like ours, and we felt very lucky to be part of Audrey and Pierre’s family celebrations.

Frog legs

Speaking of food, we had to try one of the delicacies in France: frog legs (“cuisses de grenouilles” en Francais). These buttery little delights were a surprise. Check out Warren’s reaction to his first frog legs while dining at a restaurant: (click here if you don’t see the video below)

Crepes

Yet another culinary delight was the crepe. Pierre took us to his Uncle Hervé’s crepe stand in Rullily,

and we enjoyed some of the best crepes we’ve ever had. It is like watching an artist at work to see the thin layer of batter get painted on the grill and in seconds turn into a delicious crepe. Hervé used to have a more traditional job at a factory, but he gave it all up to make crepes. He says he likes it better despite the more irregular income because he sells happiness every day. How’s that for a job description?

Beaune, the capital of the Burgundy wine region

Beaune is the capital of the Burgundy wine region, and it is a short distance there by train from Bourg-en-Bresse or Lyon. We toured Patriarche winery’s cellars and sampled 13 different wines by candlelight below the ground. The winery is so big that they have 5 km of tunnels stacked with wine
underneath the city, and we walked through quite a bit of it. It would have been great to go out to the vineyards themselves, but since it was harvest time most of them were closed to visitors. We splurged and bought 4 bottles of nicer wine, and we loved sharing it with our new friends over the weekend.

Lyon, France

One day, Audrey was off all afternoon so we decided to explore Lyon together. We rented bikes from the stands at the park after unsuccessfully looking for bikes at 2 other stands (the first 30 minutes are free, so you can see why many people use them to get around the city quickly and cheaply). We ate lunch by the river Rhône and biked from the park to the opera house and over to the Confluence, which is where the Rhône meets up with the Saône. Here we marveled at the very un-Lyon-like modern architecture in the area and stopped for a drink while we waited for Pierre to join us.

Annecy, France: the Venice of the Alps

We drove to Annecy on Friday evening when Pierre and Audrey got off work. This beautiful city sits in the foothills of Alps, and both the city and the surroundings are beautiful. There are canals running throughout, with cobblestone streets and bridges and lots of shops and restaurants around the castle. We walked around the park, watching a local dance club swing-dance under the stars, and then ordered a takeaway pizza so we could eat alongside the canal. It was a great introduction to the Alps, even if we couldn’t really see them until the next day.

We haven’t seen really big mountains since we left South America, so it was great to finally see the Alps the next morning. Pierre drove us to a nearby path and we decided to take a short 3-hour hike before rewarding ourselves with Uncle Hervé’s crepes. It proved to a little too challenging to me with my bum foot and I had to stop before reaching the top, but Warren, Audrey and Pierre scrambled their way up for a great view. I sat on the bench and took photos for families as they pit-stopped, and I got to practice a little French. (Mostly, “de sole, parle vous Francais en peu.”) It was a beautiful day to be outside and take in the first scents of fall coming.

What we loved most about France

One thing we love about travel is meeting people, but even better is meeting the people of those people: friends, parents, children, cousins, neighbors. New experiences shared with interesting people are always more meaningful. Our time in France was brief, but after making friends we know we will be back.

We have to give a lot of credit to Pierre and Audrey for inviting two relative strangers into their home for a week and driving us up to their hometown to meet both sides of the family on two important occasions. They exemplify how to live the good life – meeting new people, connecting others, and staying in touch. And after meeting their families, we can see where they get it. Thanks to all of you – Pascale, Patrick, and the whole family – for sharing your weekend with us.

Have you ever met someone on your travels and invited them to come visit? How did it go?

(Editor’s Note: Are you interested in a French holiday? Write about your favorite holiday on your blog, list your favorite travel tips or the restaurants or locations you think are must-sees. Travelizer is going to award the winner a trip to a European city of your choice – up to £800. Enter now – the contest ends on November 14, 2011.)

Most people are curious about someone who lives a completely different life than they do. I know we are. So it isn’t a surprise that we get reader questions about our experience traveling around the world. Instead of answering these one by one, we decided to start a video series to share these responses with everyone who might be curious about what it is like to live out of a backpack all over the world.

