thehostelwitness

Calendar markers get ready to mark...

July 25: Pela at the Capitol Hill Block Party

August 25: Joe Pernice acoustic session at the Tractor Tavern

That's all for now, carry on. Big things happening.

big things.

Its a quiet sadness...

I'm not one to complain, so please don't take this as such. This is more just me relating to you the reason for my recent lack of writing.

Family has had it rough the last few weeks, I'm afraid. Grandma suffered a mild stroke and is recovering, luckily no major damage. She's just weak right now, being 97 and all. The doctors were trying to figure out what may have triggered it and she finally revealed that a few days before she had snuck out of the house to pull weeds in the garden, lost her balance, and fell onto some rocks. Hopefully she can be home in a few weeks, but she'll require 24 hour care. Its a frustrating thing - I think we would all love to be in her shoes one day - 97, of sound mind, and living with family. While it may sound good, its torture in its own right...imagine if day by day, parts of your body just stopped working. Her vision is going, her hearing is shot, she needs help just to bathe. She's a devout Christian and misses her husband, who died almost 30 years ago - she just wants to see him again.

 

I'm sure Tuesday's Morrie would smile and find the humor in it, but this is a woman who spent the better half of her life on a farm, working with her hands. Up until she was in her 80's she lived alone in an apartment in downtown Tacoma. Not the nice "lets go for a walk down by the waterfront and see some museums" Tacoma of today, but the "adult movie theaters and homeless shelters on every corner" Tacoma. This without speaking any English and being completely illiterate. Believe me, stuck in a hospice around dieing people just pisses her off. So she's attending her physical therapy and forcing food down her throat, in hopes that she can come home soon.

 

Saddest news is that my step-sister Karen went on a trip to Bosnia with her boyfriend to visit his parents. While in Sarajevo, he fell into a coma and passed - he had been battling a brain tumor, but the suddenness of everything was shocking. His kids and ex wife flew out from the states to see him go; it was very sad. He was a nice guy.

 

I look back at my travels and some of the things I did while out there probably wouldn't qualify as the smartest of things - no health insurance and riding motorcycles in sandals is something I would NEVER do here, but for some reason in Asia it suddenly becomes the sensible thing to do. Just dumb. Never once did it cross my mind that I might never come home. Being so far away when it ends might just be one of the worse fates I can think of, but still in his case, it was somewhat poetic. He was surrounded by his family when he passed, back in the home of his birth. You can't ask for much more than that if you have to go.

 

Anyway, spring is in bloom and the snows are slowly melting away. The mountains are calling.

 

The Great Peep Sacrifice of 2009

"One by one, the peeps melt and the logs fall into the fire, causing it to burn brighter still. "

So pictures of part 2 of the Orcas Island weekend have been put up, named “The Peep Sacrifice of '09”. They say that every picture tells a story, well these pictures are but a glimpse of our pagan celebration of Easter. Christians will tell you that Easter is meant celebrate the resurrection of The Christ. Wiccans will talk about how the holiday was originally a festival of fertility, co-opted by the Christians. The truth is, Easter was always a time of sacrifice, from time immortal, back to when all life was a form of goop. They’d all get together and choose one goop to go into the lava vent to check things out. This sacrifice we remember by burning marsh mellow peeps at the stake, being of similar consistency, texture, color, and taste of that primordial soup. Only in this way can the sacrifice be offensive to both Christians and Wiccans.  

 

I had originally planned on just giving peeps out to everyone and letting them decide what to do with it (note, no one chose to eat them), but then it dawned on me that we could add some adventure and drama if we burned them at the stake. Cheri asked me how long I had been thinking of this sacrifice – not sure if it would have scared her more if I had actually planned it than the idea just popping into my head, but you take inspiration in whatever forms it comes.

 

It started to rain pretty heavily during the night, so technically the sacrifice to ensure a bountiful spring worked. It ended up being too wet for a hike, so instead we just kind of huddled underneath the tarp until we talked ourselves into the task of packing up wet gear – one of my ultimate dislikes. In fact, in all of camp-dom there is only one thing I despise more than packing wet gear and that’s the 4am potty break.

Day 2, Orcas Island Photos

Moran State Park, Orcas Island, WA

"I mean, just the fact that I can even make that ridiculous statement makes my heart high-5 my soul. "

With snow still pretty thick in the mountains, it wasn't quite yet time to break out the backpacking gear. Still, its spring - how can you not get out there?

