TravelingOnce a journal is designed, equipped and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness... We find after yers of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us...Only when this is recognized... do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. --- John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley (1960) Short version: "The world is a book; those who don't travel read only one page" My five year, 65 country trip is at the bottom of page. More recent travels (taking me to 80 countries) are on top... Recent Travel 2012 2011 Jan: Venice Feb: Bruges May: Israel Jun: Copenhagen and Rome Aug: Burning Man Dec: Egypt 2010 Jan-Mar: Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. Jun-Jul: Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama Jul: Bozeman and some parks :) Aug: Burning Man Nov: Brussels 2009 Jul: Amsterdam, Cornwall/Devon with Anne Aug: Burning Man Nov: Anne Visits again! 2008 Apr: Death Valley and back (no photos of flat tires...) Jun: Washington DC for Flights of Fire and TransforUs (Ashville, NC) Aug: Burning Man 2007 Jan: Chicago ASSA Meeting Jul: Portland Jun-Jul: Iceland, the UK and NYC Sep: Burning Man Oct: Brussels, Prague and Passau Dec-Jan: New York and New Orleans 2006 Jan: Boston ASSA Meeting (ASSA means "Allied Social Sciences Association", but it's only for economists!) Feb: Mt Lassen XC-Ski Mar: Cuba and Yucatan. [Comments] 2005 (15 air trips in 3 months vs. 25 in 5 years on the road). Click on the SPONSOR or EVENT for info, the PLACE for photos. Jun 18 - 24: Institute for Humane Studies hosted the Social Change Workshop for Graduate Students at University of Virginia. Jul 10-14: European Science Days hosted the Summer School on Economics, Extra-legal Protection and Organized Crime in Steyr, Austria. Also visited Linz and Wien. Jul 18-21: CESifo hosted the Summer Institutes on Economics and Psychology and Political Economy and Development in Venezia, Italy. [Photos from Venezia] Jul 24-30: Foundation for Teaching Economics hosted the Economics for Leaders summer school at Claremont McKenna College, California. Aug 10-14: Association for Evolutionary Economics hosted the Institutional Economics in the 21st Century summer school at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Aug 16: Passed my oral exam and had a party. Aug 25-27: Lancaster University Department of Sociology hosted the Perspectives on Moral Economy Conference in Lancaster, England. [Photos from England and Wales] [Photos from Scotland] Sep 29-Oct 1: International Society for New Institutional Economics hosted The Institutions of Market Exchange Conference at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. [Photos from Spain] Oct 14-16: Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy hosted the Tenth International Karl Polanyi Conference at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. [Photos from Turkey] Oct 20-21: Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) hosted Advances in the Theory of Contests and Tournaments Conference in Germany. [Photos from Berlin] Oct 28-29: The Bren School of Environmental Science and Management hosted the 8th Occasional California Workshop on Environmental and Resource Economics at UC Santa Barbara. [Beach and Halloween Photos]2004 Jul: Peru & El Salvador Aug: Experimental Economics Workshop at George Mason University and DC Xmas/New Years: Paris & Amsterdam 2003 Jun: Free Market Environmentalism summer school at PERC. Here's a photo. I traveled for five years (April 1995 to April 2000) to 65 countries in Europe and Asia. I wanted to travel because I was curious about the world and felt that being there is a lot more informative than reading or viewing information about a country (especially when one considers the role of editing!). I traveled most of the time but went back to the States twice (for three weeks and two months), each time after about 18 months of travel. Money? I budgeted, saved, and spent about $50,000 (or $10,000/year or $30/day as a rule of thumb) on the trip. I invested all this money in the stock market before I left and returned with more than I started with! This was an excellent example of a "free lunch." Some may argue that I would have made more both working and not spending my money, but I tend to think that travel is better than work and the stock market lost a lot of dot-com gains right after I returned (taking my early retirement dreams with it!). It was a sort of free lunch followed by proof that free lunches don't last for long! Click here for trip statistics.The hardest part of the travel was deciding to go. The best part was people. The worst part was the mail service (I found internet everywhere). Every country was interesting in a way; every country gets better as memory of past horrors fade. My favorites were Egypt, Hungary (rather, Budapest), India, Israel (rather, Jerusalem), Italy, Laos, Kirgizstan, Madagascar, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Spain, Turkey, and Yemen. I missed Iran and Iraq. I wasn't sick very often. Someone asked me what I learned in five years. I learned that parents love their children. The rest of my experience was about coping with me, what I wanted, what I couldn't get and why that hardly mattered. Photos and rants are complementary pages from the big trip. Photos are probably more relaxing to view; rants may elicit your frustration - either because you disagree with my "crazed" views or, worse, if you agree with how bad some things are. I still have three years of travel left (Africa, C/S America, Malaysia and south). |
