But what I really want to talk about is the role that a university degree can play when it comes to living a life that involves long-term, and in many cases, indefinite, travel.

It’s a common dilemma. Should I go to university or should I start traveling right away? Then some university students spend long hours wondering if they should just drop out and chase after their travel goals without graduating. When the road calls, the call is powerful and it’s only natural that it often lures people away from three or four (or five) more years of formal education.

First of all, by no means do I think a university degree is vital. I’m a firm believer that any determined individual can transform travel into a lifestyle, regardless of their educational background, work history or skills that one would use to make their resume/CV look more impressive.

However, I will also state that having a university degree does indeed make life much easier for those interested in embarking on an indefinite trip and trying to earn money around the world.

The truth is that in many cases it doesn’t matter at all what you study at university or even how well you perform. The important part is just having that extra level of education.

How is this important?

Many organizations and companies out there in the world that you might decide you want to work with often won’t consider hiring or working with people who do not have a university degree.

Let’s look at teaching English, or any other language for that matter, overseas. If you were to show up in Thailand or Turkey looking to earn money by teaching English, you would naturally begin applying to language schools and other educational institutions that hire such teachers.

And while many of these language schools won’t require you to be a certified teacher or even have a certification in TEFL or TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language), they will usually require you to have a university degree before they can hire you. They often don’t really care what the degree is in, but they just want to know that you have one.

Simply put, having that degree gives a potential employer, client or organization an additional level of confidence in you.

Both you and I know that a diploma doesn’t automatically prove you’re a mature, responsible and hard-working individual but that doesn’t change the fact that a degree does make a difference for those interested in finding such work as teaching languages, working at resorts, becoming a tour guide/escort for a tour operator, working on board cruise ships or even working with an NGO (non-governmental organization), among many others.

A FEW REAL LIFE EXAMPLES

In my own life, having my university degree certainly helped me rise up to the position of Tour Manager in just a couple of months when I worked on board cruise ships myself. If I didn’t have a degree I might not have been hired in the first place and even if I was hired, I certainly would not have been given a chance to become a department head.

And even when I had to return to the US during my earlier years of travel in order to find work and refill my bank account for a couple of months, I would not have been able to work as a substitute teacher at a high school in Boston (and save up a good amount of money) without my degree.

A good friend of mine went to Australia on a working holiday visa and because of his degree was able to land a well-paid job with a company in downtown Sydney, earning five times the amount that many others on a working holiday visa earn when working in a bar or picking fruit.

Of course, money is not always the goal (and I’m not saying it should be), so this might not matter to many travelers. But money may matter to some and one’s earning potential may be a factor in whether or not a person decides to attend university before setting off on their travels.

So, to sum it all up…

A university degree is absolutely not vital to live a life of travel, and I’ve met plenty of people out there without university degrees who have turned travel into the lifestyle they always dreamed of. Dedication, a willingness to be creative and keeping an open-mind are far more important than a degree or any particular knowledge or skill set. If you can manage that, you can achieve anything.

But again, that one piece of paper, that university degree, can help quite a lot and there is no denying that, when combined with those qualities above, it will allow you to take advantage of even more opportunities that you may discover while traveling this wonderful world of ours.

However, the following post is indeed written by someone else. It is written by fellow blogger, master of productivity and most importantly, my friend…Fabian Kruse of FriendlyAnarchist.com. Recently, Fabian has taught me a great deal about being productive while traveling and as a result, I wanted to give him a platform to share his ideas with you as well.

PRODUCTIVE ANYWHERE

You could say that productivity on the road is pretty much like productivity in an office – if it wasn’t for some peculiar challenges:

There’s sweat.
There’s sand.
There’s a singing German drinking Mojitos from a plastic bucket.

There’s a power outlet that doesn’t look familiar by any means.
There’s a hard drive error and the repairperson only speaks Cantonese.
There’s no wi-fi available within 250 miles.

There’s a deadline, lurking behind it all. Lurking with that evil chuckle deadlines make as they approach to get you.

The question is: Do you stress out?
Or do you sit down and get your stuff done?

…

To be fair, the challenges aren’t all that bad. I personally prefer some interesting new distractions now and then over simply getting tempted to check my Twitter feed all the time. Overall, working on the road will be both tough and rewarding. The problem is that if you don’t manage to overcome the tough part, you won’t get the rewards.

The usual approach to improve productivity is to buy a book, attend a course or maybe even hire a consultant – and then implement some kind of pre-fabricated “system”. Unfortunately, this will often require you to mold your lifestyle and preferences just to make yourself fit into it: You have to get used to work at certain hours, use certain tools, adopt certain techniques and follow prescribed rules. All these changes will drain your energy and results will often be sub-par.

Let me show you another approach to it: It’s called “productivity beyond rules”.

Here’s how it works: You can do whatever you want, as long as it works for you. Forget about the systems and just have it your way. There are no rules other than doing what helps you to get your stuff done!

So how does this work in practice? The “beyond rules” approach takes the power from the books and tools and gadgets and consultants – and plays the ball back to you. It invites you to try more new things and see what works for you.

