Travel the world: the idea that in order to see as much of life as possible, you must travel to distant places.

This is the idea that the moment you realize you are comfortable in a situation, you are no longer experiencing as many new things as you can. Yes, you might live so that you learn something new everyday, but consider this: if you wanted to purchase a loaf of bread for dinner tonight, you know how. If you want to ask someone on the street what time it is, you know how. There are places in the world, most places in fact, where you would have no idea how to do even those simple tasks. Life is amazingly complex and interesting, and there are so many different places and people that it is next to impossible to take it all in.

There is a certain breed of person who just wishes to see the other side of life, the side that has been hiding just over the ocean or across the boarder. This is the type of person I am, and I desire to live the greatest story ever told.


This is my proposal: sometime during the month of June in the year 2001, I will set off on a world adventure. I don't expect to plan it much, the goal is to simply make it from start to finish using only my feet and my social engineering skills. The current sort-of plan is to start in Lisbon, Portugal, and then go around the world until I cross the border back into the US across the Bering Straight. It is a trip that will take me though some of the most hostile territory on the planet, and quite possibly get me killed.

In spite of the danger, I still want to do it. I'm sure it's been done before, and I'm also sure that I'm not alone in this desire. I am looking for someone else to join me on this trip. Not a "roomie," not someone to spend every minute with, in fact, it would be just like two people doing this on their own at the same time. The only difference would be meetings at some frequency to make sure the other person is still alive. I've looked to my friends, I've looked to my piers, and found no one willing. Now I'm looking to Everything2.