Sarcastic Travels was created to share my experiences of traveling the world. Of course I add my own views about the world making the journey beyond just the location.
When a travel experience goes beyond just the tour book, you can expect to see it mentioned here.
About The Site Name
I understand that many people take issue with the word "sarcastic" and automatically assume that sarcasm, and those who wield it, are "bad" in some way. It would seem to be unusual to use either term in a positive sense, and yet, it is one which I have claimed for myself, and, admittedly, have had applied to me on more than one occasion most of my life. I am reminded of a young, and brilliant, computer engineer I once knew, over 10 years ago now, whose comment on sarcasm in 1997 was "how can an intelligent person today be anything other than sarcastic?" I think his statement stands as true today as it did then, and it makes me wonder, actually, whatever became of him.
One of the actual Webster’s dictionary definitions of sarcasm is: "a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language." In light of the actual, as opposed to the commonly perceived, meaning of the word, I find it to be an entirely appropriate characterization of my methods of expression and observation.
And since I am somewhat obsessed about the precision of language and annoyed by most people’s laziness in their use of the English language, I enjoy using words that are commonly mis-used in their proper and applicable ways and in introducing people to the correct, or alternative, meanings of other words, and even sprinkling my entries with words calculated to send many readers to the dictionary function of their chosen search engine in an effort to increase the overall fluency of the population. It isn’t a small task, I know, but I feel up to it!
About Us
Once in a great while, someone wants to see behind the curtain and know more about the people who write these entries and who take the photographs. Perhaps this desire is heightened by the fact that we go to significant lengths to keep ourselves out of the photos and in fact, I can really only think of one exception to that rule which involves the Black Sea. Now you know more or less where to look in the photo files if you really need to know.
We keep ourselves in the background in part to preserve a sense of privacy, to be sure, but also because this site and its contents are not so much about whom we are as it is about where we have gone and why we have gone there.
Besides, better than 99% of the people who read anything posted here know all too well who we are, and to retell the story would just be boring!
About The Motivation To Travel
I believe that the ultimate source of my, let’s call it what is, obsession with travel is a book my parents bought me as a gift when I was still in the single digits of age. It was a National Geographic picture atlas for kids called ‘Our 50 States," which had an oversized four page profile of each state, rich with photographs. This was such a big hit with me that I read it compulsively cover to cover, and would then have my Dad quiz me on facts about the states such that in short order I could identify them all and knew each one’s capital city. I was also on a hunt on the freeway to see license plates from all 50 states, probably a game invented by my clever parents to keep me occupied and quiet, but they were active participants, with certainly my Dad speeding past the limit to catch a vehicle with a plate not clearly belonging to California. As a side note, I did eventually see plates from every state except Rhode Island on California freeways and highways, yes, even Alaska and Hawaii. Connecticut I remember finding in my 4th grade teacher’s driveway, because she had mentioned in the classroom that she had a friend staying with her from Connecticut.
The next logical installment along these lines would be "Our World." I know this because I still have it upstairs in my library. As one might expect, it provided profiles, and again, lots of photos, of every nation on the planet. This captivated me even more than the states did, so much so in fact, that the spine cracked from re-reading and my parents purchased a second copy for me. And once again, I proceeded, of my own initiative I might add, to memorize facts about each country such that I could easily and quickly fill in a blank world map, including capital cities, chief exports, etc, whatever the atlas told me, in short order. My facility with this made me unbeatable in 6th grade at the map quiz game invented by the otherwise regrettable Mr. Moore, such that finally to have any semblance of competition, he wouldn’t let me play, but instead had me call out locations in his stead to give the other students a ghost of a chance.
All of this led to me becoming interested in the flags of the world’s countries, their currencies, and their stamps. Finally, at the suggestion of a family friend, I wrote to the travel or tourism information board of each country in their capital city (these addresses took some research to find, but in those days prior to the Internet one used travel guides in the library and the National Directory) as well as their embassies in Washington D.C. and/or the mission to the United Nations. So, every nation had at least one shot, and in some cases three. I had already done this, as you might expect, for the states.