So John, Jayson, Cheri, Kristi, Pat, and I all caught the early morning ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island for a little old fashioned car camping over Easter weekend. Probably the single biggest thing that I missed about living away from Seattle for two years was the camping. Aside from a couple day hikes out of New York and some camping experiences on the road last year, there was a serious lack of getting out in the woods time. In fact, before moving back the only backpacking trip I had gone on while being away actually involved me flying back to Seattle from New York just to do so.

Its just amazing all of the diversity of life you see out here - I mean, do you people realize that this is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world and inch for inch of soil, holds more life and biodiversity than probably 90% of the planet?!?! This trip alone saw multiple fawns munching on fauna just a bit up the road from our camp and bald eagles soaring over the sun roof on the drive over; the amount of wildlife I've seen already this year makes the whole thing a little...blah ("oh look...ANOTHER bald eagle. how quaint.") I mean, just the fact that I can even make that ridiculous statement makes my heart high-5 my soul.

Mountain Lake, Orcas Island

We were incredibly lucky on Saturday to have the skies clear up, giving us some awesome views atop Mt. Constitution. Due to a "navigational error", we hiked the longer route to the Twin Lakes and then up, giving us about a 8.5 mile hike for the day...with the 1.2 miles up Constitution gaining over 1,100 feet of elevation, it was a tough slog.

Tired and weary, we would hike back down to the camp to begin what hopefully could very well become an Easter tradition: the World's Greatest Smores (tm)and the Fire Altar Peep sacrifice....pics to come on that little encounter.

Mt. Constitution Hike Photos

Ooops

Alright, I screwed something up.

Sorry for the mess.

Steamboat Rock, Northrup Canyon

It was looking to be a cold weekend, but the hiking bug had hit so Jayson, Pat, and myself headed out towards Wenatchee for a bit of day hiking and car camping.

After dropping off our gear at our campsite at Steamboat Rock State Park, we headed the mile or so to the Steamboat Rock trailhead. Day time temp was mid-fifties, so I was able to ditch the jacket. Along the way, we passed the leg of some unfortunate deer and blood on the rocks.



A quick scramble up the rock and we found we had the whole mesa to ourselves. Banks lake below was still frozen and we spent much of the day making fun of Pat for bringing a full pack ("training" he says) and hiked along the perimeter of the rock, daring ourselves to see how far over the cliff sides we'd peer.

We spotted a herd of about 30 deer, all keeping a wary eye on us as we passed to the east. On our way back to the trail, we found a relatively fresh carcass of an unfortunate deer (cougar?) after the coyotes and birds had taken their fill. The very cold night (20 degrees) passed with the coyotes howling through the night.

The campground was relatively clear, with only a few trailers of some nice folks and a small troop of boyscouts who kept relatively quiet. The next morning, we headed out to Northrup Canyon.

Book says this is 3 miles to the cabins and another mile to the lake, but we did all 8 miles in just over 2 and a half hours, so I doubt it. No eagles to be seen and heavy cloud cover, but it was a nice change of scenery from the day before. The first mile of trail had thick ice on the trail making it slippery at times, the last mile thick mud. Would bring gators.

Steamboat pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehostelwitness/sets/72157615761080771/

Northrup Canyon pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehostelwitness/sets/72157615888921208/

Jayson's Photos: http://jaysonmcivorphotography.com/gallery/7697136_xwmB8

loss.

During my trip to Thailand, the group visited a small school out in the country, in Ban Chaivan. It was remarkable for a number of reasons: even though by now Thailand has been well discovered, this little town was out in the country in northeast Thailand - not a very popular tourist stop. So we were somewhat surprised to learn that we were the first flesh-and-blood foreigners for many of the kids in the town.

The purpose of the trip was to see other areas that could use the Eastlake church's financial support - while for the most part, the school system in Thailand is well developed, schools out in the countryside are in dire straights financially. Really, the purpose of the trip to Ban Chaivan was just to see that there are plenty of places in Thailand that really do need help.

However, as so often was the case, fate had different ideas. Where we saw an opportunity perhaps to donate supplies to help the school, the school administrators saw something a little different. We were introduced to the little girl pictured in the left. She was suffering from bone cancer and would have to take regular trips all the way out to Bangkok for her treatment - over a 10 hour drive each way. While the government would pay for the chemo, her family could not afford to pay for the trips over there.

I'm not sure what it was - perhaps it was the chance to really make an immediate difference in someone's life - but the folks at Eastlake jumped all over this and for the next year, supported this little girl financially so her family could get her to treatment. It was a beautiful gesture and something done so spontaneously and without a minute's hesitation, it just touched my heart.

