One thing I love about traveling is all the different unexpected opportunites that come up. One morning I was sitting at my hostel eating breakfast, contemplating on what time I should head to the beach when I overheard some other backpackers at my table. They were making a call trying to find someone to fill their empty seat. A few days before I had been searching for a lift along the Gibb River Road, a remote 700 km (450 miles) 4WD track through the Kimberleys from Broome toward Darwin. It was tricky business finding a backpacker who has a 4WD as [View Full Entry]

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It's official, I'm back in OZ and swinging back into the backpacker lifestyle quite nicely! It's amazing how natural it is to shift back into traveling and meeting new people everyday. I guess this is the lifestyle I'm used to after traveling for almost a year now. So far my week in Australia has been wonderful. It even started out nice. On my plane ride from San Francisco to Sydney, I sat next to another backpacker from Canada and we talked traveling until we were somewhere far over the Pacific. When I got into Sydney I spent the whole day figuring [View Full Entry]

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I made it around the world and now I'm heading back out in reverse direction. Today at 6pm I'm catching my flight from Seattle to Sydney Australia. I have a working holiday visa that still has 7 months left on it, so I figured I might as well look for work over there instead of here in the States. Perhaps I'm just trying to ride out the recession abroad! I spent 1.5 months back in the Washington summer and now that it's over, it just flew by. I kept pretty busy floating the river, hiking in the mountians, surfing on the [View Full Entry]

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For the past week I've been living my preferred lifestyle: waking up when my brain slowly comes out of sleepiness, relaxing over a nice bowl of muesli, fruit and yogurt while the ocean breeze gently stirs my ever increasing sun-bleached hair, setting off for a short walk down the beach to a nice spot to lay my ever increasing sun-stained body with the burden of only a towel, book and water. Upon thoroughly roasting and finding the hot tropical waters no longer refreshing, I retreat into the shade of a palm tree and consider walking into town. My day usually ends [View Full Entry]

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If only I had more time to see all of Laos. Such a beautiful and relaxed country. Strange to think it is the most bombed nation on earth, the USA having dropped over two million tons of bombs between 1964-1973. Most of these failed to detonate leaving the countryside littered with what they call UXO- unexploded ordnance. All the guidebooks strongly recommend not straying off the trail into the jungle. But since I had a limited amount of time, I didn't make it to these dangerous areas. Instead I spent all of my 3 weeks in Northern Laos. From Hanoi, Sven [View Full Entry]

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Throughout my travels I have slowly acquired a list of places I have to see in my lifetime. On this list I happened to have a few places near Hanoi: Ha Long Bay and Sapa. So the first thing we did was book a 2 day tour to Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is a big stop on the backpacker trail, so i was pretty excited to see this '8th wonder of the world' with my own eyes (it didn't make the list of the 'new' 7 wonders). After steppping out of our 3 hr bus ride from Hanoi into [View Full Entry]

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Vietnam is a crazy place, well maybe it's just Hanoi! How does a city manage with a population of 3.5 million without any stop lights or sense of road rules??? Maybe it's just my western upbringing that I don't fully see the stuble rules that take place. For instance, crossing the street is a whole new game! Since the flow of traffic is never halted by stop lights, it's tricky to get across. First you wait for a slight opening in the stream of motorbikes and cars and slowly edge out into the street. Once you're in the thick of it, [View Full Entry]

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You guessed it, I've made my way to Southeast Asia! For over two years I've been dreaming of traveling this part of the world, and now I'm here!! Sometimes it's even hard for me to believe. About two weeks ago I booked my flight from Sydney to Bali, a small island in Indonesia. Leaving Australia, I didn't really plan what I was going to do with my 5 days in Bali. I knew that I wanted some good beach time as well as experiencing some Balinese culture. I didn't even know where I was going to stay my first night, but [View Full Entry]

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Some pics to tie over those impatient readers. (well, the impatience is fully justified since i am sooo far behind on my writings.....sorry :) [View Full Entry]

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Once I checked out of the Asylum, I headed up the coast to Christchurch, the other big city on the south island. I stayed here for one night before heading east onto Banks Peninsula to a small French town named Akaroa. I stayed in another really nice hostel just out of town, the Onuku Farm hostel. It was located up on a hill surrounded by farm paddocks with wonderful hammocks overlooking the Akoroa harbor. There was even another section of the hostel for the more rugged folks, an outdoor kitchen and common area and dorms without electricity. But the main thing [View Full Entry]

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