We already miss being world travelers. After nearly a year of traveling around the globe, we are back! 32 flights, 14 countries and a lifetime of memories.

These are the countries we went, in chronological order: Macau, Hong Kong, Borneo (Malaysia), Thailand, US, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Spain, Egypt, Jordan, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana. As for total number of cities, it’s too numerous for us to even want to count!

 This 9-seater was the smallest plane we flew on. We took it from the Galapagos island of Isabela to the island of Baltra.

The most hectic part of our Round-The-World journey was concentrated in the last month of traveling. In the month of August 2008, we were in Jordan, Spain, South Africa, Zambia and Botswana - a whirlwind of rushed traveling. What made the whole adventure unique and particularly tough was the fact that both of us had to work on our respective businesses at the same time, without missing even a day of work, but we feel privileged that we have had the opportunity to do that and was able to experience the vagabond lifestyle we both craved - and still crave!

We stayed at the best places, the worst places, had the best food, had the worst food, were given the best treatment, were treated unkindly (discrimination!), smelled the best air Earth has to offer, inhaled the worst polluted air. We saw wealth and poverty existing side by side. We slept in two-to-five star hotels, apartments, houses, hostels, bed-and-breakfasts, one night in a Mexican motel and two nights on a smoke-filled and noisy Egyptian passenger train. All our choice of accommodation was contingent on one thing: Internet access - so that we could work on our businesses. Coming from Singapore and the US, we were quite shocked that many high-end hotels around the world don’t even provide internet access, and some that do charged ridiculous internet fees up to US$50 per day. In some of the same cities, you can find cheaper hotels or hostels that offer free internet access.

Going around the world has given us so many new perspectives of how we view the planet, the inhabitants of the planet, investment opportunities. World Citizens, that’s what we are, regardless of where we live, where we stay, where we do our businesses, where we have families and friends.

When you have seen so much, experienced so much, many things which used to seem significant don’t seem such a big deal anymore. The clothes you wear, the amount of belongings you have, and funnily, your comfort level. Being able to live rough and tough is a main requirement to traveling around the world. We slept in so many different beds in different places, ate different food almost everyday, dealt with some sort of discomfort or inconvenience everyday. During most of our travel, we had to buy and stock big bottles of mineral water for drinking and even brushing. You don’t get to eat the breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack of your choice. You also don’t get to watch many TV shows or movies, which wasn’t a big deal for us anyway. Basically, you settle for what is available, and you make the best of it.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE every moment of it, and never regretted anything. We want to travel again, not for holiday, but as a lifestyle.

Watch this space as we’ll be updating it with stories and photos of our adventures.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.