How Did It All Get Started?

[Osiris]

How did you first get into traveling?

Were you dragged around the Earth by wandering parents?
Did you want to spite an ex that always wanted to roam the world?
Were you on the run from the law and needed to get somewhere that wouldn't extradite you?

I grew up poor and never had the chance to go anywhere as a kid. I went on vacation to a neighboring state once to visit some relatives. When I became an adult and realized I could go wherever the hell I wanted I roamed across a few of the states before flying off to Central America a couple times.

When I first went to Guatemala to study, everyone asked me why I didn't want to go "someplace safe" like England or France. I knew right then that I was hooked on traveling to more off the beaten path places.

What about you guys?

[Kurt]

Very good question.

I first traveled to Norway to visit relatives when I was 12 in 1980. But that was not too inspiring, Norwegians in Norway are like my relatives in the midwest.so

What really did it for me was a Study Abroad program for 1 month in Ireland during January Term. It was fun but I decided I could do it much cheaper and have much more fun if I did it myself, so 1 year later in 1990 I did it by myself and was hooked.

Then I figured that there had to be more to life than youth hostels so I moved to Bulgaria.

[Mikethehack]

I went to the pub. When they finally kicked me out of that one, I moved to the next one, and so on and on and I never looked back. Work for booze. It's the best way to travel.

[nowonmai]

I grew up in Guatemala and got so fed up of the masses of American kids getting off the beaten track and building random one room schools in the arse end of nowhere that fall down when it rains that I just had to get away. Came to London and nearly got killed by the IRA and Al Qaeda before being mugged by Camden's Born Sick gang. Moved to Tunisia for the sunshine and orderly state of affairs - fuck! Moved back to London cos I couldn't stand the riots in Tunisia - fuck!

[ReptilianKittenEater]

When I was 4 the family visited home in England and Ireland. Whilst at my grandparents place by Ecclesall Wood in Sheffield, I heard owls. My dad said they were owls. I thought he said elves at the time. Ever since that time I've been trying to find elves.

Well thats likely not the reason but thats all I can think of now.

[friendlyskies]

I was told there would be refreshments. By the time I realized that was a lie, I was already traveling and figured I might as well just go with it.

[kilroy]

i was a rotten little fuck of a kid and i always hated where i was at, so i was always trying to get away. seeing other places gave me more of an appreciation of where i came from and left me with a thirst to see more. though i remain a rotten little fuck.

[kanderson8]

I hated where I grew up in Southeast Missouri, I wanted to get as far away as possible. I drifted about for a few years after high school before going to college - having decided that my life isn't going to change itself, if it was going to change I would have to make it. So I studied geology because I thought it would easily translate across the world and I liked the outdoors. Started working in the offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico and took every opportunity to move and transfer that I could. I moved to the UK and got married. Worked in the North Sea for a bit and transferred down to West Africa. As much as I complain about it, I love what I do and the places I go.

[JITW]

for Fortune and Glory

~JITW

[diamondcutter13]

needed to see what beer was like in other people's countries plus the government was paying the travel bills at first.

[vagabond]

Started working at 16. Had a teacher that convinced me to blow the cash on doing a Eurail trip around Europe vs putting it in the stock market (this was 2000). Got a pretty good ROI on that, have traveled around ever since though now settling for a spell in Los Angeles.

Edited to say: Don't think I got the bug then though, that's just how I actually first left the country. Was always taken on trips w/ grandparents as a kid and was obsessed with maps, history, other cultures, etc. So that's where the seed probably took root.

[Athena]

Had (an unmarried) Great Aunt, Ruth, of the Greatest Generation, who made her way traveling through her lifelong career with the YWCA. She'd get sent for language training and then do whatever it was she did in the field. She often was in countries right before their revolutions began. My favorite of her travel stories involved converting her possessions to a diamond and being smuggled out of China on a barge. My grandfather (her brother) and grandmother also traveled extensively, and always had a map up with pins of all the places they been. Oddly, only one second cousin also has the travel bug. Go figure.

[rickshaw92]

Shits and giggles mate. Its all bout the shits and giggles.

That said, havin had the shits lotsa times it aint no giggling matter.

I was a welfare bum back in summer of 92. Had a welfare check party at mine on a Saturday night. bought a case of beer, 12 for Sat. night and 12 for Sunday as at the time the Beer Store was not open Sundays. My buddy shows up round 2 am and asks me to sell him my Sunday beer. My response was that he could not afford to pay my price. He pulled a wad of 20s from his pocket and assured me he could. Where did you get that I asked as he was a welfare bum like me. Running with a rickshaw down town says he. I started the following Sunday. It took a couple weeks to get the hang of things but after a while I was making the equilavent of my monthly wally cheque on a Saturday, blowing the money as fast as I was makin it. Was going to a booze can down Collage and Dovercourt in Toronto at the time. I bet Mr. Harvest knew the place. Anyway the season ended and there was no rickshawin in winter at the time so back on welfare I went. Next season my earnings went through the roof as I knew what I was doing and had no problem whatsoever asking tourists for big time cash. My consance had gone out the window! That summer I saved. Still went to the booze can, still did coke and acid and all that but I also saved. In the fall I came up with this idea that I would travel round Europe on a Eurorail pass and had a kickass time, so much so that I did the same the next year. Then I went to the mid east. The year after I decided on Africa. I would fly into Nairobi and back from Joberg. Saw DP2 at the book store when I went to buy a guide book and after reading it both Uganda and Rwanda were added to my list of countries to be visited on that trip. Been travelling regularly since.

[nowonmai]

That said, havin had the shits lotsa times it aint no giggling matter.

yes it is, that's nature's blessing.This requires worst shits ever stories:

- Africa - middle of nowhere in the bush, feverish, delerious for days, shitting through the eye of a needle (still managing the odd chuckle at the odd rip snorter even though death was close), shitting in a hole for hours on end on an incredible starry clear cold night while a pride of lions prowled and growled in the range of the head torch. So sick and ill that getting eaten by the lions seemed like a small thing and no effort was made to ward them off. I don't blame them for not eating me.

[ktrout]

so I moved to Bulgaria.

Just curious, what were you thinking?