Why Do We Travel?

Camping in the Sahara Desert, Morocco 2017

As frequent presenters for the Mid Valley Travel Club meetings, we were asked to create a brief profile of ourselves as travelers over the years. That led us to the big question of why we travel. To answer that, we needed to reflect on our travel history.

 Modest Travel Roots

Kathy in Vienna, 1969

We grew up in modest middle-class families where money always seemed to be tight. Kathy’s family never traveled, but she took a big leap by becoming an AFS exchange student for her high school junior year in Vienna Austria. I grew up in Colorado, and we camped a lot, and even camped on our way to the West and East Coasts. Those were among my happiest childhood memories.

Catching the Travel Bug During Our College Years

Both of us wanted to experience different places for college. Kathy went to Grinnell Iowa and spent her sophomore year at the University of Salzburg, traveled for a couple of months, then worked as a translator at the 72 Olympics in Munich. She became hooked on international travel.

Some kind Nepalese who took me in on a snowy night 
and fed me the only egg their chicken had laid that week

 I went to Lewis & Clark in Portland and had never been on an airplane until I was 19. It’s a very long story of serendipity, but I ended up traveling much of my junior year through South Asia for $2 per day. I trekked alone in Nepal for a month, explored much of India by 3^rd class train for two months, then to Pakistan and over the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. From there, Iran and Turkey. Looking back, I don’t know how I pulled it off. But it changed the trajectory of my life big time, just as Kathy’s overseas living had changed hers.

 1977—The Beginnings of Our Life and Travels Together

Thangboche Monastery Nepal, 1977

What initially attracted us to each other when we met in 1975 was our mutual love of travel and adventure. For our honeymoon, we backpacked to the base camp of Mt. Everest without porters or guides, spending the nights in villagers’ homes. We also explored some of northern India.

1978-80—Peace Corps and Travel

Life was never the same when we returned from Nepal and India. We joined the Peace Corps on a whim, and six months later found ourselves in Malaysia for the next 2 ¼ years. We had our challenges but stuck it out. It was a special bonding time in our 2nd and 3rd years of marriage. And we had some cheap travel opportunities with Thailand and Indonesia nearby. After our service we traveled four months, mostly in Burma and India.

Our Peace Corps home in
Northern Malaysia, 1979

 

Crossing a border from Southern Nepal into India.  Our "hotel" was a night in the 

jail because the policeman said he was too tired to process us. The three 

of us went out for dinner together at the night market, and we paid. 1980

Cruising, 1980 style. On our way  from
Goa to Bombay, where we caught a plane home

1981-2003—Travel Doldrums

We started a business, had kids, hosted exchange students, and served on civic committees and non-profit boards. Travel was limited by school schedules, work obligations, and money. But we camped and did short trips to Mexico, Hawaii, Costa Rica, and Belize with the kids. They loved it, and so did we.

 

2004-2017—Empty Nesters

Bicycling in Vietnam with Shanti & Skyler 2013

We enjoyed our newfound freedom to choose our own friends and to travel, even though we still had work responsibilities. We started off by visiting Skyler and her Italian host family in southern Italy. Then we took Kathy’s parents to retrace her father’s WWII steps from Normandy to Nuremberg. We undertook Rotary projects abroad, took European bicycle trips, spent our 30^th wedding anniversary in southern India, and bicycled Vietnam with our adult kids. In 2011 we bought a small used Airstream and started exploring the States.

A life-changing acquisition. We've made many
Airstream friends and traveled to places all over
the USA we would never had visited otherwise.

 

2018-Now—Retired

Over half of the 53 countries we visited were during our retirement years, and only a few of them were part of an organized tour.  Our first year of retirement included a work project and safari in Tanzania, visiting Peace Corps volunteers in Nicaragua, hiking and bicycling in southern Japan, and driving around Scotland after our daughter’s London wedding.

 

Santiago de Compolestela, Spain 2022 

But the most significant thing we did for our relationship since Peace Corps and having kids was to walk the 500-mile Camino de Santiago in 2018. We walked a shortened version in 2019 via Portugal, then the full version again in 2022. We loved savoring a European country step-by step at two miles per hour.

 Much of our retirement travel revolves around Hazel, our only grandchild, near London. We try to help out and go there about two-three times a year and travel another two-three months. London is a great jumping-off point.

 

Always a delightful arrival at Heathrow!

So, What Can We Learn from the Above?

 

1. Travel has become a part of our past and who we are. We’re comfortable with it. We’re always thinking about the next trip after the one we’re about to take. We identify as travelers, not tourists.

