BootsnAll Travel Community

G'Day - my name is Sean E. Keener...and on the suggestion of LiveNomadic we are starting a new member thread. So even though I am not a new member, I will start (anyone can post to this thread, newbies and oldies alike - let's keep it to one post per person though ie no back and forth stuff)

My name is Sean Keener - here is my BootsnAll Founder Profile and my BootsnAll member profile

I got addicted to travel when I was younger and then started this site for shits and giggles with my friend chris . Nick joined us shortly thereafter.

I love not having a schedule and just "doing whatever the fuck I want" (that is a saying that Nick used to say when we first started) - but the reality of life is not doing that all the time. Sometimes for sure. But that part of travel feels free and the best.

I used to only like chucking on my backpack and and wandering on my own without other westerners for months at a time. I still enjoy that type of travel, but I do like hanging with friends and strangers from anywhere at anytime. I thoroughly enjoy putting myself in situation that I am not used to and stretching my comfort zone.

BTW, I would love to meet up with folks in Portland, OR or wherever our paths might cross. Follow the BootBlog for our travels and I'll shout the first round.

Welcome to BootsnAll.

Follow BootsnAller's as they Travel

I guess since it was my idea I should post too

Currently, I am an undergraduate at the University of Miami taking three majors (politcal science, international relation, religious studies).

I also run ServeYourWorld.com and am working with a professor to develop a humanitarian aid related site.

All this really doesn't leave me too much time during 8 months of the year, but for 4 beautiful months I have nothing to do but write, travel, and spend time with my fiance.

In the winter I'm doing a 5 week internship with the bootsnall folks, thats the reason for the pic.

Travel is a childhood love that got buried sometime in my teenage years, but now it's coming back with a revenge. I am leaving in 24 hours for my first long term trip without relatives or guidance, which is daunting, but it is more daunting because it is my fiance's first trip outside the US! Suddenly I'm the travel expert when I feel like the eager amatuer.

You can follow my trip through Bootsnall's very own EurailBlog.

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ServeYourWorld.com -How to Volunteer Abroad
Eurailblog.com -4 Months in Europe, Starts Mid-May

Hello -

my name is Gordon Candelin and I'm currently living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia working as an art director for an ad agency, and running the student travel site Urbanlowdown.com. I've been in Asia for almost 2 years now, after an initial 8 years living in europe followed by an agonizing 5 back in Los Angeles - my hometown.

For me, travel has always been about full-on immersion - diving in, working shitty jobs because you can't speak the language, figuring out how to rent an apartment, how to pay an electric bill, which side of the street you shouldn't ride your bike on (doesn't matter unless you happen to be in Germany), how not to kiss the hand of a polish countess (you don't actually press your lips against it, and you certaintly don't make a big smacking sound), and all of the other pleasures of finding yourself way in over your head.

Gordon

www.urbanlowdown.com

Hey everyone:

I'm Jenna. I enjoy cooking, reading, hiking, swimming...I'm fairly new to Bootsnall but am getting more and more addicted!

I, for the time being, am a student (but graduating in June - wooo hoooo!!) I'll be getting a degree in music.

I really enjoy reading everybody's comments and hope to meet quite a few of you someday on the road!

Cheers

I am Philip Blazdell, author of the aptly named

www.philipblazdell.com

I have been down with the Bootsnall massive since almost Day 1. During that time I have written about my experiences in Japan, Brazil and various other parts of the world. I especially enjoy it when people write to me and complain about my writing.

For me one of the nicest things about Bootsnall is that I have met so many cool people. I have road-tripped with Sean, Jessie, Jen Leo and had some awesome meals with Joe E (all in the US), got unbelievably wasted with Bootsnall members all over South America, went Temple Bashing with Bootsnall folk in Japan and have even been known to sink a few pints with the UK folk too. Oh, and who could forget my prancing with Court…...

I am proud to say that in 17 years of travel I have only ever spent two nights in a hostel (and one of those was for a conference where we had the whole place to ourselves) and would rather chop off a limb than spend another night in one. I am also the proud owner of a rolling suitcase, which at my age, is essential.

Because travel is such a good education I have recently set up a trust-fund for my son so that when he comes of age he can travel. I have stipulated that he can use this money for travel to anywhere he likes as long as he doesn’t stay in hostels. I am a great parent…

When not travelling I am a passionate Liverpool supporter and live in the People’s Republic of Paxton. I really want to go to Greenland this year and still hate Air Portugal,

Philip

www.philipblazdell.com

Hello, my name is Marisa. I was born in Thailand, but moved to the states when I was a wee 3 months old. I've lived in Texas all my life, but defy the stereotypes of southerner and cowgirl.

