12-month special: why we love travelling

In the beginning of our travels we thought that we would be lucky if we could stretch our money for a year. Today, it has been exactly a year since our planes landed in Buenos Aires, and we still have enough savings to keep us going for a few more months. To celebrate this, we want to look back to the countries we travelled and think about the best things we have experienced so far and the things that keep us going.

Here are twelve things that make us love what we do.

1. Trekking in nature. One of the biggest highlights on these travels was our 5-day trek in the Amazon rainforest in Madidi National Park, Bolivia. Being chased by wild pigs, eaten by ants and mosquitos, being exhausted because of the heat and getting soaked in tropical rain was all worth it. Falling asleep to the sounds of the jungle, waking up to the sound of the river, staring at the campfire for hours and eating banana chips for dinner were among the best experiences of our life. And that is only one of the amazing nature experiences. There would be so many others to list.

 

2. Eating local. Llama steaks, empanadas, fresh fruit juices, mangoes, yucca soup, potatoes, fried eggplants, spicy tofu in tomato sauce, chicken feet, rice cooked over a fire in a bamboo stick, South American wine and local beers. Food is a big part of what you experience, and we can't get enough of different flavours. Not all of it to our liking and sometimes you just crave for a fucking sandwich, but mostly it's all about eating like locals.

 

3. Learning the language. Sabaidee! Xie-xie! Salamat! Buenas dias! Terima kasih! The least we can do when we decide to go to another country is to learn hello and thank you in local language. Mostly you don't need much, because everywhere you go, some English is spoken, but knowing at least those two basics usually works as an ice breaker and what better, you might actually cheer someone up a little. How many times did we get a huge smile and a laugh when saying thank you to the lady behind the counter? Many. It's not only polite, it's fun! In Bolivia we did a language course for two weeks to learn Spanish, and what a difference it made! When we made it as far as Colombia, people never stopped talking with us when they realised that we can actually make up a few basic sentences and pretend to understand the rest.

 

4. Making new friends. Travelling is not travelling if you don't meet people, exchange tips and opinions, spend long nights over a beer or ten or waking up in a bus leaning on the shoulder of someone who's name you can't even remember. After a few days of travelling with someone you often feel like you've known them for years. We met so many amazing people on during this year: Jörg, Hanna, Taniela and Hugo, Alex, Adam and Paul just to mention a few. And that is only the fellow travellers. There are so many locals who we got to know, learning about their lives and had great conversations with. Some of the people you meet stay in your life in one way or another, some go, but you'll remember them forever.

 

5. Spending more to make dreams come true. Who has not always dreamt of going to the Galapagos islands? Visiting the Angkor Wat or Machu Picchu? Scuba diving in crystal clear waters? One of our basic principles is that if it's worth it, do it. Most of the time we try to live cheap, so it mostly means sleeping cheap and eating cheap. But when it comes to activities, we do what we want. If there is extraordinary scuba diving, we do it. If it is a once in a lifetime destination, it is worth to do it properly. For us that meant staying in Machu Picchu from sunrise to sunset, spending two days in Iguazu falls and buying a 3-day ticket to Angkor Wat. Our most expensive activity was the Galapagos islands, when we spent 1200 euros each in 14 days. That makes 85 euros a day. That is way over double the normal budget, but when you think about it later, it was worth every cent.

 

6. Sunsets. Sunsets? You could stay home to enjoy those, right? Sure. But sunsets are the time when you really think about it all. You go through the day (or year) in your head when sitting on a remote beach somewhere, sand under your feet, waves crashing in front of you and the bright red sunset of the humid tropics somewhere above you. That is the moment when you really realise how amazing this planet can be.

 

7. Renting a place with a kitchen. Okay, so we said eating local is the key to exciting travelling. Yep, it is, but sometimes you get tired of being constantly hungry and tired and hunting for a cheap place to eat and you just want to make yourself at home. What helps here is cooking. We had a great time in places where we had a chance to cook our own food. Not only does it bring a little reality to travelling, it might also be your only chance of getting the food you want. And what a great way to try local ingredients! We still haven't forgotten our time in Cusco and the disaster of a soup that never seemed to cook because of the altitude, and the black corn that coloured the whole thing dark purple. Yummy.

 

8. Public transport. We've never been huge fans of flying. Not only is it expensive and bad for the environment, you don't see any of the country if you only fly from city to city. Sometimes though it is the only way to reach a destination in a reasonable time. But most of the time we try to catch a bus, tuk-tuk, tricycle, jeepney, train or a trufi. Not only the best way to admire the landscapes, you also get an idea how the locals do it. You get to joke with them, play with their babies, stop for a drink in the most random shack in the middle of nowhere and go to places you didn't even know that they existed. Sometimes it means holding your pee for ten hours and then finally pee alongside everyone behind the only bush available. Sitting on the roof of a jeepney and getting smashed against the steel roof every time the driver hits a hole while trying to avoid powerlines and tree branches and knowing that in case of an accident your chances are not the best. Breaking down three times withing a few hours, freezing to the point where you can't feel your toes anymore, but we love it, and not always can we explain why.

 

9. Not planning too much. A little bit of planning is good. We always have some sort of guidebook with us to help with this. What makes this kind of travelling amazing, is the freedom of going anywhere you want. Anywhere! Best of it all though is the freedom to abandon a plan and doing something completely different instead if the first plan doesn't seem to make sense anymore. It means not always knowing where you will sleep tonight, not remembering what the place you spent the last night was called and feeling so amazingly free that it is hard to explain to people on a 2-week planned holiday. Nothing against that either, but it is different.

 

10. Change of values. When your daily budget is about 25 euros, you start to think different about what you spend your money on. And you really start to think, when you meet someone, who could feed his family for a month with the amount of money a tourist pays for one night in a midrange hotel room. You meet someone who makes more money driving you around for 10 dollars a day than fishing 15 kilos of shrimp, and you realise how much you get paid back home.

 

11. Smiling. If you're lost, hungry, angry, tired or all of those, don't forget this one simple thing: smiling. Help in any situation is guaranteed, when you remain calm, polite and give a little smile even if it is the last thing you feel like doing. Do it, and the response might make you forget that you were feeling bad in the first place.

12. Travel buddy. We met in Australia 2006 and since then travelled together every now and then. Back then we both travelled alone, and we know how it's like. There are good and bad sides to that. The good side is that you meet more people because you have to be active to find company. You end up having amazing conversations and a good laugh and making new friends. On the other hand, you often end up hanging out with people, whose interests are different to yours and you have to compromise a lot just to have company. We have the luxury of travelling with a companion that you trust, know better than anyone and you are interested in the same things. When we have the option to do it like this, we wouldn't change it for anything.