In this episode of “What is it like to travel around the world?”

• Do you ever get tired of wearing the same clothes over and over? (where we agree to disagree…sort of)
• Do you cut your own hair? (where I get a little miffed at the suggestion)
• What do you miss most from home? (where we reveal what we couldn’t pack but wanted to)

(Click here if you don’t see the video below.)

Ask away!

PS: Hey, what do you think of our new Kodak PlaySport x3 video camera? We shot this outside, in a city, with a bit of wind and the sound and picture is great! We can even film underwater next time we get to a beach. (We have already pre-tested this by dumping the camera in a glass of water and taping the cats at our house sit. ‘Cause we’re thorough like that!)

After five weeks of living amongst the Scots, we have just one thing to say: cheers fur a stoatin time! (That’s “thanks for a good time” in Scots to all you English speakers out there.)

We loved your country, your people, your beers, and your attitude. You are the hardiest people we’ve met on our world tour so far, and you are also the ones who seem to have the most fun. We will not soon forget our experiences in Scotland, and you can bet we will return.

Some of the new things we tried in Scotland:

• Bagging a munro: You guys are seriously understating when you call yourselves “hill walkers.” That makes me think of a gentle stroll on a Sunday afternoon, not a 9-hour trek over giant boulders and 3000-ft ascent. And to think that you do this for fun! In all seriousness, it was an enjoyable way to spend the day and we saw a gorgeous part of Scotland up close and personal. Thank you for showing it to us.

• Visiting the Glengoyne distillery: We learned the difference in taste between peat and wood in making whisky and that it is a hanging offense to use anything but spring water as a mixer to the good stuff. We learned that beer and whisky start off in a remarkably similar process, and that it is more expensive to buy good Scotch whisky in Scotland than in other countries. Go figure. Betsy’s favorite whisky is from the Isle of Jura and is not made with peat. Warren has decided to stick with beer.

• Touring a real ale brewery: Through a connection with the treasurer for the brewing company (thanks, Sean), we were able to get a private tour of the last remaining brewery in Edinburgh, The Caledonian Brewery (“Brewed by Men, not Machines”). Davie, our guide, has worked there for 33 years, and his father for 50 years before him. That’s a lot of history. After the tour we spent a bit of time in the tasting room with Davie and our friend Joan, enjoying beer samples that looked surprisingly similar to full pints. It was really a treat to get so much inside info about the workings of a brewery over much of the last century and to enjoy the day with a good friend. We loved this tour, and we love the beer.

• Storytelling: We love The Moth podcast for live storytelling, and we were lucky to meet and befriend popular storyteller Michaela Murphy back in the US before leaving on the trip. So we thought a night of storytelling in Scotland would be right up our alley. We were right about that, but in a completely different way than we expected. The stories are not personal like expected, but more along the lines of ancient tales, fables, and stories repeated down through the ages. Intermixed with the stories are songs, poems, and instrumental music.  It is really a night like no other, and you can imagine people doing similar activities over hundreds of years to entertain themselves after dinner. It is the best kind of group entertainment because everyone brings something to the table and every event is unique because it depends on the audience. It made us think of what we bring to any social gathering and how important it is for everyone to be able to contribute something of significance.

• Scots language: The Scots have a language that is descriptive and lyrical. A dismal, rainy day is accurately described as dreich – sounding just like it feels. To talk a lot is to blether on, and to be scared it to be feart. To understand is to ken, and if you don’t ken then you dunnino. If you’ve read any of Diana Gabaldon’s books you know a bit of how this might sound in a sentence, but to truly appreciate it you have to hear it in person. Och aye!

• First visit to a castle: As you know, Windsor was off-limits to us earlier in our trip due to the Queen benighting people or some lame excuse like that. So we went to Edinburgh Castle instead and saw up close how difficult it must have been to build a castle on top of a big volcanic rock. You really can’t imagine how anyone could get through, but more importantly what the first workman on the job site said when the foreman indicated he wanted a castle built up there. “Ur ye kiddin’ me?”

