How to Travel the World

           This is not a comprehensive guide on how to travel the world, I'm not experienced or motivated enough to write that. Plus it wouldn't fit in one blog post. But it is how I've travelled the world. I've been to 5 continents and 22 countries (adding two more in the next couple of months) since leaving home for the first time eight years ago. Here’s how I've done it, and how you can too:

1) Get university credits for travelling

            Are you in university or college? Thinking of going? Depending on your school and program of choice, you may be able to get university credits overseas. At my university they offer programs called Study Tours, which give students the opportunity to travel to such varying places as New York, India, Mexico, Ecuador, and many more. These study tours are available for students studying a range of topics, from geography to biology to art to fashion design. They allow groups of students (anywhere from 10-25 at a time) to travel to other parts of the world and actually see what it is they are studying, with an instructor or two there to explain everything (which is clearly better than reading about it in a textbook).

            In university I majored in Geography and International Issues, with an extended minor in Latin American Studies. This allowed for a lot of studying overseas. The first time I got on a plane I was headed to Spain for a month on one of these study tours. It was that trip that ignited my passion for travel, and for the rest of my university career I took every opportunity I had to get my credits while travelling  I studied volcanoes, geomorphology, religion and city planning across three Hawaiian islands. I learned about glaciation, super volcanoes, forest fires, and the history of national parks in Grand Teton and Yellowstone. I saw firsthand the effect of rising sea levels and wave action all down the Washington coast. I spent a month in Mexico experiencing the vibrant culture, drinking tequila that’s actually good (and learning why), exploring countless Aztec ruins, and discovering religions I didn't even know existed. All in the name of education. I probably got about 30% of my university credits this way. And I learned a million times more than I would have sitting in a classroom.

Yes, this is school

           So don’t think you have to wait until you’re done school to start travelling  Do your research and find out of your school offers similar programs. I promise you won’t regret it.

2) Do an Internship

          Again, something you can do as part of your education. An overseas internship may be offered through your university for credits or you can find your own and just use it to pad your resume and experience. Many internships are either partly or fully funded, it’s just a matter of finding them.

This depends on your area of interest, but if you want to avoid doing an internship in an office building down the street it’s a good idea to look at your country’s international development agency. Canadians can find many international internship opportunities through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), 

while Americans should be able to find them through the US Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID). Another good option is AISEC, a global student-run organization that can help you find funded internships in the areas of development, management, education and engineering/technical.

A couple years ago I had the opportunity to do an internship in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, organized by my alma mater. I’d already graduated at this time, but it was easier to do an internship through the university and having that support system rather than trying to find my own and going in alone and blind. I spent three months interning at a non-profit organization called Women Fund Tanzania, and learned so much more about the country and its people than I would have just travelling there on my own. I also volunteered at KidzCare Tanzania, a children's home and nursery school which I wouldn't have known about it were not for the connection made by my university. After my internship I spent a month travelling around Kenya and Zambia on my own, something I would have been terrified of doing alone had I not already been living in Africa for the last three months. Scared to travel alone? Do an internship or volunteer in the area first, you’ll soon get over your fear!

With some of the KidzCare boys

PS: Because of the internship I did in Tanzania I am going back to Africa for another internship this year, this time in Kenya. Make those connections and opportunity will abound!

3) Work on a Cruise Ship

In late 2011 I decided I needed a paying job that allowed me to travel, so I applied to work on a cruise ship. I had applied to work at the shore excursions desk on board, thinking that since I've done all these things I would be the perfect person to sell them! Well I didn't get hired to sell shore excursions but I did get hired as a youth counsellor (kind of like a camp counsellor at sea). The only experience I had working with kids was some high school work experience at an elementary school, a little bit of coaching and my time spent volunteering at KidzCare Tanzania, but that was enough. The great thing about being hired as a youth counsellor is that it’s a seasonal position: I’m only needed when kids are on breaks from school, so I don’t need to spend nine months at a time at sea. My first time at sea was one week in the Caribbean for spring break. My second contract was three months cruising between Seattle and Alaska in the summer. And I’ll be returning to the Caribbean for a month this spring. Winter contracts are available too, but I chose to skip out this year and spend Christmas at home.

            Don’t enjoy working with children? There are plenty of other options at sea. Cruise ships need people with retail experience to work in the shops, servers, cooks, and busboys to work in the restaurants, bartenders in the nightclubs and bars, dancers, singers, musicians, and other entertainers in the shows. They need security guards, maintenance workers, lighting and sound technicians, DJs  fitness instructors, hotel employees. Engineers and sailors. You name it; you can do it on a cruise ship (almost).

