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Site Navigation Travelogue Site Map - All of the post on this blog in one easy to browse location. Travelogue Comments- Browse through this travelogue based on reader comments. Home - The homepage to this blog and Vagabond Journey.com Travel Photos - Thousands of photographs from around the world. Travel Questions and Answers - Ask a travel related question or browse the answers in this database. Travel Tips- This is a collection of Travel Tips that I have collected and would like to share with other travelers. Vagabond Field Notes- Traveler tracks left for other travelers. Information on the cheap places to stay and eat that I have found in my journeys. Travel Information Directory - Travel information separated by topic. Travelogue Navigation Travel Blog Directory Travelogue Home Travelogue Archives Travelogue Entries by Region East Asia Southeast Asia Indian Subcontinent North Africa Europe North America Central America Traveler Links Hobotraveler.com - Website of Andy the Hobo Traveler Ubertramp.com - Great travel community site Advertise on Vagabond Journey.com - Click on the above link for more information   Wade from www.VagabondJourney.com has been continuously traveling around the world for more than 9 years through over 45 countries on 5 continents. He is open to answer all questions -  email Vagabondsong@gmail.com. Walk Slow.

In this next year I would like to publish more USABLE travel information. I will attempt to record the average prices of food, accommodation, and transport in each country that I travel in and publish them on simple pages. So if someone wants to find out how much Romanian trains cost they can find a page of mine that will record where I traveled to, the date, and the price I paid, all with a comment form at the bottom of the page for readers who travel these routes after me to update the information.

Read more at Vagabond New Year's Resolution

December 31, 2008-
Nature or Nurture Travel Debate #2

At the confluence of the 20th century, the entomologists, E.O. Wilson, realized that he could apply the methods of the biological sciences to the human creature in order to better understand human behavior, the role of culture, the idea of free will, and the repeated occurrences of phenomenon such as war, racism, and totalitarianism throughout history.

The views of Wilson generally contrast against the idea of tabula rasa, or the blank slate theory. This notion of development stresses that humans come into the world without any prior instincts and that all behavior is learned from instruction and experience. This idea stresses that humans have a sense of free will that is separate from biology and that culture is founded on learned behavior and is not biologically pre-determined or influenced.

What do you think?

Go to Nature or Nurture Travel Debate #2  to participate in this travel and culture debate.

December 31, 2008-
Travel Information on the Internet Survey

This is a Travel and Culture Survey for me to learn about what travel information readers are looking for on the internet. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Please fill out the below survey. Thank you!

Fill out the survey here

December 30, 2008-
Human Rights Violations in China

I was walking around Budapest with a couple Scandinavians last summer, when we passed by a little tent that was erected on the street so that people could drink beer and watch the Olympic games together. I stopped for a second and watched some fellow contort himself in some odd way on the television. The Scandinavians kept walking.

“We have boycotted the Olympics because they are in China, and China abuses human rights,” they spoke in almost robotic unison.

“I am sure the Olympics will weep the loss,” I muttered to myself sarcastically.

I stopped walking with the Scandinavians.

There is a lot of ground static about China's human rights abuses, and I must say that it is true to a large extent. But Chinese society is different, and cannot be compared on the same plane as the West. For I can surely find just as many human rights violations perpetuated in America as the ones that are so well broadcasted about China all over the world.

Read more at Human Rights Violations in China

December 30, 2008-
Traveling is Easy

I sometimes get emails from readers who seem to feel that traveling is difficult. They seem worried that it will be too difficult a life for them to lead and that I possess some odd sort of extra resilience that most people do not have. My guilty secret is that this is not so.

My guilty secret is that traveling is easy.

Read more at Traveling is Easy

December 29, 2008-
Travel Information on the Internet

I tried the other day to find out the average price of rail tickets in Romania. I am dreaming about spending a few weeks on a train just riding around Romania, Moldova, and the Ukraine. I did a Google search for “Romania train cost” and only received t a bunch of results from tour companies wanting to sell me overpriced tickets. Granted, I did not take too long with my search, but from an initial inquiry I realized that it would be a little difficult for me to simply find the average price of a train ticket in Romania. After 20 minutes of checking out a dozen pages that did not answer my simple question I gave up.

