Life is a Creative Journey, Not Just a Guided Tour the Planning Begins
Life is a Creative Journey,
Not Just a Guided Tour: The Planning Begins
My life has been sprinkled with sadness to tragedy as many peoples' lives can be.
Deaths, losses, failures, misses, accidents, near death accidents, falls, crashes.
Also it has been filled with many positives, wins, very caring and some loving people, adventures and lots of fun.
I often have joked since I first saw the movie FIDDLER ON THE ROOK using Tevye's request to God after many tragedies and failures had happened to him, his family, his village. Here is a image of the scene.
Often throughout the movie and play Tevye talks with or to God.
This time he is saying
"God I know we are the chosen ones, but couldn't you choose some one else once in a while."
Some how I have continued living. Some times just existing yet always moving on towards some goal, wish or passion.
I decided in September 2000 that I would step back from my life and take a "TIME OUT". Initially I was going to travel to Australia and New Zealand for a month each because I had never been to that part of the world. I needed a break.
I began by contacting everyone I knew in both Australia and New Zealand that I could by letters and emails. Then I made a list of everyone I knew who had ever traveled there. I visited the local public library and bookstores to collect books about New Zealand and Australia: history, current events, travel books.
I read, read, read for weeks.
One email to my Manhattan creativity colleagues: Andre and Judy de Zanger changed my plans.
We talked by phone for about an hour about their experiences in Australia and New Zealand. We had been in Istanbul both in 1999 and 2000 to be part of a mutual friend, Halim Ergunalp's First and Second Creativity Conferences. In 2000 we also were in South Africa as presenters of another creativity colleague, Kobus Neethling and we planned and went on a road trip from Pretoria to Krueger Park passing through Pilgrim's Rest, site of first gold mines in S.A. and entering the game reserve at its' southern entrance.
The first night we stayed in Zulu like huts.
The second and third nights we stayed in canvas tents.
Mine was right next to the protective fence. Didn't sleep easily the first night with all the animal sounds: elephants and ????
Because I needed to return to the US to work I took a plane from Skukuza Aerodrome in the park back to Joberg to catch my return flight to Atlanta.
Because we had had our previous travel experiences and their from traveling completely around the globe in 1999 I wanted their guidance, their tips.
Two proved to be perfect.
1. Join Servas, the international travelers group and try to stay with Servas hosts wherever I could.
2. World Travel (name not correct) contact them and work with Brenda (name needs to be inserted) in San Francisco to get the most economical airplane tickets for the entire trip.
3rd piece of advice....
go completely around the world in a single trip
IT WILL BE CHEAPER!
Until then I had not considered going completely around.
After hanging up from our phone call the idea of traveling completely around the globe as Judy and Andre had never crossed through my brain. The more that idea bounced around like a ping pong ball in my skull the more I liked it.
So over the next couple weeks I went back and forth about a 2 month or a 3 month trip and how many countries, which countries would I included. Eventually I created a "74 day trip" thus beating Mr. Phileas Fogg and his Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne.
Actually he did it in 79 days+
So from 60 days I extended my trip to 74. I cut my month in New Zealand to 2+ weeks and my month in Australia to 4 weeks. I ended up including 16 countries
New Zealand
Australia
Malaysia
Singapore
Sri Lanka
India
Turkey
Austria
Germany
Denmark
The Netherlands
England
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Eire
France
To me the British Isles have always been separate countries. My father was from Blythe, England. My mother from Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Some relatives from Ireland and others from Wales.
The book you are reading will include my initial Yahoo.com group posts/journal entries, many of my lessons learned along the way and observations or learnings over the past 16 years
Come along, travel virtually through my words, maps and photos.
Wandering Alan
alan@cre8ng.com
http://www.cre8ng.com
Not Just a Guided Tour: The Planning Begins
My life has been sprinkled with sadness to tragedy as many peoples' lives can be.
Deaths, losses, failures, misses, accidents, near death accidents, falls, crashes.
Also it has been filled with many positives, wins, very caring and some loving people, adventures and lots of fun.
I often have joked since I first saw the movie FIDDLER ON THE ROOK using Tevye's request to God after many tragedies and failures had happened to him, his family, his village. Here is a image of the scene.
Often throughout the movie and play Tevye talks with or to God.
This time he is saying
"God I know we are the chosen ones, but couldn't you choose some one else once in a while."
Some how I have continued living. Some times just existing yet always moving on towards some goal, wish or passion.
I decided in September 2000 that I would step back from my life and take a "TIME OUT". Initially I was going to travel to Australia and New Zealand for a month each because I had never been to that part of the world. I needed a break.
I began by contacting everyone I knew in both Australia and New Zealand that I could by letters and emails. Then I made a list of everyone I knew who had ever traveled there. I visited the local public library and bookstores to collect books about New Zealand and Australia: history, current events, travel books.
I read, read, read for weeks.
One email to my Manhattan creativity colleagues: Andre and Judy de Zanger changed my plans.
We talked by phone for about an hour about their experiences in Australia and New Zealand. We had been in Istanbul both in 1999 and 2000 to be part of a mutual friend, Halim Ergunalp's First and Second Creativity Conferences. In 2000 we also were in South Africa as presenters of another creativity colleague, Kobus Neethling and we planned and went on a road trip from Pretoria to Krueger Park passing through Pilgrim's Rest, site of first gold mines in S.A. and entering the game reserve at its' southern entrance.
The first night we stayed in Zulu like huts.
The second and third nights we stayed in canvas tents.
Mine was right next to the protective fence. Didn't sleep easily the first night with all the animal sounds: elephants and ????
Because I needed to return to the US to work I took a plane from Skukuza Aerodrome in the park back to Joberg to catch my return flight to Atlanta.
Because we had had our previous travel experiences and their from traveling completely around the globe in 1999 I wanted their guidance, their tips.
Two proved to be perfect.
1. Join Servas, the international travelers group and try to stay with Servas hosts wherever I could.
2. World Travel (name not correct) contact them and work with Brenda (name needs to be inserted) in San Francisco to get the most economical airplane tickets for the entire trip.
3rd piece of advice....
go completely around the world in a single trip
IT WILL BE CHEAPER!
Until then I had not considered going completely around.
After hanging up from our phone call the idea of traveling completely around the globe as Judy and Andre had never crossed through my brain. The more that idea bounced around like a ping pong ball in my skull the more I liked it.
So over the next couple weeks I went back and forth about a 2 month or a 3 month trip and how many countries, which countries would I included. Eventually I created a "74 day trip" thus beating Mr. Phileas Fogg and his Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne.
Actually he did it in 79 days+
So from 60 days I extended my trip to 74. I cut my month in New Zealand to 2+ weeks and my month in Australia to 4 weeks. I ended up including 16 countries
New Zealand
Australia
Malaysia
Singapore
Sri Lanka
India
Turkey
Austria
Germany
Denmark
The Netherlands
England
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Eire
France
To me the British Isles have always been separate countries. My father was from Blythe, England. My mother from Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Some relatives from Ireland and others from Wales.
The book you are reading will include my initial Yahoo.com group posts/journal entries, many of my lessons learned along the way and observations or learnings over the past 16 years
Come along, travel virtually through my words, maps and photos.
Wandering Alan
alan@cre8ng.com
http://www.cre8ng.com
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