            Pay varies between cruise lines (some great, some not so great) and also varies depending on the country you reside in based on cost of living, e.g. North Americans are paid more than someone from the Philippines. Flights to and from the port are paid for by the cruise line, as is a hotel room if required before you board the ship. On board you’ll be given a (very small) cabin which you’ll usually share with a roommate and all meals will be free. Alcoholic drinks aren't free but they are damn cheap in the crew bar! Shore excursions are also free, you just need to request them ahead of time and hope you get something good. On my last contract in Alaska I did over US$2000 worth of free excursions, including things like snorkelling, zip-lining  whale watching, wildlife parks, rafting, etc. And with all these things being free, I was able to save basically all the money I made! To spend on more travel of course.

Clearly excited about free food on board

4) Teach English

Did you know that you don’t need to commit to a yearlong contract to teach English overseas? Neither did I until recently. I had always been interested in teaching English, I even studied for my TEFL certificate, but I didn't want to sign a yearlong contract then go to the other side of the world and absolutely hate it. Every English teaching position I looked into seemed to have a yearlong contract attached to it, which is all well and good if you know you enjoy teaching. But I didn't have a clue if I would even like it, so I hadn't pursued any positions seriously until I came across a company that hires teachers for English camps. I discovered English Beyond Borders (EBB) through a friend that had worked with them, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. In South Korea students have a month break in summer and a month break in winter. During these breaks some of the universities put on English Camps, where the students come for two to four weeks and learn the English language from a native speaker. The university that EBB works with will fly English teachers to South Korea, put them up in a dorm on campus, and pay for all meals (in the cafeteria) while they’re teaching, plus provide an acceptable pay cheque  They even allow teachers to fly home up to a month after their contract is finished, to allow time to explore the country.

            I just did this for the first time this January and, besides the bitter cold, I absolutely loved it. I taught for about two weeks and then hung out in Seoul for another five days or so, although I could have stayed longer. Flights paid for only two weeks of work? Yes please! I am definitely applying next winter if something else doesn't come up.

My Korean students and I

            You don’t need any teaching experience for this job (I didn't have any), but you do need be a native English speaker from an English speaking country and have at least a bachelor’s degree.

5) Strap on a backpack and get out there!

            No excuses, if you want to travel just do it. I did two big backpacking trips, one around South East Asia and one around South America, all on the money I saved selling TVs and video games at Wal-Mart. If an underpaid Wal-Mart associate can do it, so can you.

You too could pretend to march into a giant Pringles can in the Salar de Uyuni

Screw Fear

I'm taking part in BootsnAll's 30 Days of Indie Travel Project, in which they are inviting bloggers from around the world to join them in a daily blogging effort reflecting on our past travel experiences.
Today is Day 6 and the topic is FEAR:

People are always telling me how brave I am to travel to all these "exotic" and "scary" places. They always say, "oh, I could never do the things you do, I'd be too afraid". I've had people tell me that they're afraid to stay in a hostel. Really? What exactly is scary about a hostel? You know that movie wasn't real, right?
I don't consider myself all that brave, yet I often find myself doing things other people are too "afraid" to do.
For me, travel is not about being brave. It's not about overcoming my fears, although that is certainly a part of it sometimes. I see it like this: I want to do something, so I am going to do it. It's that simple. Sure, I get scared sometimes. But that's not going to stop me from exploring the world and experiencing everything that I want to experience. Even if I have to do it on my own because everyone else is too scared to come with me.
Everybody gets scared, but that shouldn't stop you from doing a single thing you desire to do. And besides, travelling is not scary. Get out of your damn comfort zone for once.

I'm going to tell you about just a few of the somewhat scary things that have happened to me, and how they have not changed my desire to get out of my comfort zone one single bit. These are not in any particular order.

1. On my first day in Malindi, Kenya, I was talking to this guy named Nero about the things I planned to see and do while I was there. I mentioned that I wanted to go see these particular ruins outside of town, but I didn't know how to get there. So Nero offered to take me there on his motorcycle. I was a little hesitant at first because I had just met this guy, but I finally agreed because I like free transportation and he seemed nice enough. He drove me out to these ruins and then took me to the little beach town of Watamu (which was incredibly beautiful). He even took me into the village where I met his mother, brothers and baby sisters, all living in a little mud house. And we went to his dad's bar, where I got to try munazi, the local palm wine. I went all over the Malindi area with him and saw places tourists rarely see. And then things got weird. I went back to my guesthouse and told him to call me later about a reggae show he had mentioned. I almost immediately passed out due to a long day and when I awoke hours later I had a bunch of missed calls from him and a few irate text messages. Then I heard yelling outside. I peeked out my window and there was Nero yelling at the man at the front desk, who was smart enough to keep the front door locked at all times. I decided right then that I wanted nothing more to do with this guy, put my headphones on, and tried to go back to sleep. In the morning the man at the desk told me that Nero had been threatening him because he wouldn't come upstairs to let me know he was there. He even tried to fight a security guard. He said this went on for quite a while, but he stood his ground and I'm glad he did. That guest house employee was my new best friend.
I avoided Nero for my last couple days in Malindi, but it's not like I wish I hadn't met him or anything. If I had been too scared to get on that motorcycle I would have missed out on all those experiences. I wouldn't have seen the beautiful beaches of Watamu and got a lovely henna design on my arm, I wouldn't have gone through villages where all the children chased after and yelled  "ciao!" at me instead of "jambo", I wouldn't even know what munazi is. So, even though things got scary a little later, I don't at all regret getting on Nero's motorcycle. And I'm sure I will hitch a ride with a stranger again if it means I get a free tour.