Most responses were standard fare, but some, such as the gold leaf bound day planner from Quatar, or the books for purchase from Albania, or the brilliant propaganda from North Korea, were quite unusual. To get Libya to respond to me, I pretended in my letter to be half Libyan! I was determined to get a response, and it worked. I should also add that the response from Tristan da Cunha (a British owned island group in the South Atlantic) informed me that tourism just wasn’t something they did, but thanks for asking anyway! With no airport and only twice yearly mail boat and supply service from Cape Town, this does make sense.
My parents purchased a four drawer file cabinet for me to store all this information in, as well as manila folders and color coded folder labels, on which one used an actual typewriter to enter the desired information. I even had a Rolodex with color coded flags to store the addresses of each location written to, with a date stamp for when an inquiry was mailed, and when a response received, if there was one, although to be honest, those date stamps were put on the index card versions that were stored in an index card storage box. All of this makes me wonder how many of these items even survive in the big-box office supply stores of today given the onslaught of technology which has rendered most of them obsolete despite my nostalgia for them. Some of you may also be tempted at this point to start wondering if I have an obsessive-compulsive personality, or even disorder. Keep wondering, I deny it, but some who know me might argue otherwise.
Predictably enough, I was hooked on the idea of seeing the world but at that time and age, of course, there wasn’t a great deal I could do about it. I did however invent a pretend airline of my own that flew to all of these places from my small home town, reflecting my complete ignorance of both the reality of the airline business which meets demands more than desires as well as the reality of the range of existing aircraft! Meaning, in other words, that non-stop from my hometown to Bujumbura, Burundi wouldn’t have been either economically or technologically feasible! Now, of course, I understand that I need to get to Nairobi first, most likely via London (although soon via Dakar with Delta Airlines), and then connect to a regional carrier to get there, assuming there is no war on, as there has been for about 20 odd years now. But at the time, my zeal far outweighed my knowledge of, or concern about, such things.
My first steps outside of the US consisted of walking across the border with Mexico south of San Diego. It wasn’t as thrilling as I had expected, but it was technically foreign travel. Later, as a family, we would return to Mexico and once when in college in New York City, I spent a bitterly cold New Years in Montreal, my introduction to Canada.
After moving back to California from New York, I decided I owed it to myself and to my home state to know it better, and thus I launched on a mission to visit all 59 counties in California, only two of which necessitated the use of air travel, all the balance being visited by automobile. I also traveled fairly extensively in the western US and Canada, again, all by automobile and usually by camping at that.
My first big overseas trip occurred after my completion of graduate school and was a 30 day dash across Western Europe by Eurail Pass beginning in London and ending in Stockholm, an experience I have never forgotten and in some ways wish I could repeat. It helps to remember that there was no Euro in those days, so one had a pile of different currencies along the way.
Later in life, I would return to Europe (statistically speaking, 75% of Americans who visit Europe once will return) to visit Paris, twice in fact, and I remain fairly convinced that it is the most perfect city in the world.
After moving to Georgia, I decided that I should give it as much of a fair shake as I had California, so I have visited all the counties of Georgia, all 159 of them! Having done so, I think it only honest to say that while Georgia may be the largest state east of the Mississippi, only two of these "county collecting" trips required an overnight, all the others were reached in day trips from Atlanta metro, and the diversity of California simply doesn’t exist in Georgia. Granted, the northern mountains of Georgia are different from the swamps and sand of the far south, but for the most part, once you have seen any one part of Georgia, you have seen it all!
Having achieved the Georgia county goal, the next logical step seemed to be to visit all the US states, and with two cross country drives, plus some random work related travels in my adulthood under my belt, I was pretty far along that path as it was. And naturally, this would be the point in the story in which fate enters.
In November 2006, I was diagnosed with a form of viral encephalopathy, which in the simplest possible terms, meant that my brain was being more or less dissolved and I was loosing mental functions. By the time I admitted something was wrong, I was loosing visual and spatial ability, motor control of my extremities, and had quite significant short-term memory damage. In fact, my neurologist, who makes somewhat of a specialty of this condition, told my primary care doctor that it was "the worst case I have yet seen." Sadly, for most people in my condition, and I just met one last month to whom this happened, a physician would put on their sad face and tell you to get your affairs in order, because this is considered an end-stage diagnosis with, optimistically, a 6 month life expectancy from time of diagnosis.
