It’s been a long time since we last posted. In fact, it looks like it was last year! ;o) Since our last post we’ve either been without internet connectivity or just super busy every day. I know that second one is a lame excuse. So this is intended to be a recap to bring us all back up to speed on where we are now, where we’ve been lately, and where we’re headed to next. There are so many rewards to this lifestyle that we share with you all on Instagram pretty much daily. So in addition to the recap of our recent travels I thought I’d have some fun and discuss the downside to fulltime travel to give you an idea of some of the challenges we face too. Maybe I’ll show you our smiling faces before you queue the violin music.
Dragon’s Brain Dump
My disclaimer on this post is that I’m drafting this in the early A.M. having been awake > 24 hours and traveled over 8000km. As we sit here discussing this topic Dragon is listing off one thing after another as an exhausted brain dump, so that’s how I’m going to present it:
- Crappy quick take out food
- Living out of a suitcase
- Sleeping in airports (or not sleeping for at least one of us)
- Where did I put that item I can’t find
- Customs and airport security
- If I buy that then I have to carry it
- Dragging around 70-80 lbs. of literally everything we own
- Constant repacking for airline weight restrictions
- Currency changes
- The planning process to places we’ve never been
- Language barriers
- Can I drink the water
- Will I have data
- Electricity and charging options
- Frequent location changes
- Public transportation with multiple bags
- Super long travel days
- Dirty clothes
- Every possible weather condition
- Forgetting or losing stuff in various cities
Where is Waldo Anyway?
Our last post was about our trip from Lisbon to Porto. Our travels then took us from Lisbon to the Algarve region of southern Portugal in the city of Lagos. After several days in Lagos we embarked on a previously unplanned epic journey to what felt like the end of the earth, the Western Cape of South Africa. We spent a week in George, South Africa with our dear friend Louie before flying to Cape Town for several spectacular days of sightseeing. We then left Cape Town on another epic journey to an equally end of the earth location, Punta Arenas, Chile. That’s the brief summary recap that get’s us back to where we are now.
Lengthy Epic Travel Days
Massive trips involving multiple consecutive days of travel are maybe the biggest downside to fulltime travel. In the last few weeks we’ve had a couple of major travel sessions. Look, we recognize this is self-imposed and a small price to pay for this lifestyle. We get it. But it would be ingenuine to only mention the good times and never tell you about the difficulties. Here are a couple of our recent experiences.
Keep in mind for each of these there are all the little things like getting tickets for the bus, metro, flights, etc. There are bags to drag around and load from one public transport to another, not to mention stairs, escalators, crowds, etc. Lines to get tickets, lines to check bags, lines to get through security, lines for customs, lines to board the plane, lines, lines, lines.
Lagos to George: We left Lagos, Portugal on a 4 hour bus ride back to Lisbon. From the bus depot we took the metro to the airport. At the airport we had to wait 8+ hours for our flight that departed at 10:30pm. We then flew 7.5 hours to Luanda, Angola. The 2 hour layover in Luanda was an experience in complete guesswork as to where and when the next flight would happen. After randomly finding the right gate we took a 4 hour flight from Luanda to Cape Town. At that point we had another 3 hour layover complete with baggage recovery and checking in on a new one hour flight to George. The total journey was 1.5 wacky, exhausting days to get to our destination in South Africa.
Cape Town to Punta Arenas: We flew from Cape Town across the Atlantic to Sao Paulo, Brazil. That was a 9 hour flight across 6341km that, with all the time zones we crossed made it a 3 hour flight according to the clock. Due to a delayed arrival of our next flight there was a 4 hour layover before a 3 hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. After another 1675km we made it through customs and collected our bags some time after midnight. Given we had to continue flying again the next morning we decided against a hotel. Dragon has an amazing ability to sleep anywhere in pretty much any position, Dog not so much. We spent 10 hours in the Buenos Aires airport before boarding a flight to Santiago, Chile. Santiago was 1131km and a little over 2 hours flying time. Unfortunately there was another long layover of 4.5 hours in Santiago before the final leg of the trip to Punta Arenas, Chile. The stretch to Punta Arenas was 2193km and 3.5 hours. All told this journey took two entire days and covered roughly 11340km or 7046mi.
