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New Year’s Travel Resolutions From International Travelers

Erin — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 10:39:22 +0000

It’s hard to believe we’re already over two weeks into the new year. It seems like just yesterday we were all celebrating the start of the year and now, here we are, two and a half weeks into it. It seems this year is going to be another fast one. As is customary with every New Year, we all make resolutions. Eat better, exercise more, be more kind, do better in school, etc. Those are staples for my New Year’s Resolutions, as I’m sure they are for many people. This year, though, I wanted to have more goals than just the typical ones. I want to things a bit different this year. For my resolutions I decided to add some for travel. Being able to travel is a wonderful opportunity and I think there are things I could do with it that I’ve neglected in the past. RESOLUTION: Take the time to slow down and appreciate the places I get to see I love to travel and have the wonderful opportunity to do it often and I think sometimes I take it for granted. Normally our trips are fast-paced and very much a whirlwind. I think we miss out on a lot traveling like that. So, this year I have resolved to slow down a bit more when I travel and really take the time to appreciate the experiences I’m having. I’d like to be able to learn more about the people and how they live along with understanding their culture better. After thinking about and deciding what I wanted to do differently as I travel this year, I started wondering if there were other travelers out there who were making travel-related goals for themselves. I asked around a bit and was quite interested in the responses I got. Stu & Eloise from Am I Nearly There Yet? RESOLUTION: Explore more of Europe 2016 is all about European travel for us! We’ve spent the past 4 years in Asia and in Australia – so we’re taking full advantage of being back in the UK for a while! We definitely missed being so near to other countries – it’s crazy that we can fly to Holland in the same time it takes to fly to the next big city in Australia! We’re thinking of multiple, short trips – working as we go, focusing on developing our businesses and focusing on our digital nomad lifestyle. First destination: Iceland! Bring it on! Patty from The Savvy Globetrotter RESOLUTION: Focus on destinations where my dog can go with me My travel resolution for 2016 involves taking more trips with one of my favorite travel companions – my canine companion. Although my dog and I have been on several road and plane trips in the ten years we’ve been together, many destinations I enjoy traveling to are, unfortunately, off-limits. Whether the flight is simply too long for him or the destination is just not pet-friendly enough, my furry friend is not always able to accompany me. This is especially unfortunate as he is an enthusiastic and well-behaved traveler who loves a good adventure. While packing for my trips, I often find him sitting in my suitcase with a big, eager smile on his face. I’m not sure if it is a stowaway attempt or he’s just trying to charm his way along but it has worked. I plan to focus many of my travels for 2016 on dog-friendly destinations my adventurer can enjoy with me. Inma from A World to Travel RESOLUTION: Push myself further Go on an epic snowboarding trip as I used to do during my twenties, and a scuba diving one. Basically, reach higher mountains and deeper oceans! Claudia from My Adventures Across the World RESOLUTION: Visit Gili again 2015 has marked the year of my first trip to South East Asia. I have been to Indonesia, and I have wandered around Java, Bali and the Komodo Islands. One of the biggest regrets I have is not having taken the chance to spend some time in Gili Island. To be honest, before going to Indonesia I had not even heard about them. Then, as I met more and more travelers who were headed there, I became curious about them and started reading and looking at pictures. They seem like my kind of place: no cars, few commodities, lots of nature and time to relax, think and enjoy nature at its best. If there is one resolution I have for 2016, that would be traveling to Indonesia again just to go to Gili. Margherita from The Crowded Planet RESOLUTION: Incorporate more walking into our trips My resolution for 2016 is walking more. I’ve always been a fan of hiking – I spent many years hiking every weekend and in 2013 I walked the Camino de Santiago, from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic Ocean. When my husband and I started blogging, we started falling out of shape and exercising less, so our resolution for next year is trying to stay as active as possible and planning a long-distance walking trip that will take us across Finland and part of Sweden for a total of 450 km – we are aiming to conclude our trip in Stockholm in time for TBEX 2016. We decided to plan a long walking trip with lots of wild camping because we love being close to nature, and when you’re on a long-distance hike the world kind of ‘slows down’ – just what we need after a hectic time blogging and travelling. Charles from McCool Travel RESOLUTION: Travel more while spending less and get back in shape My travel resolutions include visiting more places in 2016 while spending less money. That will require some stealthy and resourceful techniques, like home exchanges. Another major resolution is to lose some weight, which I honestly find easier to do when I travel. Stefan & Sebastian from Nomadic Boys RESOLUTION: Spend more time exploring the places we visit Our travel resolution for 2016 is to travel a lot slower than we have been doing. We spent the past 17 months travelling in Asia, which was awesome. But trying to maintain and grow a blog at the same time is a lot of work alongside all the travel planning, exploring, photography etc etc. At most we’d base ourselves in a place for 1 month before moving on and that was never enough. So, for our next trip to Latin America in 2016, we plan to do it over a greater period of time and basing ourselves in places for much longer. One particular way of doing this, which we’ve heard a lot about is house sitting. Lauren from #ljojlo RESOLUTION: Go to Antartcita Travel Resolutions for 2016….well there is tonnes that come to mind but only one that stands out, ANTARCTICA. Antarctica is the continent I so desperately desperately (yes two desperatelys) want to get to however I can. Therefore, the travel resolution for 2016 is to save enough money to be able to get myself on a boat from Ushuaia at the bottom of Argentina over to the exquisite white continent. Hannah from That Adventurer RESOLUTION: Explore more of the UK countryside In 2016 I want to spend more time exploring the UK’s beautiful countryside! There’s National Parks, lakes, hills and endless open fields that are waiting to be explored and it’s so easy to forget about your own back yard. My main adventure in 2016 will be tackling the Coast to Coast route by bike! This route takes you from Whitehaven on the West Coast to Sunderland on the North East Coast of England and is doable in a weekend (although I might give myself an extra day!). But, before tackling it, I’m going to have to get on that rickety old bike of mine! Me, again! RESOLUTION: Bring awareness to poverty around the world I think this is my big goal this year. Most of my travels have been centered in Southeast Asia and living there really opened my eyes to a way of life I hadn’t truly understood. I knew life there would be quite different, but it’s not until I was actually there and saw firsthand how poverty-stricken some villages are that it really hit me how blessed we are in the United States (and all Western countries). There’s so much suffering and need around the world. One of my other resolutions for 2016 is to help bring awareness to the countries that still don’t have access the clean water and basic medical care and to find some way I can help. Now that you’ve read all of our resolutions for this year, I’m curious to hear what other resolutions people are making. What changes are you planning to make in your life this year?