The secret to it lies in constant experimentation and finding your personal sweet spot. It doesn’t matter if you organize your stuff on paper or digitally, if you work in the morning hours or late at night: Once you have the right motivation and the will to move forward, the tools will follow.

What You Can Do NOW

That said, there are a couple of things you can do now to raise your productivity a hundred percent within the next couple of days. These things work because they focus on removing psychological hurdles rather than prescribing any pre-fab system. Let’s jump right in…

1) Get Your Head Clear

If you aren’t a happy productivity expert right now, chances are that your brain is cluttered with a whole lot of “stuff”: Things to do, things to think about, things to worry, things to look forward to, things you would rather like to get sorted, done, or forget about altogether. These can be anything from memories, travel destinations and household chores to dreams, ideas, fears and wonders.

Here’s your treatment: Take a pencil and a notebook and write all of that stuff down onto one simple list. Don’t categorize anything, don’t sort it, just write it down. You will need a minimum of 30 minutes for this, and probably much longer. It wouldn’t be uncommon to end up with 150+ things on your list.

Why this works: Our brain isn’t a junkyard. Yet still we manage to fill it with all kinds of junk. Getting this junk out of our head and onto paper gives us new room to breathe, think and act.

2) Relieve Your Unconscious Self

Once you’ve got all that stuff on paper, you might still feel some need to categorize or process it. This is what I’d recommend you to do, no matter in which practical approach you prefer: You could organize the items by priority, by context, by persons involved and so on. You could still do this on paper or use some piece of software.

Many of the items will just be things that are flowing through your head but don’t require any kind of action. You might want to get rid of them or simply keep them on that list for later reference. Maybe you’d even like to start some kind of diary to give these items a permanent home.

Other things, in contrast, will require further processing: For these items, it’s time to make a plan, defining projects and concrete tasks! Specifically, we want to look at some of the more interesting items, things that might be categorized as your “bucket list”. I decided to highlight these here because they are most likely to include travel and, unfortunately, to be forgotten! (That said, the approach will be similar for any kind of project, interesting or not.)

Why this works: Research has shown that making concrete plans will help us to escape the “monkey-mind”, our unconscious self constantly reminding us of the stuff we have to do. The trick to achieve this is not to actually do all that stuff right away – this would be impossible, considering the task-load of the average 21st century person – but to make a clear and concrete plan of how, when and where to tackle it.

3) Create Bucket Tasks

Everybody has a bucket list nowadays: It usually consists of a hundred things to do before you die. Unfortunately, most people manage to forget about it pretty quickly – until it’s too late and their life is over.

Yes, it’s a bitter truth: Only few of us manage to actually check that list off before hitting the bucket. So here’s the new approach I’d like to propose: Take the things off your bucket/someday/maybe list and make them a priority! Turn them into concrete tasks (see point no. 4!).

Why this works: Dreams will remain dreams forever if we don’t start to make them real. While we still could get lucky that it all falls into our laps, the odds are incredibly against us – if we don’t take things into our own hands.

As far as we know, we’ve only got one shot at this. One single shot. Depending on your age and health conditions, this could mean you have 70, 50, 30 or maybe only 10 years left. It could be even less. If you want to travel, you can either do it during this life – or you won’t do it at all. So if you want to swim in the Mediterranean before you die, you better start making a plan on how to get there.

4) Be (Relentlessly) Concrete

The trick to getting things done is to make it easy for yourself. When creating any kind of to-do or task list, treat yourself like a stubborn, stupid donkey from another planet. Be as explicit and concrete as possible.

To make this clear: “Visit Mexico” isn’t a task. If you look at it on a to do-list, your brain will be like, “Oh well. This looks interesting. And dangerous. And complicated. Where should I even start? Hmm… There’s this cool new show on HBO tonight so I better just switch on my TV…” – and you won’t travel anywhere!

Now, “Book a flight to Mexico” still is not a task!

Will you go to Mexico DF? Yucatán? Acapulco?
Roundtrip or one-way?
Where will you book it?
When are you going to leave?
How long are you going to stay?

“Research one-way flight prices to Cancún for mid-January on Kayak.com” – That’s a task!

Why this works: Our rational self tends to overthink everything we do. Once we see a complex item on our to-do list, instead of working on it we will first of all ponder about how to approach it. Getting clear about what to do and actually doing it are two very different things. Sometimes, getting clear will just take chunks of a second. Sometimes, it will take days of thinking. Whatever the case may be, you have to be absolutely sure about what you want to do. Once you’re clear about that, the thinking is out of the way and taking action will be easier than ever.

5) Embrace the Distractions

Ideal conditions are a myth. In real life, there will always be distractions and inconveniences: You will feel slightly sick or tired or both. You will lack some kind of resource, time will be short, the computer won’t work as it should.

You know what? You can still get stuff done!

Learn to use the flow of the place and the moment – despite its imperfections.

The train is late, the hostel crowded, the day too rainy to explore? This might be horror for tourists on a weekend trip, but it could be just the perfect day for productive nomads: Open your laptop and do something! Take out your notebook and outline your next project! Go to an internet café and make the calls you have been putting off!

