2 years ago, on January 25th 2010, I was sitting in a plane to Shanghai. It was the start of an amazing journey – click picture to enlarge
The order of travelled cities:
Frankfurt ( pink dot ) > Shanghai > Hangzhou > Kuala Lumpur > Perhentian Island > Kuala Lumpur > Mumbai > Dehli > Himachal Pradesh > Kashmir > Ladakh > Punjab > Delhi > Bangalore > Mumbai > Kuweit > Cairo > Alexandria > Cairo > Frankfurt > Hamburg > Copenhagen > Hamburg > Frankfurt > Addis Ababa > Bishoftu > Addis Ababa > Frankfurt > Hamburg > Ildved > Copenhagen > Hamburg > St. Gallen > Frankfurt > Bangalore > Kuala Lumpur > Brisbane > Rainbow Beach > Agnes Waters > Taroom > Brisbane > Kuala Lumpur > Perhentian Island > Kuala Lumpur > Frankfurt > Berlin > Frankfurt > San Francisco > Phoenix > Cancun > Havanna > Vinales > Havanna > Santo Domingo > Las Terenas > Cabarete > Barahona > Santo Domingo ( blue dot )
What a trip. Some might wonder how it is possible to only have that many cities on the map after traveling for 2 years. A lot of people ask me if I went to this or that place to visit and when I said “no” they were always like “why not, you’re traveling to the country and didn’t see this spot?”
The answer is easy. I am not a tourist. I don’t go to places to see things I’m going to places to live them. I stay with the people I work for which automatically means that I am living their lifes. If they go out a lot, I go out a lot. If they work a lot I work a lot. If they drink a lot I drink a lot and if they don’t go out or work or drink at all, I do the same.
It’s not about visiting the sights of a location, it’s all about the interaction of myself with the city I live in and the people I hang out with. Sometimes I assimilate within hours and sometimes it takes weeks to get used to a particular lifestyle.
The bottom line is that I didn’t just visit 36 cities on 5 continents in 15 different countries, but that I lived almost a dozen different lifes within those two years.
And it’s not over yet. What was planned as a 2 years travel has to be extended for a couple of weeks/months. Things happen that you can’t plan and other things happen that you can expect but not avoid. I recently ran out of money. Not a big deal considering the fact that I have the greatest place in the Caribbean to stay for free and living a fantastic life.
I concentrated on doing a small side job for a german company the past few weeks to have enough money to continue traveling. And what a surprise, on my 2nd anniversary the money appears on my account and I am able to finish my amazing journey with the grand final. South America is awaiting me as the last ( populated ) continent to fulfill my task of working on all continents within this trip.
Apart from the job I concentrated on living the life so I started surfing and saw a lot of this chillaxed country. It’s gonna be hard to leave and get back on the road and some random couch.
You’ll here from me
fabsn
Photo © Elena from Ali’s Surfcamp in Cabarete. More surf pictures in the photo section
- click picture to enlarge
Cabarete Surfcamp