This is representative of my experience with trying to find tactical, useful travel information on the internet.

Read more at Travel Information on the Internet
5 comments 1/9/2009 7:22:26

December 29, 2008-
Travel Gear Resupplied by Christmas

I needed a Christmas at home. My travel gear was in shambles. This year, more than most others, I needed some gifts. I got some.

I have also lost or broke other elements of my travel equipment over the past couple of years. My digital voice recorder that I use to record interviews met a watery death as I forded the James River in Virginia a couple of months ago. I have also lost a stainless steel thermos somewhere and my traveling hat met its demise in a washing machine. The fabric of the two Indian flannel shirts that I have been alternating daily since 2006 was also shot: there comes a point in every garment's life where mending becomes futile – the holes eventually occur with a higher frequency of my ability to patch them. In point, it was time for me to resupply my travel gear. It only worked out perfectly that I happened to be in the USA for Christmas.

Read more at Travel Gear Resupplied by Christmas

December 29, 2008-
How Lesbians Pick Up Women

Or the Lesbian Lean

My aunt figured out that she was a lesbian at the age of 39. With this epiphany she realized that had no idea how to meet and pick up women. She bobbled her way through a score of trashy women who continuously feasted like bottom feeders at the local gay bars to no avail.

“If you want to meet a life partner stay away from bars,” I would tell her.

“If someone is 30 or 40 years old and still hanging out at bars there is something wrong with them,” my mother would say.

My aunt was confused. “How I am going to meet gay women, just walk up to them on the street and say 'Are you gay?'” she roared.

Read more at How Lesbians Pick Up Women

December 29, 2008-
Changing Chinese Culture and Society

She answers my unspoken question: 'I don't know what my generation would do in revolution. But I think mine are more selfish. They have a conscience. They must decide things for themselves.'”

This seems to be the way that young generation of China likes to see themselves: as conscientious, free-thinking, and self-directed – perhaps Western minded. But they seem to me to be, deep down, Chinese.

“I think the Three Gorges Dam is good,” one of my Chinese friends once said in response to my questioning. “Good.” That was all she had to say about it. “Good.” This was an incredibly Chinese answer and made complete sense in the context in which it was spoken. This answer would be inappropriate in my own country, as more support is needed to make such a claim. “Good” means very little in America.

Though in China answers that merely graze the surface, smokescreen that is meant to opaque deep feeling, emotion, and opinion are thought of as being polite. I do not really know if my friend believed that dam was “good,” though her answer shows that she, although in the guise of a modern "free-thinking" Chinese woman, was a member of a generation that is still very "Chinese" in a deep sense.

Read more, Changing Chinese Culture and Society
 

December 29, 2008-
Affirmative Action is not Equal Opportunity

“New York University is an affirmative action/ equal opportunity institution.”

I read this line in an advertisement and thought it interesting that the terms affirmative action and equal opportunity could be assembled together here in the same clause. This seeming oxymoron stuck in my craw, as I cannot help but to find these two terms mutually exclusive. For it is my impression that, by definition, affirmative action cannot be equal opportunity.

Read more, Affirmative Action is not Equal Opportunity

December 27, 2008-
Blogger Problem Fixed

Blogger works again. Somebody somewhere obviously fixed the problem that was preventing me from publishing.

But the fact of the matter still stands: Blogger can malfunction at any time and there is nothing I can do about it. This is alright if I had a steady home and a steady sceduale - a few days without being able to publish here and there would not be much of a problem. But I am a traveler, and sometimes a decent internet connection is difficult to come by. If I am writing posts for two weeks without the means to publish them and then by chance I stumble into a good internet connection I want to be able to post on my travelogue. No questions, I want to be able to publish.

Blogging systems malfunctions are not acceptable.

Read the full travelogue entry at Blogger Problem Fixed

Saturday December 27, 2008-
Blogger or Wordpress Blog?

Blogger has let me down. I thought for a moment about switching to Word Press. But I have the feeling that this would be akin to exchanging a pile of peas for a carrot. 

"In with the new boss, same as the old boss."

