You have nice legs. Maybe you don’t. Who cares? If you live in a county that hits 40-degrees Celsius, you should be wearing shorts. Not slacks. Not blue jeans. Not anything that covers your knees unless that’s a kilt or a dress and you’re going commando.
Got it?
For the past two weeks as I traveled through Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, I’ve bent to your predilection for pants (although I wasn’t able to bend all that far because my pants stuck to my sweaty legs). How do you stand it?
Men in the tropics often roll up the bottom of their shirts to air out their beer bellies, but God forbid you bare your knees.
One is faced with the biggest language challenge of all when one is handed something to eat. All or part of that something may or may not be edible. Whether that something is a bat…
(One would think you wouldn’t eat bat tongue, but don’t tell that to Tom Neuhaus of Project Hope and Fairness.)
Or the insides of a cocoa pod…
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve eaten while traveling?…
I visit students around the country encouraging them to travel. Many of them ask about the cost, after all they say, “We are just poor students.” They think travel is a cruel joke — when you are young and have the knees and time to see the world you don’t have the money, and when you are older you have the money and not the knees for it. I tell them the world is cheaper than they think it is.
I will always welcome others encouraging students to see the world. That’s why I’m happy to introduce you to Everett Pompeii, a student who is traveling the world on less than $8/day. He’s writing a book telling how, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to: Earth. He launched…
His name was Didier. He spoke a little English and I spoke a little Spanish. We met briefly at EARTH university in Costa Rica where I was working as a banana worker. He asked what I was doing in Costa Rica and I told him about my Where Am I Eating project, including my upcoming trip to Colombia to research coffee.
“My family lives in Nariño a region famous for coffee.” He said.
We talked for 15 minutes, maybe.
Two months later I was strolling down the streets of his hometown, El Tablon de Gomez, beside his father Ladardo and his…
What does a vagabonding underwear journalist pack on an 8-day trip to Honduras?
1 pair of Khaki pants
1 pair of jeans
1 pair of shorts
1 lucky shorts (they don’t stay up anymore so they serve little other purpose)
2 T-shirts
3 polo shirts
4 pairs of underwear
5 pair of socks
1 belt
3 shoes (flip-flops, running shoes, dress shoes)
iPhone
Passport
Immunization book
Book to give Amilcar when I find him
Netbook
Point & Shoot camera
Eyeglasses
Sunglasses
Toiletries (teeth, shaving, skin)
1 Aerobie super disc to give away
1 Aerobie super disc to play withg
1 hackey sack in case of emergency1 2450 cubic inch backpack
1 Kindle
1 Domke reporter bag
And when I cram all of that in my backpack and bag it weighs about…
I’m on a flight to Dallas and I hope to God know one asks me about the book I’m reading. Why? Because of all the millions of books I could be reading, I’m reading the only one I wrote. Of course, maybe if I cover up the author photo, laugh really loud now and again, and pepper in a few hmmm’s of interest, it would be good marketing.
“You’ve just gotta read this book! This dude named Kelsey goes to all of the places his clothes were made….”
But this isn’t why I’m reading my own book.
My publisher, John Wiley & Sons, has asked me to do an update and revision. When Richard my editor called…
As much as I love meeting students at universities when I visit to speak, meeting the faculty is pretty cool too.
After a recent talk at West Texas A&M I had a chance to talk travel with a few faculty. One of the professors was a horse trainer who told a hilarious story about being invited to Saudi Arabia to judge racing camels. Another was Dr. James Hallmark, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs. James (we’re Facebook friends, so I’ll drop the formalities) told a rip-roaring tale about traveling in Turkey and how he thought he had been abducted by al Qaeda.
Following my visit, James wrote an editorial for the Amarillo Globe News about my visit. In Consider Where Our Clothes Are Made James writes…
I was held hostage by Nepalese monks. The weapon they used against me was hospitality.
They forced four meals down me a day. The first time I tried to leave, they consulted their scrolls and decided that the date wasn’t a good one for departure.
I was blessed by a bulletproof monk and may or may not be bulletproof myself now. (Note: if I am bulletproof I’ve totally wasted my superpower not fighting crime.)
Khenpo Sange, the head lama, sat next to me on my flight from Bangkok to Nepal where I planned on trekking, but instead got a really infected foot and held hostage. Khenpo invited me to stay near the village of Pharping (south of…
In order to retain my blogging license I’m required by law to recap all that was 2010.
Personal
Baby #2 is on the way. Pray for us! Annie is feeling great. We find out the gender on Tuesday!
Annie put up with me for another year, despite a 6-week trip to Africa, a few week-long speaking engagements, and a two week trip to NYC. However, my daughter was far less pleased with my absences. It’s tougher to leave now, but doing what I do is important to me, so rewarding, and important to my family.
I gave away $10 every Tuesday for the entire year. (okay so I missed some Tuesdays but I always made…