Why this works: While many of us prefer to work under the smoothest conditions, we all can learn to get things done in crowded places and despite the many distractions or unexpected events we encounter on the road. It’s more: These events can actually be channeled and used as creative energy. As they are new to us, they can spark our work and give birth to new ideas, if only we are willing to take them this way.

Ignoring the Sorcerers

You can work in the morning and explore at night.
You can work for one week and travel the next.
You can work for six months, only to explore evermore afterwards. (That’s what Earl has managed to do so elegantly!)

You can use tiny chunks of time that open up during travel in order to advance your agenda.
You can only work during long, uninterrupted sessions in a quiet place.
You can mix the two, just as you please.

You can work in an apartment.
You can work at coffee shops.
You can work in the park, the library, on board of trains.
Hell, there are people happy to work at airports!

Who said there was only one way to be organized, one way to master your inbox, one way to get lots of stuff done? There are plenty of sorcerers who want to sell you tricks to “bend the spoon” and who will promise you Heaven and Earth if only you buy into their system.

All you have to understand is that the system itself is a trick! There is no one way to do this stuff! After years of studying these topics, reading hundreds of books, forums and blogs, exchanging thoughts with digital nomads and productivity geeks, looking into dozens of approaches and systems, I’m sure about one thing: Productivity cannot be improved by adopting any fixed “one-size-fits-all” system.

Obviously, there are plenty of ideas and approaches that can help us to improve and inspire us to create our own way of getting things done. But in order to be the most effective, we have to ignore the sorcerers and experiment with our own preferences and desires.

Once we learn to let go of them, let go of perfectionism, worries, insecurities and exaggerated expectations, we will be free to sit down and enter work mode.

Ultimately, this is what being productive anywhere really is about.

This post was written by Fabian Kruse of FriendlyAnarchist.com.

Bucharest is covered in snow, my nose is clogged and I’m stuck inside because I don’t own any boots.

This is the life of a traveler.

Of course, it is my choice to be in the middle of Eastern Europe during the middle of winter. I take full responsibility and I don’t regret for even a second this decision. I’m here because I want to be and if I do make it out of this winter alive, then I’ll add this experience to the list of the most incredible feats I’ve achieved in my decade plus on the road.

As for the flu, it certainly sucks being sick while away from home. Luckily for me it sucks a bit less since I don’t have a home to be away from. I don’t find myself spending hours alone in my room dreaming of my comfortable bed, of eating my favorite foods or of being taken care of and tucked into that bed by my wife.

It does so happen that I have some friends here in Bucharest and I’m actually staying with one of them. And her efforts to feed me endless bowls of chicken soup, platefuls of chocolate crepes and the occasional shot of homemade elderberry liquor have certainly helped make this the most bearable bout of the flu I’ve ever had to deal with.

And when I walked right into a wall in the middle of the night while in a state of complete delirium it was admittedly nice having someone direct me back to my bed.

But what if you are on your own, stuck in a blizzard or monsoon rains in the midst of your travels, completely sick as a dog and without a single person to comfort you? This definitely is a part of travel and it’s not exactly the most enjoyable part as you might imagine.

Over the years there’s been a couple of times when I’ve been sick and all alone in some random destination, times when I would stare out the window and wonder if I would ever feel better again or if achieving my travel goals was actually worth the suffering I was experiencing at that moment.

In general, I would deal with my sickness by rolling around in bed moaning in agony, shuffling outside once a day to grab the quickest food possible and trying to think how long it would take for someone to notice that I had died in my little hotel room.

But again, here in Bucharest I’ve been spoiled this time around. However, as I ate yet another bowl of delicious chicken soup, received yet another neck massage and downed another shot of elderberry liquor this afternoon, I did start to imagine what I would have done if my friend was not around.

What if I was on my own and terribly ill, stuck in some faraway town, unable to speak the language, wanting to do nothing but curl up and vanish from the Earth?

Any advice? What have you done when you’ve been sick on the road and found yourself dreaming of home? How do you think you would survive such a situation?

This post is going to highlight another aspect of South Africa, an aspect that probably had more of an impact on me than any of the others during my recent visit.

I’m talking about the ENERGY baby!

Before I arrived in South Africa, I had heard from several travelers that as soon as one arrives in the country, you can instantly ‘feel’ Africa. You can feel the vibe, feel the life, feel that energy.

And I felt it alright.

However, it wasn’t until our wonderful Durban tour operator picked us up one evening and drove us over to the strikingly impressive Moses Madiba Football Stadium that I came to fully appreciate the unique, powerful and without a doubt, addicting, positive energy of South Africa.

Somehow, our South Africa Tourism host managed to secure us tickets to a football match between the Orlando Pirates and the Bidvest Wits, which was quite a feat considering that this match happened to be the Finals of the Telkom Charity Cup.

But the thing is, as soon as we walked through the entrance of the stadium, slithered our way through the crowds and found some seats just a few rows from the field, I realized that the game itself didn’t really matter.