2. We love adventure and surprises, not knowing how the day will unfold. It keeps us alert and on our toes. The constant problem solving and decision-making can be tiring, but we think it helps keep us young at heart. However, as we age, we are starting to opt for more comfort and predictability.

 

Happening upon and enthusiastically participating in
a spray foam fight at Carnivale in Cuzco, Peru 2014

3. We’re curious about the world, its people, history, scenery, and architecture. We love meeting people and experiencing their food and culture. Some of our fondest memories are of interactions we had with people.

4. Travel gives us a perspective on so many things, and the best byproduct of that perspective is gratitude for just how good we and most Americans have it in so many ways. Coming home is always a delight.

 

How long can we keep this up? 

We’re not sure, but we’re hoping that as long as we can climb stairs with our luggage and lift it into the overhead bins, we’ll continue. Likewise with hitching and safely towing our trailer. Travel truly motivates us to stay in shape. 

A recent article we read sheds new light on this. Called 12-15 Good Years, it is one of the best retirement planning articles we’ve ever read.  The premise is that the average person at age 60 has about 12-15 years of active retirement before slowing down. At first we didn’t believe that. Then we started thinking about the last couple of years as the aches, pains, and diminished ambition started kicking in. 

Looking backward, we’re glad we did what we could, while we could, especially since some places are off limits or are no longer safe. And perhaps another 500-mile Camino next year may not be physically possible. But for the foreseeable future, our motto continues to be what we can, while we can. 

Turning 75 at our most favorite place in the world

“What We Can, While We Can”

“What We Could, While We Could”

New Zealand’s North Island—It’s Different Here

Cruising on the Bay of Islands Christmas Eve

We fell in love with New Zealand’s South Island, but were cautioned that the North Island won’t be the same. They were right. Similar, but distinctly different, kind of like two children. We love them each for themselves and their differences. 

We flew into Wellington, the nation’s capital. Once we hit the road after two days, the differences were apparent. It was more populous (76% of NZ’s population), more industrial, more logging and ranching, more pastoral, flatter, and volcanic. Fewer campervans, tourists, and national parks, also. But still very beautiful. There were parts where we expected to see Frodo, Sam, and Gandolf along the road. And the delightfully sweet smell of jasmine and manuka honey was everywhere.

Tattoos are common among the Maori.
Many, like the one above, tells stories about
both sides of one’s family.

We also noticed fewer guest workers and more ethnic Māori, who were the original settlers to this country in about 1250 before the British came in the late 1700’s. (Imagine, this big land was the last to be populated by humans only 800 years ago!)

The Māori are about 19% of the NZ’s 5.3 million population, but about 85% of them live on the North Island. It seemed like we saw more street signs, kiosks, and labels of things in Māori as well as English. We really got into learning more about their culture and NZ history.

A Maori war canoe, over 100 meters long,
similar to the ones the Maori used when crossing the
Pacific, but without sails and outriggers.

Kathy and a Maori in
a traditional greeting

For us, our South Island itinerary was almost all about rugged scenery and wildlife. On this island, it was more about specific things, such as geological wonders, an Art Deco city, glowworm caves, scenic beaches, and of course, Hobbiton. More about them below.

Even though we drove nearly 1000 miles over two weeks. There is so much we didn’t see or do.

So, enough about the differences. Let’s hit the road with just a few of the many highlights. And speaking of roads, the North Island is about the same size as England proper, but only 1/11th of the population. 

Wider and smoother than average.
Many surfaces are rough chip seal

The roads demand fully engaged driving. While wider than those in England, they are seldom straight, level, or have four lanes.

Wellington

In Wellington we spent an afternoon in its national museum. It contained perhaps the most moving war exhibit or war museum we have ever visited. The one-hour experience told the story from the perspective of the frontline soldiers in the WWI campaign in Gallipoli, Turkey. All for nothing.

A WWI memorial in Napier

Everywhere we went this past month, we noticed war monuments in most towns. It turns out that in both wars, New Zealanders had the highest per capita death and casualty rate of any country in the Commonwealth, and almost in the world. More than 10% of its small population served—mostly on the frontlines—making this per capita toll so high.

Napier

We loved Napier. In 1931 a devastating earthquake leveled much of this seaport town on the SE coast. The locals rebuilt it in Art Deco style. So classy and refreshing in an old/new way! Our hotel room was just two doors down from where Queen Elizabeth II stayed in 1954. (Just think, I could have sat on the Royal Throne!)

We loved this town! But then, we love the
Art Deco style.

Waitomo

And then there were the glowworm caves of Waitomo. Wow! Talk about something we’ve never experienced before! The whole area is full of sinkholes and creeks. Cadis fly larvae hatch after floating into the cave stream and, thinking they are flying into the stars at night, get ensnared in sticky strands of the glowworms. The drift along the small river through the cave was surreal.