Dog got food poisoning along the way somewhere as well, making that last section of the trip extra special. No further details…
Multifunction Inflatable Travel Pillow
Try to get some sleep and prevent neck aches on your epic long distance flights. Check out the design of this lightweight, inflatable, multifunction travel pillow that stores in a small bag you can stash in your carry on.
Wacky Travel Experiences Too
When we were on the train from Rome to Naples we got yelled at in Italian to move our bags out of the seats across from us. The only place for them was in the narrow aisle where everyone walked. The train security literally stepped over and around our bags to get past. Total safety hazard and really stressful for us, but the Italians didn’t seem to care once they were in the aisle.
Another Naples travel story: On arrival to the airport we checked our bags, went through security and made our way to the gate. At the gate we were paged overhead to return to the departures desk where we were told we checked our bags to early. We were walked through a back security zone and given our bags back. We then had to sit with our bags for several hours until we could check them again, go back through security, and head to the gate again. Bah!
Bottom Line
We are absolutely loving our escape plan decision. As you’ve seen on Instagram, Facebook, and the blog, we’ve had some of the most amazing experiences in the last few months. Sometimes every day is as awesome as the day before. We’ve been to so many places we only dreamed of before. We’ve met amazing people from all over the world. Our journeys have let us learn new words in multiple languages, including Afrikaans. Dragon wanted me to make a corresponding list of all the cool, rewarding things that offset the list of negatives. I’m pretty confident that isn’t necessary. In fact, I’m fairly certain some people tuned this post out about two paragraphs in thinking we were playing the worlds tiniest violin. Like I said, we are loving this lifestyle and often have to pinch ourselves about how crazy it is. Maybe it was the delirium of the moment, but I just wanted to share the downside to fulltime travel too. Thanks for sticking it out with us. We’ll be back with more regular updates now that we’re cruising again. Cheers!
Great post! These are the things I’ve been wondering about. Yes, I want the details…good and bad (thanks for leaving out the food poisoning details though).
LOL! You don’t want all the gory details? Actually, I don’t want to share them. Works out perfectly. Yes, there are challenges for sure. One thing we’ve discovered is that we can actually function in a tiny house environment. We weren’t sure how that would go, but it is going ok so far.
There are other challenges for sure, for instance how do we handle our taxes and what do I do with this jury summons??? Good grief. Adams County jury selection guidelines state you are only eligible if you reside within the county > 50% of the year. We’ve explained that we are not residing within the county > 50% of the year, but they don’t seem to care about their own guidelines and insist on adding us to the rotation. Not sure how we’re going to make that work.
This train story has me wondering about training through Italy……do I need to buy a seat for our bags!!!!!???? Thanks for sharing the good and not so good. Sure hope Tiffany is feeling much better!
The train thing is funny Deb. Once we stuck all our bags in the aisle, everybody just went about their business. Like I said, the train security just stepped over and around them. It was shocking and concerning for us, but seemingly the norm for all of them. Just have to go with it I guess.
It almost makes me wonder if I would get tired of the daily awesomeness and just want to sit down. Sit down for like a month. But, I guess, that is what the ship is for.
Interesting thought Steve. We’ve sometimes thought we were moving city to city too quickly, because the travel days are the most work and sometimes super long. Still, we love being in these new places and experiencing so much, as you put it, daily awesomeness. I don’t think either of us is missing our house at all actually. Once we’re back on ship it is more of a home base. Definitely a weird home base though. Hmm… Maybe I can answer it this way. Once in awhile we both just look at each other and start laughing. Are we really having dinner floating off the coast of Antarctica? Did we just fly from Europe to South Africa? You know, I’d have to say we haven’t found the point of getting tired of it yet.