It might as well have been a team of Smurfs playing against a team of balloon animals, as the highlight of the evening involved not what was taking place on the field, but what was taking place in the stands. I hardly noticed the actual football match as I was immediately swooped up in the extraordinary energy created by the 50,000+ people in attendance.

What I witnessed was a massive party, with a football match taking place in the background. Everyone danced wildly, blew into their vuvuzelas, waved their flags, shook their bodies, jumped in the air, swayed together, sang together, clapped their hands (to the rhythm of the music in the stadium not to the play on the field)…without taking a rest for the entire first half. And the fact that every single person in that stadium had such a huge smile on their face just made the already festive atmosphere a heck of a lot more festive.

Here’s a video taken by our SA Tourism host during the game that shows what I’m talking about…

Of course, once the first half came to an end, I relaxed a little in my seat, sipped my beer and prepared for a twenty-minute break in the action. But, silly me, little did I know that half-time was going to be even crazier (and I mean that in the best possible way) and more spirited than when there were actually players on the field competing for a championship.

The party did not just continue, but incredibly, it somehow managed to grow in intensity as soon as the players were in the locker rooms.

At one point, I started thinking about sporting events back in the US where stadiums must put on quite an elaborate half-time show in order to keep the crowd from falling asleep. But here in South Africa, the half-time show consisted of eight people sitting on a flag in the middle of the field. Basically, there was no half-time show at all.

Instead, there was a person up in the sound booth who cranked up the hypnotic music even louder until the entire stadium was dancing, shaking and jumping around more than ever.

And this went on for the entire twenty minutes of half-time. It was simply an amazing thing to watch. There were no fights, no arguments, no rude or curse-laced chanting. There was dancing and hugging and laughing.

I don’t think there’s a single human being on this planet who, after spending time in a South African football stadium, would not be in the happiest, most joyful and absurdly giddy mood imaginable. It’s just not possible to sit in that stadium and successfully deflect the energy swirling everywhere around you.

And why would you want to do that anyway? The world needs more places where 50,000 people gather to celebrate life. That’s essentially what was taking place. It was one massive celebration based on the understanding that we are all in control of our own happiness.

Why sit around and watch a sporting event in near silence, perhaps occasionally letting out a cheer or two, when you can stand up, shake your body, twist and shout, bond with those around you and guarantee that you all have one insanely memorable, entertaining and enjoyable experience!

So, as the ‘life party’ continued throughout the second half of this football match, as the rain came down, the beers were sipped, photos were taken, high-fives were exchanged and new friends were made, I could not help but feel overwhelmingly overjoyed, not only about being in South Africa and experiencing the ‘vibe’, but simply about being alive.

And that’s about as rewarding a travel experience as it gets.

*This trip was sponsored by South Africa Tourism. Several photos above are courtesy of Matt from ExpertVagabond.com whose photographic skills I simply can’t compete with.

Of course, as this will be your first ‘real’ travel experience, you naturally prefer to travel with other people and so you start asking your friends to join you on your epic adventure. As you show them photos you found online of white sand beaches on a Thai island and of the Mayan ruins of Chichen-Itza, you are more than confident that you will have a travel partner or two in no time at all.

But interestingly enough, the first friend you ask, perhaps your closest friend, turns you down. And so you move on to the next friend, but they too, tell you that they have no desire to join you at all. The third friend, the fourth friend and even that guy that you don’t really like but whose company you think you could stand for a few months in Southeast Asia, all say no as well.

Suddenly, you are faced with the idea of embarking on a journey to faraway and very foreign lands all alone. You start to doubt whether or not you are up for the challenge, whether or not you have the courage necessary to survive as a solo traveler.

Maybe you decide to postpone your trip for another six months, hoping that one of your friends will change their mind and decide to tag along. Maybe you decide to forget about your trip altogether, fully convinced that you can only travel so far away from home with a friend or travel companion by your side.

You still desperately want to travel, so much so that you still spend many a night awake in bed researching random destinations, reading every travel article you can find and browsing through travel blog after travel blog. But now you try to accept the fact that what you read and see online is as close as you’ll come to actually traveling yourself.

DON’T GIVE UP JUST YET!

Perhaps, during your online dreaming, you stumbleupon my travel blog and you decide to stick around long enough to read a couple of posts. Maybe you find yourself reading this very post and you can relate to that process of giving up on your travel goals simply because you don’t want to travel alone. And in all honesty, if that is the case, then I’m quite happy that you are reading this post right now.

Here’s my advice to you. You may be on your own when you board that flight to Bangkok or Mexico City, but believe me, once you arrive, you’ll NEVER actually be alone.

That’s how travel works. Unless you stare at the ground and never talk to anyone, you’re going to meet people when you travel, lots and lots of people from all over the world who will be interested in meeting and hanging out with you. In fact, meeting new people is probably one of the easiest things to do when traveling because you have an instant connection with every other traveler. All travelers are strangers in a foreign land and as a result, we often would love an opportunity to travel with a new friend.

Maybe you’ll meet someone at the hostel or guesthouse where you’re staying or at a cafe, in a shop, on a bus or just in the street. Maybe you’ll end up wandering around a city for an afternoon with this person and then parting ways. And the next day, you’ll probably meet someone else to share new experiences with as well. Perhaps you’ll meet someone and decide to travel together for a couple of days or even a couple of weeks. Maybe your plans match up so well that you team up for a month or more.