The sticky webs that glow in the dark

A time exposure by our guide

Volcanos, Geysers, and Craters, Oh My!

From that geological/biological marvel we went to the Rotorua area, much like a condensed Yellowstone on steroids, minus the bears and large mammals. (See our previous blog post). In 1896, a massive volcanic eruption similar in nature to Mt. St. Helens created a vast wasteland and a new crater. Now, 129 years later, everything is green and beautiful, but with simmering geysers along the trail down to the lake.

The crater rim, before our hike down to the lake. 
There was absolutely nothing here in 1896

And not far from there we witnessed the 4th highest geyser in the world (after Old Faithful, and one in Iceland and Russia) and some boiling mudpots. As this was a sacred place for the Māori, we learned more about their culture and saw some rare and endangered kiwi birds.

The Shire

One of many Hobbit homes. The attention to
detail was astounding!

The shire, but much of the countryside looks like
this many miles away.

It’s hard to decide, but we think Hobbiton was our favorite. This was the site of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. It was so magical, but educational at the same time. It’s our happy place. We spent 2.5 hours touring the set and expected to see a Hobbit at any time. The attention to detail was amazing. Yet, only 14 minutes of this set made it into all four movies! It took two years to build, and was torn down and returned to pasture after the Lord of Rings trilogy was over. It was rebuilt for The Hobbit. This time the farmer struck a deal with Peter Jackson to keep it and to add tourist infrastructure. Smart guy! The Shire countryside can be seen through much of the North Island.

Cathedral Cove, named by
Captain Cook in 1769

We spent the last week exploring the NE coastal areas and Auckland. Much of the country shuts down for Christmas and Boxing Day, so this was our cue to enjoy a subtropical Christmas, even with cloudy and rainy weather.

Although we noticed playground cricket games, rugby is New Zealand’s obsession. And the Kiwis have dominated the sport internationally for years.

The female version of the Haka dance before
A game.

So, on a whim in Aukland, we decided to improve upon our micro knowledge of rugby by going to an interactive experience. We stood on the line as an opposing team would while the Kiwis did their Haka dance, as they do before every game. Very interesting—and intimidating!

Overall, this was a most excellent adventure, and we’re grateful that we were able to undertake it. New Zealand is hard to get to and it takes a month to get just a taste of it. We would have preferred less driving. But the true gems of New Zealand are in its interior and the opportunities to meet so many truly nice people. We will cherish memories of our time exploring it together, the astounding scenery, and of everyone we met.

We have more fun facts at the bottom. Be sure to read our previous blog because these are new ones.

More photos from posts on this trip are on my Instagram account (or @KelemenRon.) Also on my public Facebook profile, (Posts) which doesn’t require you to be a friend to view them. Enjoy!

”What We Can, While We Can”

”What We Could, While We Could”

Shire-like countryside, even miles away from Hobbiton.

Odds and Ends & Fun Facts(In addition to those mentioned in our post about the South Island):

• New Zealand is often called Aotearoa, a Māori word meaning land of the long white cloud.

• Clean public restrooms with toilet paper are everywhere, 

  

  A super artistic one in Matakana

  Especially in the small towns, which are mostly linear and often have covered walkways. The one to the right is much fancier than most.

• Nearly every town, large or small has at least one book store, many are independent.

• Unlike in the flag-waving USA, we saw very few New Zealand flags. If we did, they were at a government building or monument.

• New Zealand gets about 85% of its energy from renewable sources, mostly from hydropower, but with geothermal, wind, and solar in supporting roles.

• Kiwis (the human ones) love beets. They are a common ingredient in burgers.

• Real kiwis and other flightless birds are rapidly becoming extinct.

  

  They are nocturnal, mate
  for life, and fight mating
  competitors to the death

  
  Thus, rodent traps are visible along hiking trails and dogs are generally banned in all national parks and reserves. 

• No matter the size of town, we could always find Thai, North Indian, or sushi, but not so with Chinese food. Olive oil is rare, but not so for deep fried everything or pastries.

• After currency conversion, prices for most things are about 56% of the States. However, gas costs about $6-7 US per gallon. American gas prices are a bargain! Speed limits are 60 mph sometimes 66 on four-lane divided highways (which are rare).

• 

  At the Zane Grey restaurant for
  Christmas Dinner

  Zane Grey, the American Western novelist, hung out frequently in the Bay of Islands in the NE. We had a Christmas dinner in a restaurant named after him.

  

  From a hilltop on one of the islands in the
  Bay of Islands in the NE