Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Odds and Ends

I'm not sure if anyone will actually read this seeing as how it's been almost two months since I last got a blog up. Sorry about the delay...

Luckily my camera was found by the bus company I had toured with 2 days before I left Iceland and they were nice enough to mail it to me to me in the US. So I didn't lose my photos from London and Iceland and hope to have summary posts up from those locations soon. Here is a photo from each with links to the albums in case you just want to check out those pictures:
From London
From Iceland


A Life Update:
I'm currently living back in Charleston, and I've pretty much decided against South America in the Spring. I just got too burned out from all the traveling and want to stay put and settle in somewhere for a while. I'm hoping to find a public-interest legal job in Charleston, which I think could take a while, and I'm not in any hurry to rejoin the working world. If I'm unable to find a job I really want in Charleston after about a year, I'll probably consider doing some more traveling in 2014 (South America? India/Nepal? Africa?) Whether or not I do some more traveling, if it doesn't look like I'll be able to find a job I'm excited about in Charleston after a year or two, I'll probably start looking at jobs in other cities.

How Much Did It Cost?
I was surprised by how often people asked me while I was travelling how much it had cost me. I don't think I'd feel comfortable asking someone else how much they had spent on their travels, but it seemed pretty clear that quite a few people were curious. So, I did the math and added it all up and figured a few of you might be curious as well. The total for all of my expenses - plane/train/bus/ferry tickets, food, accommodation, tours, visas, replacement cameras, x-rays, etc. -- literally every expense -- was a few dollars short of $29,000 for 290 days of travel, a nice round $100/day. I could've easily spent a lot less and easily spent a lot more. I initially had anticipated spending quite a bit more than that, but that was when I was planning to visit quite a few more places/continents. Nevertheless, I was still pleased with that total, and it was probably less than I would've spent had I just spent those 10 months hanging out in Newport Beach or Charleston.