The point is, you’ll meet plenty of people in just about every single corner of the world, even if you’re the most shy, introverted person on the planet.

MY FIRST SOLO TRIP

When I left for Southeast Asia back in 1999, I did so all alone. Sure, I asked every single one of my friends to join me, just as most of us would do, but they all said no. However, after a long, hard internal debate, I made the decision to visit Asia anyway, with no travel companion. And this decision proved to be the most important decision I have ever made.

I won’t lie to you. When I boarded that flight from Los Angeles to Bangkok, I was shaking. I was so scared of the uncertainty that awaited me that I could barely even think and as a result, I couldn’t help but realize that this was the most terrifying experience of my life.

In fact, several years later, when I was given ten seconds notice one day that I would have to give a forty-five minute presentation to 1000 people on a cruise ship, the fear I felt at that moment was NOTHING in comparison to how I felt on that flight to Thailand.

But of course, despite the fear, as I soared high over the Pacific Ocean, high over Taiwan and eventually into Southeast Asia, I knew that there was no turning back.

AND THEN MY FLIGHT LANDED…

…and I passed through immigration and customs at the Bangkok Airport and I even managed to make it from the airport into the city center without any problems despite the fact that it was after midnight. I spent the night in a budget hotel room and then, during my first stroll around the streets of Bangkok the very next morning, I met a British traveler at a cafe. We started talking and sure enough, we both had planned to travel overland to Cambodia in order to celebrate the Millennium at Angkor Wat.

That was it. Just like that I had a travel partner, less than nine hours after I had arrived in Bangkok. And we got along so well that we ended up traveling together for almost two months.

Will that happen to you when you embark on your adventure? There’s no guarantee of course. But again, if you look up, smile and start conversations with those around you, the chances of you actually being alone are quite miniscule (unless you want to be alone).

And before long, you’ll understand why I answer every single email that asks me what it’s like to always travel alone with the very same response. I simply say, “I may be a solo traveler but I’m never really on my own.”

So, with that now said, I urge you to not let the fear of traveling by yourself stop you from achieving your travel goals. It would be such a shame to let that happen, especially when that fear will disappear shortly after you arrive at your first destination.

That’s exactly what I went through at one point during my visit to South Africa. And it all had to do with an early morning kayak ride.

Ordinarily, I am more than happy to participate in a leisurely kayak experience and never have I felt my life threatened in any way whatsoever while paddling around any body of water. But, when I found myself paddling a kayak around the St. Lucia Estuary in South Africa, that all changed, and it changed quite quickly.

Fish don’t scare me, but what does scare me is the sight of an 8-inch shark fin rising out of the water only 2 meters from my kayak, just seconds after leaving the shore, especially when there was never any mention of sharks during the orientation we received before getting into the water.

And when I pointed out to our guide that I saw what appeared to be a shark fin, only then did he inform us that this estuary is, in fact, home to three different kinds of sharks. Great news.

However, after keeping my eye on the middle of the estuary for about five minutes and not seeing any more fins, I finally began to relax and enjoy the paddling. But of course, when the main aim of your kayak trip is to spot hippos and crocodiles in the wild, any moments of relaxation are not going to last very long at all.

The first crocodile we spotted was resting on the bank of the water, but once our three kayaks were only 8 meters or so away, it quickly entered the water and began to swim off. I started to breathe again, right until the son-of-a-witch turned around, popped it’s two eyes out of the water and just stared at me. Yes, me.

Then, as my kayaking partner Rachelle (from TheTravelBite.com) and I frantically tried to catch up to the rest of the group (we were in the kayak at the back), the crocodile would dip down into the murky water and ten seconds later, re-appear in a new location, still following me, still staring me down and still making me somewhat nervous.

Crocodiles eat people. And being in the wild with them, busting through their habitat in three large kayaks suddenly seemed like quite a questionable idea. It continued to seem like a questionable idea for the next fifteen minutes as that massive crocodile swam behind me, once even popping up directly to my right, only 3 meters away.

To be honest, the only thing that could take my attention away from the thought of being eaten by a crocodile, was the thought of being snapped in half by a hippopotamus.

So, when we spotted a 2000 kg hippo grazing on the side of the estuary and then suddenly head towards the water, break into a jog (apparently hippos can run at a speed of 44 kms/hr) and continue jogging in the direction of our kayaks, I really began preparing for a most unfortunate end to my life.

Luckily, the hippo ran right into the water where he, too, proceeded to stick only his eyes above the surface, watching us quite closely, just as the crocodile was doing from the other direction.

Now you might think that the ideal thing to do at this point in order to calm down and regain one’s composure would be to take a break from kayaking, a short rest if you will. We took a break alright, paddling across the estuary to a quiet spot along the shore where we parked the kayaks and stepped onto dry land. But this ‘quiet spot’ turned out to be an area where hippos enter and exit the water in order to eat.