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Visiting the Great Wall of China

Erin — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 00:50:24 +0000

I’ll tell you now, before I get into my post, that this post has a LOT of pictures. I hope you enjoy my journey along the top of the Great Wall of China! To pick up where my last post left off, after we hung up with Kevin we wandered around the Beijing Olympic Stadium for a while. The tour company called us several times, asking if we wanted them to come get us, where we were, what had upset us (haha, that one was funny) and if we could work out a deal. We weren’t about to tell them where we were and we definitely didn’t want to attempt another ride with them, so we just kept waiting on Kevin to call us back. And goofing off. I mean, even if we’re somewhat stranded in the middle of Beijing and a bit stressed out from our day going so crazy, we can still have fun, right? After about an hour Kevin called us and said he’d found someone who could take us to the Great Wall. The price would be 600RMB and there would be no superfluous stops along the way. We were ecstatic to have a ride to the Wall, regardless of the price increase, and quickly went to where he said his friend would meet us. He was there when we got there and within minutes we were on our way. I feel terrible that none of us remember his name, but I think part of it was that we were all so frazzled and stressed about the morning’s events. He was really nice, so I’m sure he will forgive us. From this point on, though, almost everything went just the way we wanted it to. Kevin’s friend was really great. He drove us straight to the Great Wall and chatting with us along the way. He was very nice and very friendly and, most importantly, didn’t try to con us out of any money. After an hour of driving and feeling more relaxed than we had all day, we arrived at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. While the Great Wall was first begun around 700 BC, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall was built during the 6th century AD. After a few hundred years it began to crumble and in 1569 this section of the wall was repaired with some parts being entirely rebuilt. On the east lies the Gubeikou section and on the west is the Juyongguan Pass. Of all the sections of the Great Wall, the Mutianyu section is the best-preserved, most unique and had the largest scale of construction, though it is one of the lesser-visited areas. After a quick lunch and figuring out a game plan, we took off to ascend the Great Wall. We’d considered climbing the stairs up to the top, but there are over 4,000 of them. As in-shape as we are, 4,000 steps in a row is a lot and we didn’t want to wear ourselves out before we’d seen anything. What’s the point of using all of our energy getting up the wall and then not having any left to explore it? So, up the chair lift we went and got to see our first view of the Wall. The first thing I noticed about the wall when we got to the top is how level it is not. You’d think the Great Wall would be flat with gentle grades, but it’s really quite steep at some parts. Honestly, by the end of the day I was thinking they should change the name from The Great Wall of China to The Great Staircase of China. Seems more fitting, considering how many steps you have to climb.The entirety of the Great Wall, including branch-offs, spans roughly 13,171 miles. The Mutianyu section is the longest section of the Great Wall and runs about 14 miles in length. No, we did not walk the entire thing. lol. The section we visited is flanked by two “no-tourist” areas, so it is only 1.5 miles in length. But that’s a little misleading because if you take the chairlift up, it deposits you a little over a quarter of a mile from the end. If you want to walk the entire thing, you have to go all the way to the right for about .3 miles and then go the full 1.5 miles the way to the other end. If you choose to go down the tobaggan ride just past the end (the tower just before the wall cuts left and goes straight up), that’s another .06 miles, so in reality you end up doing 1.86 miles if you go from one end to the other. We decided to go back down where we came up, so including the 1.2 mile backtracking, we did about 3 miles overall. It wasn’t too bad. A bit hot, but we had hats and plenty of water, so we were fine. In addition to the main wall, there are various offshoot sections that have not been repaired and are off limits to tourists. Some you can walk down and others you can’t. Someone wanted to make sure the world knew they were here. Vandalism? Or a 6th century version of writing your name in cement?Overall there are 23 watchtowers that dot the top of the Wall. They are spaced roughly 328 feet (100 meters) apart. The interior of the watchtowers seems sparse now, but I imagine there were tables, wall hangings, cots, a warm fire, maybe a rug or two and other bits of comfort for those who had to live here.The neverending stairs of the Great Wall of China. Seriously. There were more stair sections than flat sections on the wall.When I see how dense the forest is around the Wall, it makes me wonder why anyone would want to attack through this area and how people on the wall could see the attackers in the forest. Maybe that’s why this section is the best preserved? It had the fewest number of attackers and therefore the least damage?Getting to the top of the watchtowers isn’t too hard. While it’s possible to walk across the slant to get up there, they’ve blocked that part off so you can only go up via the stairs inside the watchtower.This is Zheng Guan Tai Pass. This layout of three towers, as well as the interior connection of the towers, is something that is only seen at this section of the wall. For some reason, I didn’t get any shots of the actual pass itself, just shots with the pass off to the side. Oh well. It’s not a terrible shot.The hidden red door! We climbed down an area that I don’t think we were supposed to and found this red door. Not sure where it goes, but I thought it was kinda cool. Perhaps it’s a magical door that takes people to Narnia! Now I’m sad we didn’t try to open it. 