Craig from Travelvice.com took on a lion's task and tried to help me set up an account with Wordpress that would allow me to publish directly to me server. But it all seemed like a more difficult version of Blogger. I would still need to log into Wordpress to publish, I would still be using a middleman. I do not want to use a middleman any longer. In the spirit of my friend Loren Everly I want to build up the sticks and stones of my travelogue myself. I do not want to use the system of another person or company. 

Read more, Blogger or Wordpress Blog

Friday December 26, 2008-
Vagabond Site Without Blogger

I published a travelogue entry a few nights ago before laying down to sleep. It published, everything was fine, life was good. I awoke the next morning and tried to publish another entry and it did not work. Blogger croaked.

So I waited a few hours and tried again to the same results:

A server timeout error code was all I could get. My posts would not publish. At this time I could not tell if this was a problem with Blogger, the system that I used to publish this travelogue, or with my server at Hostmonster.com. So I published another page to my server through a different FTP program - it worked. I called my server at Hostmonster.com just to make sure that everything was running properly - it was.

Friday December 26, 2008-
Christmas Shopping in USA

The rites that surround Christmas shopping in the USA are complex, as people benevolently lie, deceive, trick, and scheme against their loved ones so that they can surprise them with gifts on Christmas morning.

I went Christmas shopping with my family and Chaya last weekend. This was always an ordeal that I remember vividly from my childhood: 12 to 15 hour days rushing around from store to store, mall to mall ever trying to find the best prices, the best things, and the perfect gifts for everyone in my family. This was always an ordeal that wore out my little kid legs and I can remember the days ending with me cranky and my mother dishing out threats that “Santa Clause is Watching.”

Perhaps Christmas presents are a child's reward for putting up with the arduous punishment of Christmas shopping.

Read the full travelogue entry at Christmas Shopping in USA

Monday December 22, 2008-
Quick Travel to Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria

I leave for Budapest on January 7th 2009.

From there, I am looking east, always east. A tip off from Hobo Traveler indicating that the currency has plummeted in the Ukraine got my wheels a turning: the Ukraine is one of those desolate, forsaken lands of my childhood daydreams. I think I may take a quick run to that country on the north Black Sea coast just to see what is there – just to take in a brief impression and then move on.

Read the full travelogue entry at Quick Travel to Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria

Monday December 22, 2008-
Song of the Open Road on Vagabond Journey

I just imported the Song of the Open Road Travel Blog, which intermittently represents my travels from 2004 to June 2008, to Vagabond Journey.com. I did this so that I have all of my posts on the same site.

Read the full travelogue entry at Song of the Open Road on Vagabond Journey

Saturday December 20, 2008-
End of the Line in America

I went down to the Port Authority in Manhattan to get on a Greyhound bus to Rochester, New York. I walked down through the terminal, located my gate, and there found around 200 friggin' people wanting to get on my bus. I was taken aback at first, but then resolved to just insert myself into the mish-mash of people to get as near to the front of the line as possible.

Standard operating procedure.

Then I stopped short at the thought:

“Wait, I am in the USA, I have go to the end of the line.”

Read the full travelogue entry at End of the Line in America

Friday December 19, 2008-
Woolly Mammoth Skeleton at American Museum of Natural History

I spent an insurmountable amount of time when I was a little kid staring into a postcard of a woolly mammoth skeleton. The card was postmarked sometime in the 1950s, and some guy wrote an incredibly general message to another guy upon the back of it. What was significant about the card – that which made me dream into it so often - was that it said that the woolly mammoth skeleton was at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

I wanted to go there.

Read the full travelogue entry at Woolly Mammoth Skeleton at American Museum of Natural History

December 17, 2008-
Photography Lesson in New York City

“Photography is painting with light.”

Photography has always been a subject that has stuck in my craw, for I simply do not understand what is so complex about pointing a box-like instrument at something and pushing a button. I can point and I can push buttons. I am not impressed when someone tells me that they are a photographer. I am a photographer too – I take pictures. My mother, as technologically incompetent as she is, can also take a photograph.

I simply do not know what constitutes a good photo.

