Several years ago I dated a man who came from a privileged background. A statement he made has stuck with me through the years. It went something like this:

“If you look at all the people in the world, I’ve already won the lottery. I am a white male, born to an upper-middle class family in the United States. I’ve been educated at private schools and an Ivy League college. I was born into a life situation that is one of the most coveted in history. If I don’t make something of my opportunities, it’s my fault.”

While I am obviously not male, and my education was at public schools and universities (Go Bears!), his observation shifted my perspective and helped to realize something I sometimes forget:

I am damn lucky.

Girls born in a first world (developed) country have rights and opportunities many girls in developing countries do not:

• We can read
• We can get free education
• We have access to birth control
• As adults we can vote, own property and work outside the home

Girls born in developing countries face a less certain future. A few sobering statistics:

• Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school.
• Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls.
• One girl in seven in developing countries marries before age 15.
• 38 percent marry before age 18.
• A survey in India found that girls who married before age 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped, or threatened by their husbands as girls who married later.

Why am I bringing this up, you ask, as this blog is usually devoted to our travel adventures? We were fortunate to meet many girls and women on our travels, and want to help give them opportunities to better their lives.

This week kicks off the Girl Effect campaign, a movement to support adolescent girls in developing countries. When girls are supported, positive effects ripple out into their communities:

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.
• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.

New Nepalese friends

We – you and me – have already won the life situation lottery. Let’s spread the wealth. Watch this short video, and learn more about how to give to girls, and give future generations of girls a hand up and into a brighter future.

I invite and encourage  you to  write your own Girl Effect blog posts during the week of October 4-11 and  become an advocate for girls globally. Include your link on  this page so that your readers can see the other Girl Effect posts and add their own.

Update on the home front: Mark has a new job! He joined Kobo, a Toronto-based eBook retailer. They make eReader devices, including the best touch eReader on the market, which is highly rated by Consumer Reports, amongst others.

Buy one. Buy two. Buy another for your mom/boyfriend/cousin/partner/best friend/yourself! Did I mention Mark is in sales? I think it might be rubbing off…

Mark travels a lot for work – almost every week so far. Sometimes with his nice Canadian co-workers (hello to Dave, who I haven’t met yet, and who is schooling Mark in the ways of bringing small gifts home to significant others :^).

I have joined Mark on a couple trips (Seattle & SoCal), but most of the time he is doing the road warrior thing alone. And it sucks to be apart. After 18 months of almost 24/7 togetherness, you’d think we’d get sick of each other, right? No.

Sigh. I miss him.

In Mark’s absence, an unwelcome visitor has started calling: Insomnia. Once I’m asleep, I am out for the night, but crossing the border to the Land of Nod is difficult.

Last week Insomnia paid an extended visit. Mark was flying from Toronto to Vancouver, and his flight was delayed for five hours due to thunderstorm and tornado warnings.  Frickin’ TORNADOES. His 5-hour flight didn’t leave until almost 1:00 am ET.

I went through my evening routine, mentally ticking off the boxes on an unwritten ‘Sleep Prep’ checklist.

Soothing herbal tea? Check.

Hot bath? Check.

Good fiction book? Check.

It was no use. I thought about thunderstorms. And tornadoes.  And one relatively small pressured metal canister hurling west through the sky. Possibly through thunderstorms. And tornadoes.

I tried to distract myself. I read Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain straight through (thanks again to Joy WD for gifting it to me!).

I folded laundry.

I processed 46 emails out of my inbox.

I caught up on my blog reading.

I followed his flight online.

Mark landed in Vancouver at 2:41 am PT. I called him while he was still on the plane, relieved to hear his voice. The flight had been smooth, no problems. He was exhausted, but didn’t have meetings until the early afternoon. There was time for a few hours of sleep.

And then it was my turn. Insomnia slipped out the back door, with threats to come again soon.

And sometime around 3:30 am, I finally fell asleep.

The Woodwind II, a catamaran out of Zephyr Cove

If you’re looking for a quick-and-dirty guide to Lake Tahoe cruise and boat tours, check out the Lake Tahoe Cruise Guide. For details on the cruise we picked, read on…

Last weekend we continued our adventures, albeit on a more local scale. My parents and sister, Jenny, drove up for a three-night visit. In addition to quality family time and exploring a Tahoe Meadows trail, their visit was a chance for me to make good on my Mother’s Day gift to my mom: a Lake Tahoe boat cruise.