• First reader meetups: Scotland is also home to our first reader meetups. We met Joan, a fellow world traveler who played tour guide, translator, and party planner – and sometimes all three at once. She introduced us to her friends and family, and we had some amazing adventures together. Maria and Dave were traveling in Scotland to celebrate the completion of Maria’s thesis and come over to sightsee in Edinburgh with us, and then Brie took us to lunch with her coworkers and told us about living in 16 different countries and writing 2 books. Obviously all of our readers are underachievers. We meet terrific people all the time on our journey, but getting to know readers who’ve been virtually traveling along with us is a special treat and one we plan to repeat as we continue our journey.

• Haggis, neeps and tatties: Okay, maybe this is not at the top of everyone’s list, but I couldn’t leave Scotland without trying this sausage made from sheep’s pluck. Warren documented it all on video cause he’s a jerk like that.

• St. Andrews. Yes, we did make the pilgrimage to the home of golf. I still think it looks like a boring game, but Warren was suitably impressed, a little reverent even. I liked the museum inside the hotel, including quite a bit on women in golf. In fact, we saw almost as many women there as we did men. It was also graduation day at St. Andrews – the same university that Prince William and Kate attended – so we were able to see all the students in their gowns and proud parents in fancy clothes walking around town.

During our time in Scotland we were told about all the famous inventors, poets, writers, and artists from Scotland by almost every person we met, and we realized quickly that the Scots are very proud and knowledgable about their heritage. I don’t know if I could as easily state the same things to someone visiting the US, and it humbled me and made me realize I need to be better informed about my own country’s history.

What we’d like to see on our return to Scotland: Hogmonay, a Burns Supper, a tour of the Highlands, a visit to the West Coast Islands, and of course the famous Fringe festival. And yes, we will be returning. Because if it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!

What is your favorite Scottish thing or person and why?

Who doesn’t love a good challenge? Well, most people, actually. But we know you are different, and so are we. That is why we are embracing the challenge by author Erica Bauermeister to do something new, difficult or scary in the next year and the opportunity for one of you to win a copy of her latest book, Joy for Beginners, which is starting to make an appearance on the bestseller lists.

(*Skip to the bottom of the post if you Simply.Cannot.Wait to find out the details of the challenge. We know how you are.)

About the Book

Erica has written a book called Joy for Beginners, which centers around 6 women who have supported their friend Kate through a diagnosis and recovery from cancer. Kate’s daughter has challenged her to take a whitewater rafting trip down the Colorado River as part of her emotional recovery from the process, and her friends all heartily agree.

What they didn’t count on, however, was Kate’s feisty attitude. She said she would do it if they in turn would complete something new, difficult, or scary within the next year. And because she didn’t get to choose her challenge, they won’t either. She proceeds to assign each one of them a challenge that is uniquely suited to them, and the book is about each woman’s journey to complete the challenge and how it changes her life in a profound way.

I was lucky to get Erica on camera for an interview about the book, challenging ourselves in life, and how we distinguish between the life we were given and the one we choose to live. There are two videos below, and I’ve provided a bit of detail for those of you who can’t watch video at work.

(Click here if you can’t see video #1)

(Click here if you can’t see video #2)

Video Highlights

After our greetings, we get down to the first question, which is about why she has returned to the subject of dealing with what life gives you and how you can build upon that. We also discuss the variety in ages and backgrounds of her characters, which make the books so appealing to a wide variety of people.

Erica tells a wonderful story of her sister-in-law, who is the inspiration for the book. After years of being in a band, she chose to put on a solo concert on her 50th birthday. Erica was wildly impressed with the nerve it took to do this, and she started thinking about why we stop challenging ourselves as we get settled into life.

We then talk about the importance of a sense of play as we become adults, and how “adults need to have fun so children will want to grow up.”

Fear cropped up in our conversation, and how we let little fears keep us back and possibly even judge others for fears we think of as inconsequential (even though they may think the same thing about us).

Erica then talks about her own desire to write about the “unimportant bits of life” that so beautifully illustrate the important things. She also talks about maturity and how she needed to season as an adult to be able to write some of these things at all.

We also cover the very intriguing plot point of having someone else create the challenges and pose the question: “Do our friends know us better than we know ourselves?”