The brain is a funny and very well protected organ which is a good thing most of the time since when your brain goes wonky you are not likely to have a good time of it. But some of its protective mechanisms, such as the blood brain barrier (the details of which you can look up if you wish) keep the large molecules of most anti-viral medications out, which means in the end that if a virus can make its way into the brain, it has an open field on which to play and wreck havoc. And so, it did.
However, luckily for me, my neurologist had put together a custom made treatment, which while not recognized by the FDA nor of interest to the drug companies because the condition doesn’t affect enough people and the drugs used are all off patent anyway, has the brilliant effect of slowing the progression of the condition, although not stopping it, such that I can still be here to torture the unsuspecting almost 3 years later.
When confronted with this new and seemingly impossible reality, the one thing that was of greatest importance to me was to see as much of the world as I possibly could in whatever time I had remaining. My quest to visit all 50 states was completed in May 2009 with a trip to Alaska, and to date, I have visited 5 of the 7 continents and have tickets booked for the 6th, Australia, leaving only Africa left to plan for. I recognize now in my old age, as I push 40 with only 6 months to go, that I am not likely to reach every country on the planet, but I am willing to bet that I can rope in the territories, commonwealths, etc of the US before I am done, and that I can at least reach every continent as well. As it stands now, my general pattern is a trip about every 4 weeks, although not all of those are to new places, some of them are to visit friends or family, but still, I am out there moving about.
While I recognize it isn’t a new moral of any story, nonetheless I find it true that to wait to pursue your life dreams is frankly a stupid thing to do. Start pursuing those dreams NOW because you never know, do you, what life might have in store that could put a dramatic hold on what you always believed you would do "someday." Trust me on this one, I didn’t plan on literally having my brain dissolve in my mid-30’s! Get out there, explore where you want, how you want, and do it now. The most stupid thing I have heard recently was a woman on Antiques Roadshow (my preferred entertainment while ironing after returning from a trip) who decided that instead of going on a trip to Italy she would instead invest the money in some clock at an estate sale. Turns out that it wasn’t what she thought it was but at least it was worth what she paid for it. Idiot! Trust me, looking at that clock everyday will NEVER be as rewarding as the memories of Italy would have been. Or, perhaps I should say, it wouldn’t be for me, and so, I let the clocks and even the idea of time go, and head out once again to explore, learn, and experience for as long as possible even when conditions are not perfect, for they so rarely ever are.
About the Motivation to Write These Narratives
Of the many people who travel, I am thinking that most do not then turn about and invest several more hours of their lives in writing down their experiences and observations along with editing literally thousands of photographs. The reason I do this is ultimately self-serving on several fronts. The process started because much to my surprise, given that I think of myself more or less as a misanthrope most of the time, I have a rather large circle of friends, acquaintances, family, and former co-workers who either genuinely are interested, or at least pretend to be, in my travel experiences and want to hear about them.
After returning from Antarctica, the requests from different people to hear about the trip was becoming overwhelming in some senses, especially for a brain tissue challenged sort of guy like me, so I started copying and pasting a response sent to one person and used it as a standard template response, tweaked to be vaguely personal to the requestor. This seemed to work pretty well, so I tried out the process of taking notes during a trip (seriously, I don’t remember yesterday) on a spiral bound pocket notepad (no one thinks anything an American does is odd) and then producing a full narrative summary, starting with the trip to Romania I believe. This was very well received, or my friends and family were incredibly kind, with suggestions regarding publication submissions and other favorable commentary, so it became a practice I continue to this day.
For a complicated welter of reasons, I don’t pursue the concept of travel writing for profit, or even for "break even" purposes, but via this web site, I can share my perspective and sense of things, even with those who might find me and my perspective annoying or outright wrong. To use the terms of another era, this site becomes my electronic "stump" from which to harangue and hopefully entertain any who might stop by. Enjoy!