My mom loves boats. Loves being out on the water. Loves the breeze in her face, the gentle (or not so gentle) rocking of the boat. She has fond memories of immigrating to the U.S. as a child on a ship via the Panama Canal – despite drinking so much orange juice on the trip that she got hives. The woman likes being on the water.

This love of being on the water is not hereditary. While I like the *idea* of boats, the reality is I have a history of motion sickness. Heaving-toast-and-eggs-over-the-rail. Turning a Grinch-ish shade of green. But my mom loves boats, and I like to make her happy. Fortunately, the motion sickness monster doesn’t rear its bile-colored head every time I step aboard.

But which Lake Tahoe cruise to take? There are several options, including sunset dinner cruises, booze cruises, Tahoe tour cruises, and lake excursions. In preparation of their visit, I researched Lake Tahoe cruises and tours on six different ships:

1. MS Dixie II
2. Safari Rose
3. Tahoe
4. Tahoe Gal
5. Tahoe Queen
6. Woodwind 2

And being the geeky person I am, I compiled all the information into a spreadsheet to keep it organized.  I looked at the following criteria:

• Boat type: paddleboat, powerboat, catamaran, etc.
• Cruises offered: tour, meal, excursion, etc.
• Cruise duration
• Cost (including whether a meal was served, and if so, included in the price)
• Port (all ships except the Tahoe Gal are located in South Lake Tahoe marinas)
• And if there were any discounts available

I pulled the information into a handy one-page PDF, which you can view or download here:

Lake Tahoe Cruise Guide

There is a wide variety of cruises available, and wildly different price points.

We decided to cruise with the Woodwind 2, a 55′ catamaran out of Zephyr Cove, because we just wanted to get out on the water, didn’t want to eat a meal on board (that whole motion sickness thing), and were not interested in a guided tour. The Woodwind 2 also had several positive reviews on TripAdvisor and Yelp, whereas some of the other cruises had several negative reviews.

We had a great experience. After taking the required group photo, we found cushions to lounge upon on the deck (my parents recognized the cushions as dog beds sold at Costco). As we got underway, the cruise attendant took drink orders. The drink menu is extensive, and dark rum is a heavily featured ingredient. The $7 price tag felt reasonable.

We lounged, we talked, we looked out across the lake and had great views of Stateline, Heavenly Ski Resort, and the east shore of the lake. We cruised out a fair distance – maybe a mile or two? – and then slowly looped our way back toward Zephyr Cove. The atmosphere was convivial, and we chatted with a family who had just moved to Sacramento from Tampa Bay. No regrets about missing Hurricane Irene, though they were surprised at how dry it was in Sacramento.

View of Stateline NV, with Heavenly ski resort in the background

As we pulled back up to the dock, we saw a couple hundred people in line for the Sunset Dinner Cruise on the MS Dixie II. While the huge paddlewheeler looked like a fun time, the motion sickness monster had already taken the afternoon off. Perhaps next time!

Even though we are experienced travelers, we continue to learn new things about the perks and quirks of international travel. And often, it is the quirks that give the most memorable lessons. This is a tale about how we screwed up and learned how NOT to earn airline miles.

Having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years, we often fly United Airlines because SFO is one of their major hubs. We joined MileagePlus, United’s frequent flier program. With all of our flights to/from Asia in the last two years, we’ve racked up a lot of miles.

When planning our trip to New Zealand earlier this year, we researched flights on United and discovered we would have to fly to Sydney and then connect to another flight to New Zealand. Ugh. This would have turned a 13-hour non-stop from SFO to Auckland into a 20-hour trip. Not our first choice.

So we looked for other options. United is part of the Star Alliance network, a global partner airline network with reciprocal award mile agreements. Air New Zealand is also part of Star Alliance – oh happy day! We could fly Air New Zealand and earn 13,000 miles each for our United MileagePlus accounts. A round trip ticket within the U.S. often goes for 25,000 miles, so with this one trip alone we were each halfway towards earning a free domestic flight. We like free flights.

