A buddy of mine has been on an epic trip across Eurasia, and adventure he calls Off Silk Roadin’. His blog is a fairly long form recounting of his tales, but I recommend checking it out mixed in with browsing through his pictures on Flickr. He’s done some in depth touring in places that are often forgotten by travellers, and without saying it, gives a powerful recommendation for going to the Asian Steppes.
One of his best talents is starting conversations with strangers and thereby making friends and getting a much better place for where he is visiting. One quick tale for example:
I popped into a Photo studio for some visa pictures. The three guys who ran the shop were Armenian and eagerly recounted the histry of their families, which lived in what is now northeastern Turkey (where we had just come from) before the “Armenian Genocide” (something I have to learn more about having heard so many conflicting accounts. They sat around, solved crosswords, drank coffee, brewed us a tasty batch, and when they got wind of our journey, pulled out an old Soviet Atlas, pointed at things and recounted stories of their service in the Soviet Army that took them places where we were going to go. A sailor came in and introduced himself as a “semen” (seaman) and when I took a picture of him, suggested I not post it since he travels to the US frequently, and doesn’t want to be listed in the rolodex of the CIA (to which I was presumably contributing.) We encountered this kind of Soviet relic paranoia in several instances, particularly Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan so far.
And tales like that with some of these pictures, and I get that itch on my feet and can hear the open road whispering in my ear.
His trip is almost up, but I just learned about Terminal Man, a fella named Brendan who was sponsored by Wired to fly just about everywhere JetBlue goes in a one month. It sounds like a pretty wild ride. He’s getting a bit of a raw deal though in that he has to stay in the airports, but if you took the basic trip idea – flying an airline’s route map – and give yourself a bit of time to see the sights it could make for an great adventure
At first I thought that JetBlue was a perfect candidate for this type of trip. Since they fly all over the US it seems like you could just hop around anywhere. After clicking through their route map though, it looks like everything has you bouncing through Boston, JFK, and Orlando. If you’re going to end up going to the same places, why not extend your scope a little bit and fly the Emirates route map or fly around the US on Southwest that doesn’t require you to keep skipping back through hubs. They may not offer JetBlue’s all you can fly pass, but I’m sure that if you if you talked to them about it as an advertising opportunity then you could work something out.
In about a week I’m going to start travelling a bunch for work. I’ll in a bunch of different cities over the next couple months and I need to figure out something fun and funky to do in each place to commemorate the trip. I’m thinking something along the lines of the famous “Where the Hell is Matt?” dance video above. I’ve got a couple of ideas, but I want to see if I can gather some ideas from everyone else out there to see if there are any cool thoughts as to what I should do. So lay the ideas on me. What should I do?
If the idea of a burger pilgrimage sent you of scheming up an itinerary, then Travel and Leisure has some lists to help you out. Check out their run downs of the best burger restaurants in American (though the list doesn’t include the two I put in my pilgrimage outline) and best fast food restaurants around the world. It’s hard to see planning a trip solely around burgers unless you are an absolute devotee, but if you’re in the neighborhood of any of these places, they’re probably worth checking out.
A damned good idea if I ever heard one: travel across Asia and Europe wearing Tuxedos. Two guys going from Hong Kong to London would be a great trip any way you slice it, but these guys added the extra flair that made it a truly epic journey. Imagine all the fun times you you have simply because you’re in a tux. I’ve had fantastic encounters when I wore my tux to venues where tuxes aren’t expected – like a night club. Mix that with the standard misadventures of travels and it’s a recipe for awesome. The boys also did the laudable step of trying to raise money, which they would use to spread good will. It looks like that effort came up a bit short of their goal, but money raised or not, they’ve put a lot of smiles on a lot of faces around the world. Well played.
