"A year to go around the world! A whole twelve months of scenes and curious happenings in far-off foreign lands! You have thought of doing this, almost promised yourself that when you got old enough, and rich enough, and could "spare the time," you too would go around the world. Most of us get old enough; some of us get rich enough; but the time! the time! - to spare the time, to cut loose from goods and lands, from stocks and dreary desks, quit clients, patients, readers, home and friends - ay, and our enemies whom we so dearly love! Full many a promise must be broken and few the voyagers round the world."
D.N. Richardson, 1888
Dispatch # 41
Home
July 2005
As we were preparing to head home, we found that our conversations had become more nostalgic and our viewpoints more philosophical. We had learned so much about the world and ourselves. Our journey had not only made us appreciate many of the things we left behind, but perhaps more importantly, it had helped us to understand and appreciate the things that we have discovered over the past year, about ourselves and about the world around us. We visited magnificent places, saw amazing things, were exposed to fascinating cultures and religions and met many wonderful people along our journey. It will take time to fully reflect upon, and completely absorb all that we have experienced.
Now is not the proper time to begin to draw any meaningful conclusions from our experience, that is an exercise more appropriately left for some future dispatch, one written after we have had an opportunity to fully reflect on our adventure. I will, however, offer one personal observation at this time. The past year has been one of the happiest of my life. If there had been a camera running continuously throughout the trip, it may not have always have seemed that way, but all in all, the time elapsed images would show a man growing in understanding of, and appreciation for his wife and children. Being together 24/7, for good and for bad, gave us all a deeper understanding of each other. Arguably, we didn’t need to travel around the world to accomplish this, but being separated from both the comforts and distractions of family, friends, home, work, school and normal activities added greatly to our insight and education and accelerated the natural bonding process.
Speaking for the moment only as a father, the trip afforded me a priceless opportunity to spend time with my children. Although I have always tried to be active and involved as father, the normal time constraints of business, and the children’s time commitments to school and activities often left me with a few precious hours each day to enjoy the company of my children. In the absence of our world trip, I am sure that I would have had opportunities to experience many of the moments that I shared over the past year with my children, but not with such spontaneity and certainly not with such regularity. Add the excitement of sharing these moments in new and interesting surroundings and faraway places and it was the recipe for a true “once in a lifetime” parental experience.
More than ten months after we had left the United States and over a year since we had lived at home in Chicago, our 747 wide body began its slow descent towards the landing strip at O’Hare International Airport. For all of us, but perhaps mostly for Elizabeth and I, the last moments of our trip were a jumbled bag of strong emotions. We were excited to see family and friends, proud to have completed our circumnavigation without any real incident or injury, and energized to start a new chapter in our lives. At the same time, we were filled with intense feelings of melancholy and sorrow, sorrow that our trip of lifetime had come to an end.
Our travels took us through twenty-five time zones to fifteen different countries on five different continents. We traveled over fifty-two thousand miles, most covered by our forty separate flights, but thousands of those miles were explored at ground level in a variety of vehicles. We stayed in over sixty different apartments and hotels. Along our journey, we traveled on planes, from large commercial jets to small twin propeller planes; helicopters; cars and vans, from mini-vans to Range Rover safari game vehicles, trucks and buses, from campervans to rickety, smoke belching buses, to the open flatbeds of Thailand’s ubiquitous songtaos; trains, from bullet trains and subways to slow chugging steam engines; boats, of all sizes, shapes, and modes of transport, from motorized ferries and cabin cruisers to outboard driven Thai longboats, as well as by more graceful vessels like the New Zealand tall ship, Wm. Tucker Thompson, and the Egyptian felucca. During our travels we expanded this list to include river and ocean kayaks, canoes, bamboo river rafts, Japanese rickshaws, Thai tuk-tuks, and an assortment of cable cars, gondolas, trams, bicycles and carts.
From time to time we found ourselves on the backs of lumbering elephants, both Asian and African, swaying camels, braying donkeys, lively horses, and even an ostrich. We swam with dolphins, sea turtles and penguins, as well as swam, snorkeled and dove among an astonishing variety of marine life in places like Hawaii, Thailand, South Africa and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, especially the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. We saw an amazing array of wildlife all along our journey, but none more spectacular than that which we encountered in the far corners of the damp Australian rainforest and while on safari in the arid wilderness along the border of South Africa and Botswana.
We visited dozens of World Heritage Sites, witnessed great natural wonders, marvels such as the geothermal wonderland of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park; the sacred Aboriginal grounds surrounding the imposing monoliths of Uluru and Kata Tjuta in the Australian outback; the Great Barrier Reef teeming with life and color; the vibrant rainforest of the Queensland Wet Tropics region of Australia; the majestic mountains, glaciers, sounds and fiords of southwestern New Zealand; the stunning beauty of places like Cape Town and Knysna, South Africa, the Spanish Costa Del Sol, the islands of the Phuket Sea off the coast of Thailand and the Bay of Islands in northern New Zealand; the verdant rolling landscapes of the Cape Floral Region of South Africa and the Ring of Kerry in Ireland; Victoria Falls, the awe-inspiring natural wonder shrouded in its veil of thundering mist; and the fertile and captivating landscapes of southern Spain, Italy’s Tuscan region, the Burgundy and Normandy regions of France, the countryside of western portion of The Netherlands.