And if there’s one thing I learned about hippos during my time in South Africa, it’s that these beasts do not appreciate it when anything or anyone is standing in their path as they roam the banks of an estuary. So what did we do? We hung around this area for about ten minutes.

In the end, we were not attacked of course, but when we climbed back into the kayaks, we were then taken to an area of thick marshes, narrow channels and mangrove forests, all places that could easily hide a hungry crocodile or hippopotamus.

It was not a comfortable ride as I tried to pay close attention to my surroundings, as if my spotting a crocodile swimming towards me would in any way prevent it from biting off my arm.

In all honesty, this was the scariest activity I have ever participated in. Scarier than sky-diving, scarier than swimming with whale-sharks, scarier than volcano boarding in Nicaragua, scarier than traveling to Pakistan or Afghanistan.

But, at the same time, just as is the case with all of those above experiences, kayaking with crocodiles, hippopotamuses and sharks is something I would do again without hesitation. It’s also something that I would recommend to every individual who travels to this part of the world. Just face the fear, feel the terror of being surrounded, in the wild, by such amazing creatures.

After all, this is perhaps one of the most unique opportunities in South Africa to get so very close to these animals. It’s impossible to describe the feeling properly so you’ll just have to experience it for yourself.

And just think of the photos you’ll take!

And as a side note, nobody has ever been injured or attacked in the many years that this kayak tour has been operating!

Now that the below live travel chat has finished, you can still check out the entire conversation over at FoxNomad.com. It was an excellent chat session, with many interesting travel-related questions and answers submitted by many readers and visitors. If you’re looking for some useful ideas as to how you can travel long-term as well, be sure to check it out (the conversation is in the comments section of the link above).

And thank you to everyone who participated!

And this month, Anil asked if I wanted to be his guest! So, the general topic of the travel chat will be “From Cruise Ships to Kabul” and we’ll talk about long-term travel, my trips to Afghanistan and other places, working on board cruise ships and anything else you want to talk about. We will both be sitting in our favorite cafe here in Bucharest, Romania, ready to interact with all of you.

Below I’ve provided the direct link to the chat (the link won’t work until the chat actually starts), so just click on that link tomorrow and you’ll be directed straight to the chat that is taking place. Then, all you need to do to join in the good times is to leave a comment and we shall respond in live time. And of course, the more people participating, the better!

So I hope you’ll be able to pop over and at least say hello tomorrow. Both Anil and I really believe that the most rewarding part of having our blogs is the interaction we are able to have with our readers and this is exactly why I’m quite excited about being a part of this chat idea.

On that note, I hope to chat with you all tomorrow! And here are all the details:

Tuesday, January 3rd
11am – 2pm (GMT)
1pm – 4pm (Bucharest time)
6am – 9am (New York)
9pm – 12am (Sydney)

Direct link to the chat: Live Travel Chat (the link won’t work until the chat begins tomorrow)

Earl
(Oh, and the photo above is me with the afro I mentioned in the last post.)

In reality, I’m not too surprised by this confusion considering that the year 2011 presented one giant wollop of a challenge, the kind of challenge in which one thing after another seemed to go wrong or not work out as I had expected. This year saw a great deal of changed plans, some of which completely took me by surprise, as well as long-lasting periods of uncertainty, more than a handful of troubling moments and a higher than normal amount of utter confusion.

Hooray for all that.

And so, needless to say, as a result of this somewhat bizarre and difficult year, I’m ready for the New Year to begin. Perhaps on January 1st I will finally be able to clear my head and find some answers to some common questions, questions that I have been asking myself quite often as of late, questions such as ‘what’s the point of what I’m doing?’ and ‘what am I trying to accomplish?’.

WHY WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR?

Of course, it would help to get a little head start and use the last couple of days of 2011 wisely. I guess there’s no point in waiting until after the New Year to begin figuring things out. And that’s why I think I’ll just go ahead with an idea that I thought of a few minutes ago, an idea that might prove to be beneficial and maybe even therapeutic.

I’m going to jot down all of the random thoughts that are currently mosh-pitting through my head in the hope that seeing such a list in front of me might help me sort through the muck and discover some answers.

I’m not overly confident that this will work, and I’m a bit nervous that the nonsense inside my head may scare a few of you away, but I’m willing to give it a try nonetheless.

Fifteen Minute Break…

Okay, I’ve now spent the past fifteen minutes contemplating my life and writing down every thought that entered my head. And here’s those very thoughts…

• What on earth am I doing with my life? (A common one, I know.)
• I really do enjoy eating soft cheese.
• No matter what happens, I still feel most at peace when I think about packing one small backpack with a few possessions and just walking around the world, a thought that has been in my head for the past ten years.
• Winter weather is not nearly as terrible as I once thought (it’s freezing in Bucharest now but miraculously I’m surviving.)
• I want to be on television.
• I’m starting to think that my musician friend who told me I could be a good singer if I took a few lessons was lying to me.
• We should all be laughing at most of the things we get upset about.
• As always, I would love to spend less time in front of my laptop.
• I really hope that nobody ever greets me at an airport with kazoos.
• I want to learn how to be an Wildlife Tracker in South Africa.