Watamu Beach

2. I have always loved baboons. I don't know what it is, but they are one of my favourite animals. So when I was at Victoria Falls in Zambia I was delighted to see dozens of baboons of all sizes all over the place. I assumed they must be used to people since the area was crawling with tourists, so I didn't hesitate to get within feet of them. Well, actually I kind of had to because they were crowding the pathways. After strolling among baboons for a while I stopped to take a picture of a particularly large one sitting on a fence. As I was taking the picture he growled at me a little bit so I backed up. As I backed up another even larger baboon came from the side and jumped on me. I screamed and he grabbed my bag, which was attached to me, and tried to make off with it. I had to fight this baboon for my bag for what felt like minutes (it was probably only a few seconds). Finally he let go and ran away but he ripped the front of my bag nearly off. Shaken, I quickly left for an area with fewer baboons and none of them bothered me again. I'm just happy it was my bag he ripped and not a body part, because that guy was strong and could have done some serious damage like ripping my arm off. I still like baboons, I just think that was a particularly evil one.

The picture I took just before I was attacked

3. I was in Melaka, Malaysia, wandering around the night market with my friend Jodie when I noticed this man that seemed to be standing either at the same table as us or one table over for the last while. I thought I must be imagining it, but as we moved around between vendors he was always close by. Finally I discretely pointed him out to Jodie and we decided to lose him. We pushed into a crowd of people and made our way to a different section of the market, but this time he was clearly following us. He saw us look back straight at him and he knew we were on to him. He started walking faster toward us and we pushed our way faster through the crowd, worried about what exactly this man wanted. We dashed into a brightly lit store and then out a second entrance that took us out onto a side street. We wanted to just leave the area altogether and get away from this guy, but we didn't want him following us home so we stopped at a cafe to wait it out. While we  were eating a delicious piece of cake we saw him walk by the cafe, probably looking for us or some other foreign girls to harass or who knows what else. We waited for a while to make sure he was actually gone and then walked home, checking behind us the whole way. I have no idea why this man was following us, and I'm sure if he tried anything the people in the market would have done something, but that was definitely a scary few minutes of my life. Am I afraid to go back to Malaysia now and peruse night markets? Of course not, strange men could follow us anywhere.

Melaka at night

4. When I was in Thailand I paid for a bus to take me from the east coast to the west coast, where I was headed to Phuket. It was one of those mini buses that are usually reserved for tourists, and this one was filled with my friends and I plus a bunch of other backpackers. I think there were over ten in total. We got on the bus and drove for hours before stopping at a restaurant where they told us we would have to switch buses. OK, that was fine, it happens occasionally. So we waited, and waited, and waited, and then they told us that that bus wasn't coming and if we wanted to get to Phuket that night we would have to pay for another bus. The other travellers and I banded together and refused to pay again, so eventually the person who seemed to be in charge decided to take us to the office. At the office they told us a bus would be coming shortly, so we waited for a while. And then they told us that the bus wouldn't be there til morning so we had to get out of the office as they were closing. We didn't even know the name of the town we were in so there was no way we were going to go out there in the middle of the night and try to find a place to stay until morning. We argued this with the woman running the place and told her there was no way we were leaving that office and we wanted our money back, etc. And then we noticed the menacing-looking men with motorbikes standing at the entrance. As we noticed them a few of them pulled out what looked like broken table legs with nails in them from behind their bikes. And they stood there holding them, like they were threatening us with them. So we had this woman threatening to throw us on the street and these men on the street who looked ready to beat us with table legs. This was not a good situation. We discussed it with each other and finally agreed to just pay this woman again if she would get us to Phuket that night. It's not like it cost a lot, it was just the principle of the thing: we didn't want to pay for the same trip twice. But I would rather pay twice then get beaten up in some unknown town over a bus fare.
Through this experience we made friends with the other backpackers on the bus and a bunch of us ended up going to Patong Beach, Phuket together. We got an awesome hotel there for a ridiculously low price thanks to one of the Aussies on the bus who was headed there, we drank altogether too much Sang Som and towers of beer and pretty much had an awesome time. If it weren't for those scamming bus people we would never have bonded like we did. So our negative situation turned into a positive.

The bus scam crew

Now some people will say, "see, travel is scary, these things will happen to me too!". But guess what? I've travelled through 5 continents and 17 countries and these are the most fear-inducing situations I can come up with off the top of my head. After these, and many other misadventures, I'm still alive and in one piece aren't I? I think that's all that matters. You can be scared of things all you want, but don't be afraid to live. I say screw fear, do what you want.