Around the World
Hawaii
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
New York
Costa Rica
We recently had the good fortune to take another trip abroad, this time to Costa Rica. It was much different than our big odyssey (see below for more about that) -- this time we were with Eric's parents, plus Brian and Hannah -- and we approached the trip more like tourists and perhaps less like travelers. But it was nothing short of wonderful. Below, are a few photos and highlights:
Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve
Around the World
Why around the world?
When we began around big Around-the-World trip in 2004, we set out to "wander the world in search of wild places and ideas about how to save them." At least that's what we said on this website.
We were keenly interested in how people live with wilderness--and we wondered whether people can live without it. We intended to inquire into the various ways that wildness is preserved and exploited by people who live next door and people who live on the other side of the globe. We did some inquiring. But if we learned one thing on the trip, it was to discard our expectations and keep ourselves open to change, even radical change.
As it turned out, our trip was not only about understanding wilderness. It was also an intensely personal experience for both of us. It raised deep questions about our lives, our relationships, our values, and our plans for the future.
We left Seattle on June 22, 2004, a sunny summer day, and returned home on October 17, 2004, a brisk autumn day. It felt great to be home, but we were both struck with the realization that more than the season had changed.
During the trip, we be touched down--just for a moment in some cases--in 13 countries on four continents. First, we spent six weeks in Southeast Asia, mostly in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Next, we spent six weeks traveling through Southern Africa, in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia. Last, we spent four weeks in Central America, in Mexico and Belize.
Our adventure was thanks in part to the David L. Bonderman Travel Fellowship, which provides lucky University of Washington students with a chance for intensive international travel that would not otherwise be possible while in graduate school.
Thoughts from the Road
During our travels we posted trip reports as often as we could find relatively reliable internet access. We also managed to upload a few pictures. Reading back over the trip reports now, we can almost hear our voices from those times. And the voices we hear are inflected with the tensions, wonder, and exhilaration of the moments when we wrote them. These reports and pictures tell the story of our adventure.
Reports:
Pictures: Travel Pictures
Looking Back at a Lifetime of Experiences
For over a year, our around-the-world adventure was on the horizon, the focal point of pretty much all of our thoughts and plans. Then suddenly, far more quickly than we thought possible, it was over. Bouts of homesickness notwithstanding, we had a hard time saying goodbye to the adventure. That’s because we knew that our trip around the world was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It gave us the freedom to act on whims, to follow interesting opportunities, and to be accountable to no one but each other. As a result we saw and did things we never thought we'd get a chance to.
But, even more than being a once-in-a-lifetime experience, our adventure was a lifetime of experiences, in just four months. We’ve had a hard time talking about the trip since we’ve been home, simply because we don’t know where to start. It feels a little like someone asking you to tell her everything about your childhood. The sheer number of experiences leaves you speechless. Where do you possibly start? Asia? Africa? Central America? That time when we swam alone with a sea turtle for nearly an hour? How about when our compact car had a face-off with two rhinos? But then what about that the crazy worker’s express bus-ride in Belize? You get the idea.
During the last week of our trip, we made a list of "firsts" that the trip provided us: looking at waters too blue to be real, seeing the world underwater, spending a night with the sounds of the jungle, sighting an elephant in the wild, tracking lions on foot through the savanna, and spotting 58 species of birds in just four hours, just to name a few. In fact, there are more peak experiences than we can possibly hope to write down or tell as stories when we return. We would need a lifetime to retell them. But, we hope that we've saved those experiences somewhere in the recesses of our minds and, along with the others we have written down here and elsewhere, that the memories will feed a lifetime of awe, inspiration, and growth.
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