Read the full travelogue entry at Photography Lesson in New York City

December 16, 2008-
Time to Leave New York City

A sketch book sketcher clandestinely sketches a boy playing a guitar and a harmonica in the Metropolitan subway stop of Brooklyn. The guitar and harmonica boy has short, ratty white-person dreadlocks and plays songs for alms in the subways of New York City. He has a nice Fival Mousekewitz hat over his white-man dreads and belts out “C'est la vie, we all move on” through the underground tunnels of the city I am about to leave. The scribbler – me – scribbles notes about the sketch book sketcher and the guitar and harmonica player.

Craftsmen at work.

Read the full entry at Time to Leave New York City

December 16, 2008-
Book Reviews on Vagabond Journey

I like reading books. I especially like publishers and authors sending me free books to review. This has happened a few times and I like it. To publishers of travel books:

Send them to me, I will write about them on Vagabond Journey.com

To meet these ends, I just put up an index of travel book reviews on the main page of Vagabond Journey.

Travel Book Reviews

December 15, 2008-
Travel to Bangor Maine

Out of bounds, inconsequent, wholesome are three adjectives by which I describe Maine.

Thus being, Maine is an easy place to daydream. I have found that the places that I enjoy best are the ones where there is no reason to ever go. I like Maine. There is no rushing there, as you can really just walk slow, smoke your pipe, and watch the days pass. The people who live there know a little secret that they are not telling: they have made a little no-worry paradise on the nowhere fringe of a work-stressed land.

Read the full travelogue entry at Travel to Bangor Maine

December 13 2008-
Patriotism Around the World Survey

I previously published a survey asking questions about patriotism to observe any cultural patterns behind the responses. I now have the results posted. If you would like to add your input to the survey or view the results, please follow the links below. Thanks.

Read the full travelogue entry at Patriotism Around the World Survey

December 13, 2008-
Tibetan Nomad Arunachal Pradesh Tribals Senior Thesis

This stop in New York City has just come a little closer to its end.

I finished my undergraduate thesis and most all of my work tonight.

My thesis was on the difference in development patterns between Tibet and the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh. It was the result of data collection in Indian and China/ Tibet. Though I feel that the conclusion is still a little rushed.

I have vastly more work to do on it, though I think I have a decent beginning.

Tibet Nomad/ Arunachal Pradesh Tribal Thesis

Read the full travelogue entry at Tibetan Nomad Arunachal Pradesh Tribals Senior Thesis

December 11, 2008-
Patriotism Survey

The following survey was conducted at the request of one of my professors at the Friends World Program of Long Island University. It is an attempt to explore the notion of patriotism in a quickly globalizing world.

Thank you for your time in filling it out!

Read the full travelogue entry at Patriotism Survey

December 11, 2008-
What is a Global Citizen?

Like Diogenes, I once called myself a citizen of the world. I even have the Greek "Kosmo-Polites Eimi" - I am a global citizen - tattooed across the inside of my right palm as an ironic gesture for immigration inspectors when I hand them my passport. But after knocking about the planet for a number of years, I am beginning to get the impression that I have grown to scorn the idea of global citizenship as the pretentious reserve of imperial cultures, all while finding myself fitting the deep meaning of the description:

“Global Citizenship is both a moral and ethical disposition which might guide an individual or groups' understanding of the world in local and global contexts — and their relative responsibilities within different communities.” -Global Citizenship

Read the full travelogue entry at What is a Global Citizen?

December 7, 2008-
USA People Not Robots

I try to be nice to people. I just intuitively (usually) act in a way that can be considered polite. My parents made sure that I was polite and respectful as a child and I did so automatically. . . probably just because my parents told me to. Now that I am a little older I learned a little of the real value of treating people with respect.

If you know a few points of respect, you can get along in any culture of the world.

Read the full travelogue entry at USA People Not Robots

December 7, 2008-
Culture is Never Static the Exotic is Now

There is a certain tendency to talk of cultures as if they are fixed devices. I do it often. It is perhaps the hallmark of ethnology. The only way of making any sense of a time, a people, or a place is to speak as if all three are static masterpieces that grew out of years of toil, but never change.