Sadly, I learned this morning that this little girl passed away on March 17th, 2009, during the course of her treatment. I hope that the Eastlake crew doesn't despair too much, for while the treatments proved fruitless, the fact that this girl knew that there were people across the globe who loved her and were praying for her - perhaps the comfort you provided was enough. As it is, I remember the tenderness and love her schoolmates and teachers all had for her and can't help but feel for their pain right now.

A busy February

Only 28 days to it, but February went by in a blaze. And although this time last year I was knocking out one of my life-long ambitions, tramping through New Zealand, February 2009 did not lack for adventure.

The first trip was a quick overnight, out to Port Angeles, WA to snow shoe Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic Peninsula. Although there wasn't enough snow for the snow-shoes, the hike up to the ridge was still a great lung burner and reminder that its going to take a lot of work before camping season begins.

Jayson, who joined me in New Zealand, joined me again this year in celebration of our trip a year ago. Hurricane Ridge holds the distinction of being the highest point accessible by road in all of the Olympics, making it one of the easiest destinations to get to for some breathtaking sights. From atop the ridge, we could see Victoria, Bellingham, Port Angeles, and Mt. Baker, not to mention the entire breadth of the Olympic mountain range. Truly inspiring indeed.

After the cold and the snow, it was determined that a visit out to Phoenix, AZ was required and along with it, a stay at the sister's home. Temps hovering just below 90 degrees was just what the doctor ordered. We threw the ball around on Saturday, just like old times, and on Sunday took to Surprise, AZ to watch the Seattle Mariners take on the Texas Rangers in Spring league play. Considering that it was last March that I arrived in the overwhelming heat of southeast asia, I thought the trip to visit sun was a fitting way to commemorate the trip.

Hurricane Ridge Photographs
Mariner Spring Training Photographs

How much will 3 months travel in Europe cost me?

It really depends on how long you want to travel and where you want to go.

The good news is that budgeting for Europe is pretty simple, as Western Europe is no cheaper than Seattle. The bad news is that traveling through Europe is just as expensive as living here. Most hostels run dorm rooms at $25/night (and that's not counting places like Paris, where it goes to $50)...meaning at the end of the month, its like you are paying rent ($750/month).

So your bed costs you $25/night. Then there is food. If you are good and cook your own, you can probably get by on another $25. However, chances are you won't...you can't go through Italy for example and not eat in a real restaurant. So figure one restaurant cooked meal and two grocery store trips per day. Now you are up to $70/day. Then you'll have incidentals (museum entrance fees, bus/taxi, movies, espresso's, books).

But there's no point going to Europe and skipping the expensive places...Rome, Venice, Florence, etc. All expensive.

Bottom line, $10k at a "medium" thrift level (aka cook your own food when you can, stay in shared hostels, splurge for a beer and museum tours) will probably last you 3 months (1G for the flight and Eurorail, then $3000/month or 100 per day). However, even the "budget" travel books put Europe at about $120/day.

If you stay solely in Eastern Europe, you can stretch it out to maybe 5-6 months. Rooms aren't much cheaper as there are few hostels, so you  end up in guest houses, spending about the same money as a W. Europe hostel for a private room.

New Zealand and Australia aren't better than Europe. Expensive.

Out of my budget, I would say a good 80% of that went to 6 months of travel. I managed to stretch the last 20% for the last 4 months.

Just keep in mind, the more adventurous you are willing to be, the cheaper it gets. Couch surfing, Eastern Europe, etc...all are ways to stretch your time.

On the other hand, $10k in Southeast Asia can last you at "medium" thrift about 9 months to a year. Most people who live there say it takes about 12k per year to live modestly.

Then finally there are the "hidden" costs. International transaction fees, cost of coming back home and buying new things again, and credit card creep: which is, you pull out the credit card every now and then and when you come home you have a huge bill to deal with. 

Work and Travel: How to get paid on the road

I hope that in my previous post I did not make it seem like you had to have a large stash of cash available in order to hit the road for an extended travel tour. The fact is, while savings are helpful, plenty of people travel and find work along the way. I was astounded by the number of long term, working travelers that I met along the way and I thought I’d share the strategies they used to keep going week after week. These won’t make you rich, but they should keep you clothed, housed, and fed for as long as you want to travel. Please feel free to comment if you know of any other tips.

Get a visa.

If I was in my mid-twenties and recently jobless, make no doubt about it I would be heading to New Zealand to take advantage of their Working Holiday visa program (Australia offers one as well). In short, as a member of the British Commonwealth, Kiwis and Aussies are entitled to spend two years in Great Britain without a work permit. What ends up happening is that upon graduating, all the young people leave in droves to explore Europe (after all, they’ve been stuck on an island for their whole life). This not only explains why so many Aussies travel, but also why the two nations always have huge shortages of people to fill cheap paying jobs.