Next we discuss the advice I was given in my 20s, that it was important to cultivate friendships throughout life because as we got older they would become increasingly important. This is also when Erica told us the line to one of her sister-in-law’s songs: “I don’t need flowers, I don’t need wine, I just want you to read my mind.” Good friends can often do that.

In part II, we chat a little bit about easing into a big challenge, such as when conservative character Marion gets her fingernails painted deep purple as a test for living with a tattoo. She gets stares at the grocery store and quickly goes home to take it off. Can we actually ease into a challenge like that, or do we have to do it feet first?

Erica also lets us in on the character research she did for that particular character at a tattoo convention and tattoo parlor, as well as the character research of traveling down the Colorado River on a raft, which was not by her choice.

We talked about the idea of groups of friends challenging each other and how meaningful it can be to hear that kind of feedback from someone who loves you. We were fortunate to be able to say things to our friends before we left on this trip that we likely wouldn’t have said otherwise, and it is a shame we had to leave in order to feel free to say it. Imagine how great it would be to have a challenge handed to you by someone who knows you – your strengths, weaknesses, and secret ambitions? Maybe it would be more inspiring to complete something you want to do anyway just because it was suggested by someone you respect?

Last, Erica talks about her dream of writing for a living and how it came to pass. She confirms our experience that living the dream is even better than what you can expect, and she talks some about her writing habits and daily life. Then she spills the beans about her last book, The School of Essential Ingredients, being recently optioned for a movie. I can just see someone like Julia Roberts bringing that to life on screen (though I did shamelessly beg promote myself for a role).

If you want to buy a copy of Erica’s latest book, you can get it just about anywhere in hardcover or on your ebook reader. The title may be slightly different if you live in Australia or the UK, so be sure to search by her last name. You can also click on the links above to find them online.

*Now on to The Challenge

We are of the mind that sometimes our friends do know us better than we know ourselves. And since we’re all friends here, you can see where this is going.

We challenge you to challenge us – something new, different, or scary for us to complete in the next year. If it is location-based you know that we’ll be in Belgium for the month of August and in Thailand beginning in mid-October. If it is personal, then you know our quirks just about as well as anyone. Warren has already gotten naked publicly twice since you’ve known us, so I’m not sure this will be as much of a challenge for him as it will be for me!

The winning challenge will get a free copy of Erica’s book, Joy for Beginners.

There is one teeny-tiny catch, though. hehehe

If your challenge is chosen, we get to choose one for you as well, and you have to report back (anonymously, if you like) to the readers just like we do.

Sound like a deal?

Okay, we’re ready to see what you’ve got.  We will select the winner of the book and a new challenge next Friday, July 15th.

Comments are open for challenges…now!

Can we have a drum roll, please?

We’ve made our final decision on where to settle down for the winter, and it is…

Wait! Let’s do a quick recap first.

You remember we first talked about settling down for 6 months this winter to work on our business to help fund our trip indefinitely. We have savings to last another 3-4 years, but we don’t want to wait until we’re close to the red before we start earning a livable income.

We came up with 3 options for the long-term stay for various reasons:

1. Buenos Aires, Argentina
2. Chiang Mai, Thailand
3. Edinburgh, Scotland

Each has its pros and cons, and we spend the last couple of weeks mulling it over and reading your excellent comments and advice.

Then, at the last minute another option came up: Housesitting all winter on the Isle of Wight in a 1940s bungalow with a cute little dog for company. Did you know that Dickens wrote David Copperfield on the Isle of Wight? It seemed like a great option for a winter of writing and work.

You guys gave us some great feedback on the options. Here are just a few:

• Rob called us out on wanting to stay in the UK because it was “safe” in terms of not having to speak another language or fit into another culture. Man, that was an accurate assessment! It is easy to want to stay where things are easy all the time, even if it is more expensive.

• Michelle and Paz and Joanne rightly stated that Buenos Aires will go up in price in a few years. Best to see it now while it is lower in price and our Spanish is fresh. We could become fluent!

• Peggy and Sandra advised us to go where we’ve never been to continue the excitement while we stay put. Fair point.
• Moonwaves sent us a link to a blog post about frangipani blossoms in Chiang Mai kept us daydreaming for days.