We booked our tickets. We had a delightful experience flying Air New Zealand (and they have THE funniest safety video, starring Rico the South American rodent).

A few weeks after we returned from our trip, I noticed our award miles had not been added to our accounts. So I requested they be added via United’s online form for such things. A month later we got a form letter saying that the flight was not valid for miles.

What?!?

I contacted United directly to find out how to get credit for our miles. And here’s where the unwanted lesson was given: our tickets were booked under a fare code ineligible for award miles.

Huh?!?

Turns out that within the Star Alliance network, each participating airline has a contract with the other participating airlines, saying how many and under what conditions miles will be credited.

Here’s how we screwed up:

1. When researching flights, we didn’t pay any attention to the booking class. The booking class is usually a letter. In our case, the letter was “L” (for losers!).  This code is listed within the flight details when you research tickets.
2. We didn’t check out United Airlines’ Air New Zealand partner page which stated clearly that the “L” booking class would earn 0% award miles.

Bummer. Had we known the flight was ineligible for award miles, we would have taken the longer trip via Sydney. The fare was about the same, and we had the time to sit at the airport.

We had been lucky in our travels so far, as we flew with other Star Alliance airlines on flights that happened to fall under eligible booking class codes.

The Lesson Learned: for long-haul flights, ALWAYS check out the booking class conditions before buying our tickets.

And I’m going to continue to work on my travel optimizing skills, starting with a travel hacking webinar hosted by a fellow independent traveler Chris Guillebeau over at The Art of Non Conformity.

A cute rodent video just isn’t worth losing 26,000 award miles.

Sunset in Santa Fe

One week ago, we pulled into our driveway in Incline Village. We unlocked our front door and stepped inside. We noticed the stillness of the house. Dust motes floated in the air. We were home.

And this time, we are emptying our backpacks and putting the passports deep in a drawer.

Our 18 months of travel – finished.

It feels a little strange to say this, but we are ready to stop traveling. I wasn’t sure if the travel itch could ever be truly scratched, but has been – for awhile, anyway.

We knew we were ready to stop traveling early in this last trip, when we found ourselves fantasizing about sleeping in the same bed for more than four nights in a row, imagining what we would cook for dinner and reordering our Netflix queue.

We started listing all the vegetables we want to grow in our future garden (Fava beans! Green zebra heirloom tomatoes! Totsoi!). Let’s face a fact:  you need to be stationary for a spell to grow a garden. It is time to park the car for awhile and hang up our backpacks.

Traveling in our own country was less challenging too. We had many conveniences we didn’t have on other trips, like our smartphones and Starbucks with its tempting free wi-fi. Speaking English in an English-speaking country is pretty convenient too.

We traveled in our own car, which we packed to the brim with things we thought we might need. We brought FAR too much stuff, one representative example being the nine bottles of partially used sunscreen we thought we’d gradually use up. It rained consistently for the first month of our trip, and two months later we had used up exactly one bottle. How we acquired nine bottles to begin with is a bit of a mystery, and a reminder to be mindful of what we bring into our lives.  You can carry around a lot of unnecessary stuff if you aren’t careful.

Over the past two months we visited 12 states, plus Toronto, Canada. Our original plan was to head further east, but the sheer size of this country proved greater than our stamina for days spent driving. Simply put, the 6,514 miles driven beat us down.

A travel reality - the bath tub often doubles as washing machine

Over the past 18 months, we visited 16 countries: Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Japan, Greece, Turkey, Slovenia, Austria, The Netherlands, England, Nepal, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and those few days in Canada.

And so now we are home. We are ready to start on new projects, build our work and community, spend more time with friends and family, and learn new skills. We feel incredibly fortunate to have had these experiences; watching the sun rise behind the Himalayas, diving with red-tooth triggerfish and whale sharks, sleeping in caves, drinking fresh-still-at-the-plantation tea, making new friends, and so many more. And we’ll continue to write about them here, as we sort through our photos and reflect on our time spent “away”. Please visit!

We wonder how long it will be before the itch returns. Our friend Diana recently posed that travel is an addiction, and for now we’ve gotten our fix.

Next!

Click here for photos of our U.S. road trip