• Socotra Island is a must-visit for 2012.
• Gladys Knight has a lovely voice.
• I really don’t care too much about the main sights the world has to offer, preferring much more to go anywhere and meet new people.
• I miss my afro.
• Did I mention wanting to walk around the world?
• Shaving my armpits is excellent, but why am I plucking my eyebrows as well?
• When am I going to finally sit down and learn how to play the banjo?
• I would love to show other people around India.
• As I get older, good water pressure in the shower and comfortable pillows are becoming much more important to me.
• Really, what am I trying to achieve with the blog and the traveling? What are my true goals with this lifestyle?
• I miss Mitch Hedberg.
• How do I help encourage more people to find a way to start traveling?
• I think it’s time for a one month silent meditation retreat.
• What happened to my goal of being a stand up comedian?
• It’s a good thing that Italian guy who wanted to cut my head off with a machete on board a cruise ship never managed to get the machete or hunting knives he bought while in port on board the ship.
• Sometimes, the way we humans spend our lives seems absurd and useless to me.
• How can I use the knowledge I’ve learned over the years in a way that benefits as many people as possible?
• I really need to update my music collection.
• Istanbul might be my new favorite city on the planet.
• I’m most content when laughing, being around close friends or meeting good people I never would have met had I never traveled.

Well, there you go. And truthfully, now that I’ve read over that list a few times myself, I’ve unfortunately been left shaking my head, feeling even more confused than before. I even started feeling a little sad that my head is full of such stuff. Why am I thinking of Mitch Hedberg, soft cheese and my afro from 10 years ago at a time like this? I need some direction. 2012 is only a few days away. Oh my.

But wait. Wait just a minute. What about all of you? Surely most of you will be entering 2012 in a state of some confusion as well. Isn’t it natural around this time of year for all of us to question what we’re doing in life and what we truly want to achieve during our time on this planet?

Surely I can’t be alone.

So, maybe all of us need to spend the next few days wisely. Perhaps we should all stop procrastinating, we should all put down the tweezers and stop plucking our eyebrows for a moment or two.

Then, we should start thinking seriously about what we want out of life. Let us all create a list of our most important goals and then read that list over and over again until we realize that life is far too short to just plod along for yet another year without trying to achieve them.

I’m in. Who’s coming with me?

Alright! I’ll just assume that most of you raised your hand and, as a result, I now feel a little better knowing that we’re all in this together. We’re all a little confused (right?), but at the same time, we’re all determined to find our way in 2012 and to make sure that the next time we ask ourselves, ‘What am I trying to accomplish?’, we have an answer and a plan to make it happen.

This post did its job after all.

Have a wonderful New Year’s everyone! Enjoy your celebrations, please be safe and whatever you do, I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from using kazoos.

Created during the Apartheid era, these communities, typically located on the outskirts of towns and cities, were designed to house the ‘non-whites’ who were living in what were then designated as ‘white-only’ parts of the country. Of course, these individuals were forcibly removed from their homes and placed into these segregated townships, most of which suffered from a severe lack of basic services.

Today, millions of people live in these townships as a result and there is apparently still some forced relocation taking place as the government tries to move people out of the shanty towns that still exist. And while some townships have fared well and even include a growing middle-class, the majority are still suffering from poor infrastructure and problems with education, among other issues such as gang violence.

Based upon that very brief description, I wouldn’t be surprised if your initial reaction would be to avoid visiting one of these communities during a visit to South Africa. Instead, you may prefer, as many travelers do, to visit a ‘cultural village’ which is a village created specifically for tourists in order to display the traditional cultures and customs of the people who have inhabited this region for, well, a very long time. The most well-known of such groups would be the Zulus.

But during our trip, we skipped the cultural villages. After all, a cultural village is similar to a museum, and while there’s nothing wrong with visiting a museum, it doesn’t offer an opportunity to see what life is like today, right now, for so many South Africans.

And even though this reality might be difficult for many travelers to see, that’s part of the learning experience.

However, I must admit to myself that this was not exactly how I felt at first when, during our visit to the eastern part of South Africa, we spent an afternoon visiting a Zulu township located in the heart of KwaZulu-Natal province.

NOT A GOOD START

When our vehicle turned off the main road and onto a dusty, dirt street a few kilometers outside of the town of St. Lucia, I immediately felt terribly uncomfortable. We had entered Khula township and I could not help but feel like such a tourist, as if I were here to gawk as an outsider and take a few photos of people that look different from me. I fidgeted in my seat, nodded awkwardly to the locals walking by and spent several minutes with my head down, fully aware that our small group stuck out only as a group of tourists know how to do.

It all seemed so wrong and so I just braced myself for what I assumed would be a most difficult afternoon.

A short distance down the road, our driver, a local Zulu from this very township, stopped the vehicle in front of a simple building. It turned out that this was a community centre that feeds and clothes dozens of orphans from the area, but I still couldn’t stop myself from hesitating for a few moments before joining the others who had entered the gate that led to a small courtyard.

But when I did enter the gate, and the dozens of energetic children came running up to all of us, shaking our hands and wanting to talk with us, I suddenly began to realize that this was not some tourist attraction after all, but a slice of reality that I really did need to see for myself.