This is not true. Cultures, people, and places are always changing through the onward roll of time. I am different today than I was last year, I know this, but it is still difficult to grasp the fact that everybody else in the world is also changing. The world is continually rotating upon its axis.

Read the full travelogue entry at Culture is Never Static the Exotic is Now

December 6, 2008-
Publishing PDF Magazine

I am standing on the cusps of graduating from university and ending one of my best grafts for traveling the world. I now need to come up with a new way to supplement my bean money; I need to come up with new ways to make my travel funds.

For years I have had a blanket while traveling, for I knew that if I were to run out of money I could always enroll back in the Friends World Program and study in some part of the world while living off of scholarships and financial aid. This tactic has bridged me through the tough times, but this river has thoroughly been crossed. I now need to build a new bridge, I need a new way to make money.

Read the full travelogue entry at Publishing PDF Magazine

December 5, 2008-
The News Media and Travel

There is still an entire unknown world out there. And I feel as if there always will be, no matter how much I travel. The world is changing far faster than I am able to traverse it: the speed of a jet plane means nothing to the onward roll of time.

I was avoiding the completion of my university thesis as I was browsing through the Hobotraveler's Wayfinding maps. I was just dreaming a little into a world shown in the singular - shown as an all-encompassing, non-dual whole (which is perhaps the hallmark of Hobotraveler.com) - when I came across this map of world currency divisions:

World Currency Map taken from Hobotraveler.com Wayfinding Maps

What the hell is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? Why does it stretch all the way across Central Asia and Russia?

Read the full travelogue entry at The News Media and Travel

December 5, 2008-
Office Pranks

The prankster began to grow weary in the stale, office-like, and shockingly sterile university environment in which he was studying in New York City. He figured that he had to start pulling pranks to keep himself from shriveling up into a beastly serious prune. He had to start pulling pranks to save his own life.

Read the full travelogue entry at Office Pranks

December 2, 2008-
Rites of Passage in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia was a surprise. For I did not know that there was such a vibrant, energetic, community oriented, and, yes, livable city on the east coast of the USA. Richmond Virginia is an awesome place. I made some good friends there and had some good times.

I entered Richmond by Chinatown bus from Washington DC last month. It was near mid-night and I was waiting for some friends to pick me up. They did. We went to a party.

I did not really find many people to talk to at the party. Sometimes I am a little awkward around people - I tend to either play alpha-male or I abscond completely to the social exterior. I absconded on this occasion, as the house was full of young people with ideas – they seemed to concern themselves with affecting political and social change - and I realized that it would not be to my advantage to let them know that I was not a part of their club. I despise politics in any form, I hate the manifestations of liberalism and conservatism with equal passion, and I can only be intrigued and entertained by the rash ignorance of radicals on either side of the line.

Read the full travelogue entry at Rites of Passage in Richmond, Virginia

December 2, 2008-
Jet Blue Airline Makes Me Angry

It is amazing how quickly a table can turn, it is shocking how thoroughly an opinion can change in such a short amount of time. Tomorrow always has the possibility of rising a much different day than today.

I wrote this entry, Jet Blue Good Airline, a couple of days ago without the knowledge that my feelings would rapidly change. Jet Blue made me angry.

Read the full travelogue entry at Jet Blue Airline Makes Me Angry

December 1, 2008-
Work in the USA

It is my impression that the idea of work in the USA has been perverted into something that people do solely for money, and not for the intention of creating happiness or an otherwise fulfilled life. True ambition, vision, creativity, and professional pride are qualities that seem to be draining out of the American character as work becomes ever more mechanized, rudimentary, and unfulfilling. The American workday stands as a glistening example of a way of life that seems to be increasing impacted by the forces of compulsion and fear, the message is clear: work hard now to enjoy life later.

Read the full travelogue entry at Work in the USA

December 1, 2008-
Enjoy the Journey

Destinations mean nothing if you did not enjoy the journey. I have been pondering the ideas of success and happiness during this stay in the USA, and it seems as if the notion of success is severely misplaced.

The acquisition of a goal means nothing if you did not enjoy the steps that brought you there.

Read the full travelogue entry at Enjoy the Journey

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