• Karen sent us a link to a great video about Thailand that made us want to move there tomorrow. Travel porn!

• Jody told us about a great yoga practice available in Thailand and gave us the idea to explore a series of classes on yoga or martial arts while we are settled down.

• Alison, Jody, Tranque, Kristin, Jen, Paz, Brenda, and Denise all gave excellent advice on living as an expat and digital nomad.

Really, we were blown away by all the comments and suggestions. And those of you who told us to go somewhere else – we’ve kept your advice in our trip planner and will use it in the future.

If you were a Scot you’d tell me to stop blethering now and get to it.

Our destination this fall and winter will be…

(Click here if you don’t see the video above.)

Stay tuned for more details on our trip-to-lifestyle transition as well as a very fun (and slightly scary) opportunity next week for you to issue us a challenge and possibly get one in return.

Thank you for your help in mapping out this next stage of our life. Stay tuned as we head back to England, then over to Belgium and Amsterdam this summer before embarking to…(sorry, you have to watch the video to find out!)

If you are looking to travel to Thailand as we have done, then you’ll want to find cheap Phuket flights from your departure point. There are a number of airlines offering great deals from major international airports worldwide, so it’s a great place to visit for a cheap holiday! This is a great place to start your new adventurous life, it’s time to turn dreams into reality.

We love hiking. There is a thrill that comes from discovering the more remote landscape in an area, and we meet and talk with more local people this way. So when we arrived at the Turismo Explorer office in Chachapoyas, Peru to explore local hikes and day trips, we were easily swayed by the guide’s description of the Gran Vilaya Trek.

I mean, isn’t trekking just multi-day hiking?

It turns out that trekking is not just multi-day hiking. But we didn’t figure that out until we were well into it…

trek (v): to go on a long, arduous journey, typically on foot

hike (v): to walk for a long distance, especially across country or in the woods

Gran Vilaya Trek

Day 1

We started our trek at 8:30 a.m. by loading onto the tour van with 6 other people and our Peruvian guide Will, setting off for the Pueblo de los Muertos outside of Luya. From where we parked, we could see the Gocta waterfall across the valley at an astounding 771 meters (2531 feet) high. It is one of the tallest waterfalls in the world.

But we weren’t there to see the waterfall. We were there to see the pre-Incan burial sites in the side of the cliff. We walked down the steep cliff for a few kilometers in the hot sun, and we were rewarded after passing through a gate to see the remains of the pueblos built into the side of the cliff. Our guide hustled us up the cliff to show us the wall paintings, the sarcophagi sitting up high holding the dead, as well some tools. The site was dramatic, especially given the hot sun, steep cliff, and sweeping views. The site doesn’t appear to have much of a preservation effort by the government, though who are we to say this is a bad thing if it has already lasted for 1000 years?

After making our way back up the hot trail we departed for lunch in nearby Luya, where it was fun to get to know the other travelers. And hey, if this is trekking, we’re doing pretty good, right?

We then made our way to Cocta by van to visit the Sarcophagi of Karajia. We walked down to the cliffs again, though this time was slightly easier. This site was discovered in the mid-60s by Gene Savoy (a modern-day Indiana Jones if you want to read more about him) and is more elaborate than Pueblo de los Muertos. The sarcophagi contain bodies in a sitting position with the skulls resting on top. They look out over the valley and can see for miles, though you can’t see them in the vast cliff face unless you know where to look. No wonder they stayed hidden for so long.

We finished our day by driving to the gorgeous Valle de Belén, where we stayed the night. There is a winding river in the valley, dozens of horses and cows grazing on the green grass, and only a few houses dotting the landscape. This place is the definition of tranquility and peace.

We stayed in a dorm room in bunkbeds, enjoyed a group dinner on the picnic table outside, and played cards and sat around the campfire until bedtime.

So far, so good. This is like hiking with an overnight trip, right?

Wrong.

Day 2

We woke up early to find our guide out at the river fishing for trout. He said it would be great for dinner that night, which made us slightly paranoid that there was no other plan for dinner. Perhaps things were going to be a bit harder today?