In response, the government of these two countries created a program to allow some of their tourists to fill the job needs. If you are between the ages of 18-30, you can apply for a one year work visa allowing you to legally work. What I’ve found is in Australia, the work tends to fit in the migrant/farm/manual labor category, but in NZ however, it tends to be more in the service category. In Queenstown alone there are signs all over the place looking for bar tenders and wait staff. As NZ is the college break location for most of Eurasia, you get a steady stream of young, beautiful, and blonde thrill seekers bussing through town, looking for the next party. That’s really not a bad place to find yourself as a bar tender –you get the best hiking in the world in the summer, great skiing in the winter, and beautiful people year round.
 

A list of working holiday programs can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_holiday_visa. As far as I know, the only countries offering the program to Americans are New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore.

Use the Internet for more than writing home.

Perhaps you are older than 30? In that case, grab a laptop and make your way to either Southeast Asia or a cheaper eastern European nation, such as Riga, Budapest, or Prague. There are a bevy of “jobs” available on the net that pay you no matter where you do the work. On the cheap, low pay end would be something like Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk. The theory behind Mechanical Turk is that there are many mundane tasks that Humans can process much better, faster, and cheaper than software would (for example, looking at a photograph and identifying if the subject is a boy or a girl). Software developers sign up with Turk and offer bounties for each process – so in our example, a developer has 4,000 photos and is willing to pay .02 cents each. Each task takes only a few seconds…so say you put 6 hours a day into this, giving yourself an average of 10 seconds to respond, means you can pull in almost $45. It’s not a huge amount of money and the work is mundane, but in a place like Thailand $45 is pretty good change to get through the day.  Keep in mind that some jobs in Turk require a certain level of hours already put in.

On the higher paying, higher risk side of it are job sites such as www.bountyjobs.com, where employers post the job they are looking to fill and as a member recruiter, you can fill this position. So if you have some recruiting experience, skype, a computer, and a decent internet connection, you can recruit on positions that can pay between $5,000 - $20,000 (and more) for a fill. This process takes much longer to do and odds are stacked against you, but it’s doable. There are similar sites looking for programmers, tech writers, etc.

Ebay. Ebay. Ebay.

Become an import/exporter. Certain tourist destinations also attract clothing manufacturers for ample supply and cheap labor, making it a haven for high quality knock-offs (which essentially are clothes made in the same factory). I met a Polish guy living in Bangkok who for years has made his living purchasing high-quality knock offs and selling them on Ebay.  In recent years, he told me that new regulations have cut down on his profits, but he’s still there, still churning away.

Use your tongue.

A lot of American’s don’t realize that they all are in possession of one of the most desirable skill sets in the world: superior knowledge of the English language. It’s well known you can teach English, I’m not going there. What I am saying is that if you speak English and are a certified Scuba instructor, you can find a job in almost any coastal tourist destination in the world. In my travels through Thailand and Australia, they were even offering to teach you how to scuba and certify you in return for a few months service. This is how a friend of mine took a year to travel and ended up living in St. Croix.

Play the odds.

It is illegal in the United States to use a credit card or bank account registered in the US for purposes of on-line gambling. However, it is not nearly anywhere else. If someone wanted to, they could play your way around the world. I’ve even heard that there are plenty of programs on the internet with a fairly successful win rate (many online casino rooms are filled with bots, making money for their owners while they are at work).

Start your own tourism agency.

It’s not that hard. You print out a few business cards detailing your special knowledge of a country you’ve been to a few places and make yourself available as a personal travel guide – one guy had been to Peru 8 times doing this. In the winter, he stayed here in Seattle and worked in restaurants, passing out his cards to more affluent couples. In the winter time, he would book 3-4 trips with no more than 6 people per group, and be their personal tour guide to these mysterious, backwards, and scary locales for a couple weeks – really, it’d be like having 3 couples paying me to take them on a week-long trip to New York.

Hang out where the travelers (not the tourists) are hanging out.

There’s an American right now in Thailand whose been serving bar at a beach shack for 5 years now. There’s a Brit in Laos who got his job chatting up an NGO (i.e. foreign-based charity) employee in a popular expat bar. I myself was offered a few jobs – one as a bartender, another leading outrigger kayaking groups in Australia (open sea kayaking is insane, btw), and more than a few offers to  work in a hostel. The point is, if you travel for long enough, you are going to run into offers to stay behind. And if the employer wants you to stay, they will find ways to make it worth your time.