🙁 One thing I found curious about the wall was the shift and tilt. It would be flat one moment and then sharply angled within a few steps. With as masterful as the Chinese are with their buildings, I’m sure this wasn’t an accident or the result of careless construction. Can’t find anything about it online, so I’m curious about why the level of the wall changes so much.Looking back at where we started. We began at a landing just to the right of where I took this picture and then climbed up to the watchtower at the top of the hill before turning around and coming back towards the opposite end. It’s about .3 miles from this point to the far tower.Far off remnants of fortification branches.One of the interesting facts I learned about the Great Wall is that the Mutianyu section was designed with defensive fortifications on both sides of the wall. The battlements have merlons (crenellated parapets) and arrow loops on both the interior and exterior of the watchtowers and the ramparts.Signal towers dot the mountains near the wall.Seeing the views from the watchtowers, I think I would have been okay with living there.The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall was built mainly with granite instead of the brick, tile, limestone and rammed earth that make up other parts of the wall. This is one of the reasons that it is the best-preserved section of the Wall.This is more of what I had imagined the top of the wall to be like: smooth and flat with sloping curves. Not the mountain of stairs we ended up climbing. Interestingly, the Wall varies between 23-26 feet high and 13-17 feet wide. I had expected it to be tall (which it is), but hadn’t expected it to be so wide. It’s wide enough that two small cars could drive past each other in some parts! Almost to the end! The tower in the upper left corner is where we turned around and went back. We could have gotten down off the wall by that watchtower, but we wanted to go back down by where our driver was waiting for us. Sometimes it felt like the Wall was never going to end. lol The mountains in this area are just beautiful. I would love to go back in the fall and see how fiery the mountains become when the leaves change colors. So close! And this was the end. The last tower of our journey. If we pressed on and went through the tower, we would have ended up at an area where people could ride down to the bottom of the mountain. But that’s not what we wanted to do, so we turned around and trekked back to where we started. With all of our stops for pictures and such, it took us about two and a half hours from the time we got off the chair lifts until we reached this tower. On the way back to the start, we came across this sign. It reads: Founded in 1404, number 14 tower was [a] border command post at that time. Though these tower[s] were in different shapes, such as a broad bedroom in the middle, its circumference was surrounded by corridors–. gyrus shaped is the common feature.” According to Miriam-Webster online, a gyrus is “a convoluted ridge between anatomical grooves”. Anyone want to take a guess at what the sign is trying to say? We also went down to explore this tower. It looked like all the rest of them. lol No clue what this sign means. Google has come up empty.Almost back to the beginning. In the cradle of the mountains you can see a valley with a small village in it. That is Mutianyu Village and before the Wall became a popular tourist destination, this village was struggling. Even though the Mutianyu section is one of the lesser-visited sections, there are enough tourists here each year to keep the village solvent. There’s even a resort there now. I can’t find anything out about this guy, but he is pretty cool. And, of course, while we were there we had to have photos of us at the Wall. This one was at the beginning when we walked to the end closest to where the chair lifts dropped us off. I’m only a little bit sweaty at this point. Gah. I am SOOOOOO glad Troy doesn’t have this awful goatee anymore. The one he has now is trimmed and well-kept. This was about halfway from the end where our first picture was taken to the far peak where we could go no further. As you can see, I’m very VERY sweaty. lol. It was August and very hot with high humidity. We were very happy we had lots of water in our backpacks.Getting up the Wall we rode a chair lift. We could have done that on the way down, but decided it would be so much more fun if we rode the tobagan! I took this video of my ride down the slide. Towards the end you can hear me yell at someone to slow down....

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