We set off after breakfast to trek through the valley along the river, where our guide and a few other trekkers took turns trying to catch trout. They caught 4 in all, and we loaded them into a plastic bag to carry with us. At the edge of the valley we started the trek up the mountain, which soon became cloud forest. It is really amazing to walk in a dense jungle with clouds swirling at your feet and only the sounds of birds in the air. It almost – almost – made us forget the pain in our legs from climbing straight up over rocks. This was turning out to be much harder than the day before.

We stopped for a lunch of fruit, bread, and cheese, and then we made our way into a denser part of the jungle to see the ruins of an ancient city. We slid, stumbled, fell, and scrambled around to get to these old cities covered in vines and growth, and just as we walked along the wall of the city a deluge of rain came down. We huddled against the wall, wondering how many times in its history the wall had sheltered people from the rain, and waited out the storm.

Photo by Léa Tusseau

The trek got really hard at the end of the day when we had to make our way down for several kilometers in the pouring rain in very muddy conditions. This is where we decided that “down” is not always the easiest option. We finally arrived at our destination completely soaked, muddy up to our calves, and desperately hungry.

This night we stayed with a local family in a pueblo so small they didn’t even have a local store. The family baked bread to sell to the other residents, and they had a large rounded adobe stove outside. We were all happy to lay our clothes on top of the still-warm oven to dry, and we put our wet shoes on planks inside the oven. After getting as dry as we possibly could, we went into the kitchen/dining hut and played cards and drank coffee made from beans on the family’s property.

(Side note – we made a rookie mistake by not packing our clothes in plastic or bringing plastic rain ponchos.)

The family was obviously well-to-do by their community standards with a large oven for bread, a separate house for the kitchen/dining room, another house with beds to rent out to trekkers, and another area with a flush toilet. The floors were either concrete or packed dirt, and the kitchen had a multi-layer adobe oven with a small cut-out below the uppermost layer. We quickly discovered that this was for the guinea pigs to sleep in at night to stay warm. Yes, guinea pigs! They lived in the kitchen under the table, and they were fed leaves every night. They are not really pets, though they are well-cared for, and we later learned that keeping guinea pigs in the kitchen as a future menu item is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years in Peru.

We had a delicious dinner with yucca bread, pasta, red sauce, and the trout we caught earlier in the day. It was not hard to fall asleep that night, especially when Will told us the next day was 32 km, the majority of it uphill. We were actually too tired to worry about it at that point.

Day 3

Two of the trekkers in our group opted to rent horses for the day, and the rest of us pooled our resources for an additional horse to carry our backpacks. Really, at this point we were looking for anything to make the day easier. (It didn’t hurt that the horse rental was 30 soles, a mere 5 soles each, which works out to about $4 for the 2 of us).

We set off early to cover a lot of ground, and we were huffing and puffing within minutes. Going straight up over rocks, wet earth, and crossing streams for hours is pretty tiring, even if the view is magnificent. We were soon up in the cloud forest again, and by lunchtime we arrived at the home of a local family who cooked for us. We sat outside overlooking the mountains and valley below while we ate our lunch, and we were all mentally gearing up for the toughest part of the entire trek.

Everyone stayed fairly well apart on the last part of the trek, partly due to the tremendous exertion,and partly due to the magnificent beauty and peacefulness of the surroundings. It somehow seemed appropriate for each of us to enjoy this part by ourselves.

The clouds swirled around us, the toucans chattered in the distance, and we marveled at our surroundings and at the nearness of our accomplishment.

We finally made our way to the peak and saw the road, at which point Will had promised us a 2-hour journey downhill to our destination. Warren was still fairly energetic (his new nickname being Tigger), but I was really at the end of my energy level. That’s when I saw the tour company van parked near the road.

Joy. Complete and utter giving in to the moment.

We were given the choice of hiking down or riding down, and 5 of us chose to ride down. Warren walked/ran down with the guide, covering 12 km in just an hour and 20 minutes, and we met them in the village below. He was exhilarated and exhausted at the same time, and we were both overjoyed knowing we had completed the hardest part of the trek.

We stayed at a proper hostel that evening with private bathrooms, though the water was cold, and we enjoyed dinner with the group at the local restaurant. We have never known such deep sleep as what we had that night.