The children were incredibly welcoming and so full of life, and they appeared so genuinely excited by our presence. I couldn’t help but smile as they piled on top of me, every child wanting to get into every photo that was being taken. In fact, the children were the ones insisting that the photos be taken, and they were also taking many of the photos themselves, politely asking for our cameras and for a quick lesson on how to use them, and then stepping back and snapping away.

Naturally, with all of the chatting, laughing and photo taking, our twenty minute stop passed quickly and when we finally pulled ourselves away from the courtyard, and I stepped back out of the gate, I had a completely different perspective about visiting a township. I now felt comfortable with the idea of interacting with everyone around me as these children helped break down that imaginary and unfortunate barrier that is sometimes created between visitors and locals all over the world.

After this experience, and as we continued to drive through the dusty streets, I found that my awkward nods had turned into waves and ‘sawubonas’, both of which were returned to me by everyone we encountered. And this was especially the case when we arrived, without warning, at the home of our driver, where we were greeted by his family, who had collectively cooked up a feast for our group.

We were invited into the home and we all sat down in the modest dining room where we ate fresh curries, salads and delicious beans in condensed milk. Keep in mind, this was not a house designed to accommodate tour groups, this was someone’s actual home, and everyone, from the family to the neighbors, seemed so interested and sincere in their desire to show us a slice of their lives.

We were able to ask questions and see with our own eyes how the people of these communities lived and interacted with each other. And despite the poverty, not a single person in our group, and not a single person we came across, had anything but a smile on their face.

MY CHANCE TO BE A WARRIOR

Upon completing our lunch, our group went for a short walk until we reached an area that was indeed set up for visitors, or at least the few visitors that trickle into Khula township. We took our seats on some logs scattered around and we joined the handful of local residents who came out of their homes to watch the performance as well.

What we watched was a group of ten orphaned boys give a display of traditional Zulu warrior dances. These boys actually spend most of their time, every day, practicing and performing these dances in order to help ensure that certain aspects of their culture did not disappear with the passing of time.

And not only did we get a chance to see this traditional dance in action, a couple of us were even invited (or maybe forced) to participate as well.

Matt (ExpertVagabond.com) and I suddenly found ourselves lined up with the Zulu boys in front of the small crowd, and we were instructed to simply follow along with the dancing as best we could. I was able to handle this part but it all went downhill as soon as we had to display our own individual versions of a Zulu warrior dance.

Let’s just say that I’m not much of a dancer, especially when it comes to pre-battle displays of aggression, but I gave it a try anyway…

Quite horrendous I know. You should have seen the faces of the local women who were watching. If they were drinking milk at the time, it certainly would have come out of their noses.

A WORTHWHILE EXPERIENCE

What I’m really trying to say with this post is that I do recommend a visit to a township when you’re in South Africa. While it may seem like a touristy and possibly uncomfortable thing to do at first, there are plenty of townships, such as Khula, that rarely see foreigners and are more than welcoming towards visitors.

And as a result, you have an opportunity to not only observe how millions of South Africans currently live, but you have a chance to interact with and learn from the local residents as well.

As you know, my travels are all about human connections and to be able to shake a hand and share a laugh with a Zulu woman or man with whom I would never have come into contact with had I never traveled, is just another life highlight for me, and another educational experience that I will never forget.

So, if you don’t treat the township as a tourist attraction, it simply won’t be one. Don’t feel uncomfortable. Just extend your hand and converse with the people around you. And then, you too will soon discover that such a visit just may be the most challenging, eye-opening and memorable experience of your trip to South Africa.

Have you been to a township? Would you consider visiting one on a trip to South Africa?

Now that you’ve watched the short video, please allow me to state that, in reality, I am of course very appreciative of the opportunities I’ve had to travel over the years, and especially for my recent trip to South Africa.

And hopefully you can understand that the only thing I did to reach this point of constant travel was to pack up my stuff and fly to Bangkok back in 1999 with a small amount of money in my pocket. That’s why I always encourage anyone interested in long-term travel to simply do whatever it takes to find a way to get started. Once you get out on the road, you never know where the path will lead and one day you just may find yourself on an unbelievable trip to South Africa as well.

I also want to mention again that the above video was shot in my beautiful room at The Marine Hermanus in the coastal town of Hermanus, South Africa, where Hamish and his wonderful team showered our small group with such unforgettable hospitality. Our stay here was simply perfect, and I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to recommend this establishment to anyone interested in treating themselves during their visit to South Africa.

Also, for anyone who has never eaten the dessert known as Cape Malva Pudding, please do so at the restaurant inside of The Marine if you’re ever in the area. Really, just eat it. And the next time I see you, I’ll gladly accept your hug of appreciation for the recommendation!

Finally, I’d like to point out that the video itself was shot by Matt from ExpertVagabond.com and I owe him a huge thank you for filming my nonsense!

*My trip to South Africa was organized by the South African Tourism Board, however, all of my posts are my own words and opinions based upon my own personal experiences. My posts are in no way influenced by any person and/or organization.