We were also fortunate to have had an opportunity to see some of the many spectacular man made wonders of the world, wonders like Sydney’s iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge; the ancient temples, shrines and pavilions of Kyoto, Bangkok and Chiang Mai; the spectacular jungle-encircled temple complexes of Angkor Wat, Cambodia (truly one of the highlights of our trip); the magnificent Pyramids of Giza, the great Egyptian temples of ancient Thebes, and the splendid monuments of Philae and Abu Simbel; Roman architectural masterpieces, The Colosseum and The Pantheon; The Vatican with its towering basilica and its breathtaking Sistine Chapel; the beautiful historic centers of Pisa, Sienna, San Gimignano and Florence, Italy; the imposing Moorish castles and fortresses of Spain, especially the Alhambra in Granada; the magnificent cathedral of Seville; the ornate Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona as well as the whimsical architectural achievements of architect, Antoni Gaudi, including Sagrada Familia, which dominated Barcelona’s cityscape; the French medieval fortress towns of Mont-Saint Michel and Vezelay; icons of the Parisian skyline like the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur and the Cathedral of Notre Dame; famous English tourist destinations such as Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Tower of London; Hong Kong, the tribute to modern urban planning on steroids; and monuments like those we found in Cambodia and on Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, testaments both to the cruelty of man and the never-ending power of the human spirit.
Periodically, we took a moment to voluntarily inject ourselves with a dose of adrenaline with activities like zip-lining, skydiving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, riding mountain luges, surfing and bridge climbing. Still other times, our adrenaline came most unexpectedly, finding ourselves on the receiving end of an elephant charge in South Africa, being herded off the plane after our flight from Cairo because of a bomb threat, and perhaps the most harrowing of all, riding in cabs through the streets of places like Bangkok and Cairo. Sometimes our exploration would take us on a subterranean adventure like climbing through glow worm caverns in New Zealand, or through narrow, dark and dusty entrances leading to the burial chambers of some of the great pharaohs of Egypt.
We enjoyed a lifetime’s worth of memorable sunsets. Glorious sunsets of yellow, orange, pink and purple reflecting off of blue waters and white sandy beaches in places like Hawaii, Australia, Thailand and South Africa. Dramatic evening displays set against a variety of stunning natural backdrops such as the rainforests of Australia, the green, lush jungles of Cambodia, the majestic, snow capped mountains of New Zealand, the tawny grasses of the savannah of South Africa, the rolling vineyards and olive trees of Tuscany and the fertile undulating hillsides of Ireland and France.
We were definitely on vacation, and I would not want to suggest otherwise. However, some of the most memorable experiences we had came when we diverted ourselves from the tourist trail to the back streets and country sides, where we had the most genuine encounters and memorable experiences. We saw many wonderful things along our road, but we also took time to expose ourselves and our children to the situations of those less fortunate in places like the black townships outside of Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, the rural villages of Zimbabwe, Thailand and Cambodia and to urban poverty in places like Bangkok, Thailand, and Cairo, Egypt. Some of our most memorable experiences resulted from visits to places like an orphanage in Soweto, a Cambodian village and a simple rural schoolhouse in Zimbabwe. Less than a month after the devastating tsunami, we spent three weeks in Phuket paying witness to the incredible resiliency and indomitable spirit of the Thai people.
Throughout our travels we met intriguing people, made many new friends, were treated with exceptional compassion and found ourselves on the receiving end of many random acts of kindness. We tried, with varying degrees of success, to immerse ourselves in the culture at each of our destinations. Regardless of the result, we thoroughly enjoyed the effort and we returned home with a much deeper appreciation for countries we visited, their people, their history and their culture.
Inevitably, we found ourselves making lists of our favorites. In many instances, picking a few from the many was a difficult thing to do, but here are some of the categories we chose and our top picks:
Top Airlines
Perhaps the only category in which a consensus was easily reached. The best airline in the world is Cathay Pacific. We also agreed that we would give special honors to Bangkok Airways and Qantas.
Top Destinations
On safari in Madikwe on the border of South Africa and Botswana
Angor Wat, Cambodia
Cape Tribulation and the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Canal Boat Trip through the Burgundy region of France
Chiang Mai and Phuket, Thailand
Kyoto, Japan
San Gimignano and Siena, Italy
Aswan, Cairo and Luxor, Egypt
Favorite Lodgings
Tau Game Lodge-Madikwe, South Africa
Waikoloa Hawaiian Village-Big Island, Hawaii
Ferntree-Cape Tribulation, Australia
The Conlon Mill, Ireland
Ryokan-Kyoto, Japan
Marriott-Phuket, Thailand
Alahambra Parador San Francisco, Granada, Spain
Dromoland Castle, Ireland
Favorite Cities
Sydney, Australia
Paris, France
Queenstown, New Zealand
Cape Town, South Africa
Tokyo, Japan
Madrid, Spain
London, England
We all enjoyed an incredible learning experience. By stepping outside of our comfort zones and into unfamiliar environments, we received a unique education, one that has forever changed and expanded our vision and understanding of the world around us. As parents, Elizabeth and I were able to witness the development of our children as they gained confidence by living outside their normal routine. We marveled as they met the daily challenges of adaptation and understanding and as they developed a mature appreciation for other countries, their people, customs, cultures, religions and histories. To have seen some of the world, and to have been able to see it not only through our own eyes, but also through the astonished eyes of our children was truly a unique and wonderful experience.
Thank you all for joining us on our own personal “Walkabout.”
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