Day 4

Like day 1, the last day of the trek is an organized trip to see a local landmark. In this case, we were traveling just 20 km by van to see the pre-Incan fortress of Kuelap. This magnificent structure sits high on a mountain overlooking practically all of Northern Peru, or so it seems from the peak.

It was built by the Chachapoyans beginning right around 6 AD and occupied until the mid 16th century. The wall around the fortress is almost 600 meters long, and the walls reach an impressive 20 meters. You just can’t even believe the size of this thing.

There are 3 entrances, one for nobility/religious, one for commerce, and one for military. Each entrance starts with an opening wide enough for 4 people but narrows so that only one person can enter at a time. This was a brilliant strategic move that prevented attackers from charging the gates.

Inside the fortress there are 420 buildings on multiple levels, almost all circular, that make up the homes, religious centers, and community areas of the fortress. There is quite a bit to see here, so we were really amazed to find out that only 10% of the site has been excavated.

Another interesting thing to note is that only about 50 visitors a day come here, which is a drop in the bucket compared to another majestic set of ruins in Peru, Machu Picchu. You can see ongoing archeological work at the site without the glut of tourists (at least right now). Most people we saw were with a guide, which is really the best way to see the site and probably the most environmentally sound.

We loved ending the tour on such a majestic note.

But wait, there’s more…

As we were driving back to Chachapoyas after lunch, we came across some road construction. We were told it would be a couple of hours’ wait because the road had been torn up to install culverts under the road. Our guide and driver told us to stay still and walked past the sentry to find out what was going on. They came back and started to move forward, which was not really that surprising. We’ve learned in our travels that *everything* is negotiable here, even instructions by police and government officials.

The road had been completely cut away to install the culverts, but the workers did have 2 boards to lay across the ditch for anyone brave enough to drive over it. Our driver was one of those guys. We all got out while he negotiated driving over the mound of heaped dirt, across 2 narrow planks, and on to the other side. We all clapped and cheered after he made his way across and were not-so-secretly thankful that he had us get out before attempting it (which was probably more likely due to weight than safety concerns!).

We came across 2 more ditches in the next 10 minutes, and he crossed both of those the same way. I tell you, these South American drivers are fearless.

What did we learn?

We learned that Peru is even more beautiful in the remote corners, and there is always a great reward for the tough work of getting somewhere. The people living in the rural areas are generous and kind, and they love that outsiders want to learn more about their country. You will never meet a Peruvian who isn’t proud of his or her country and willing to tell you at least 5 things you can’t miss (most of which are not in the tour books). We learned that immersion in Spanish in a group like this will vastly improve one’s comprehension and communication skills. In fact, our guide asked us to translate for a German couple who spoke some English but no Spanish at several points throughout the trip. (who us? translators?) It was really great to be able to talk with the families who hosted us each evening.

We also relearned the joy the comes from accomplishing a very hard physical feat, both from the beauty and we were able to witness because of the effort and because of the physical limits we were able to surpass.

Last but not least, we met some great people on the trip, including our “niña” Léa from France, who we hope to see again later this year in Argentina.

I’ve left out 1000 details from this trip for the sake of space. Just know that if you go on a trek like this you will be challenged physically and mentally, but you will be rewarded by the scenery, the wildlife, the history, and the shared experiences with other curious people.

Here is a video we took the final day as we walked through Kuelap.  It gives you a bit more insight in our own words about this amazing experience.  Can’t see the video below? Click here.

As 2010 winds down we have found ourselves humbled by all the support, from friends new and old, that we have received the last 12 months.  This has been an exciting year for us and the opportunity to share it with so many of you has both Betsy and I a little misty eyed.  We know that without your encouraging words on the blog and your willingness to share your own stories we could not be where we are today.  As we hiked through the local countryside today trying to avoid falling to our death, we took a minute to record some of our thoughts as we look back on the year.

If you cannot see the video below, please click here.

Now we are off to enjoy the Ecuadorian traditions around New Year’s and ready to usher in an exciting 2011. Happy New Year’s and a sincere and heartfelt thank you to you all.