My parents never took me anywhere fun, travelwise. I was not exposed to anything other than Texas and Louisiana (many roadtrips to Dallas, Beumont, Lake Charles..boring places!). I first got interested in travelling when I was in high school. Some of the kids in my Spanish classes were going to Costa Rica. Of course, my parents, being strict as hell, forbid me from going. Then I wanted to do volunteer work in Brasil..of course, banned from doing that as well!

In college, I finally got a taste of world travel when I studied abroad in Australia. I went to Japan on the way down since my friend was studying abroad there. Since then, I've been addicted to travelling. I wish I could do more but I'm restricted by funds and the fact that I've got 3 dogs to take care of here.

I love bootsnall because it lets me live vicariously through others when I can't travel.

Marisa

http://www.geocities.com/mumsawas

Hi my name is Stephanie. I am 25 was born in Indiana and live in Missouri. I work finance for the region office of a large snack food company. I am very involved in the GLBT community here in St. Louis and through work I am involved in our GLBT Diversity group to educate and advance the GLBT community as a whole. This and travelling are my passions which I hope to mesh soon.

Travel has become a focus for me the past year. I have always enjoyed travel but now it is all I think about. I knew pretty much nothing about travelling (except that I wanted to backpack) until being directed to bootsnall. The only travelling that I have been able to do has been within the US. My family never had the time or money for travel when I was younger so I am hoping to make up for lost time. When I first joined bootsnall I was ready to jump into a long-term trip but the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn, about my own country before going to another. So I have made plans the travel the US for the next 2 years or so when I can and then once I have done that move on to the long-term travel.

I really enjoy bootsnall banter and discussion. I can't wait for the opportunity to meet (in person) some of the people here.

Stephanie

Hi,
My name is Meghan Wilson, and I was born and raised in the beautiful mountains of Colorado (Snowmass Village, to be exact), where I got my first taste for traveling as a young ambassador to our sister city in Japan. I was 12 years old, and did a homestay for three weeks. What an amazing way to be introduced to a different culture at such a young age. Since then I've been on school and family trips to England, Scotland, Spain, and Costa Rica.

I graduated a year ago from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and still find myself floundering with what to do with my education (BA in Sociology--no interest in going into the field). In the meantime, I'm working as an overpaid and fancily titled secretary for a division of the university. It allowed me to save up enough to jet off to Europe this fall for ten weeks. It's my first solo trip, and I'm a little nervous, but also thrilled to death. A coworker turned me on to BootsNAll when I told him I was going, and I am forever grateful to him for that. What a great information resource, sounding board, and support group all rolled into one! Thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and insight. I hope to meet some of you someday.

-Meghan

~Levity~

Hello, My name is Becky. I am 22 years old and have lived my whole life in Minnesota. I am now attending the University of Wisonsin -Eau Claire with a major in Biology and Sociology. I will be graudating next December. I don't know exactly what I will do with my degree yet, but I am considering graduate school to become a professor or get my masters for nursing.

My favorite things to do are outdoor activities, boating, sports, traveling and shopping.

When I was a kid my family didn't travel that much unless you consider a vacation travleing north to North Dakota to visit relatives. We spent most of our vacations on the Mississippi river boating and camping on beaches...now those are good childhood memories. I got to do my fair share of travel in high school through Marching Band and church activities but I really got my feet wet when I decided to study abroad in Ireland in college. After that it was backpacking europe. That is definately when travel changed my life. Now it has become an addiction to see places all over the world and since have gotten the opportunity to take classes in the Rockey Mountains and Bahamas. This summer my sister and I have planned our 2nd backpacking trip in Europe as a graduation present for her.

I love bootnall because it enables people from all over the globe to bring unique perspectives in on a common subject...and you get to learn about new places, and meet new friends.

becky

Cheers everyone-
My name is Courtney Sullivan Ries. The middle name is very important to my mother, as it is her madien name, and all of my correspondence from her is addressed as such. However, you all know me by my nickname, Court.

While I was growing up, most of my travel centered around where my extended family was: Boston, So Cal, and Indiana. I first went overseas my freshman year of college, to visit a friend studying in France. It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life and, like everyone else, I was hooked.

After studying abroad in Australia, I graduated from Northwestern University in Chicago last June. I had graduated a year early and was planning on entering the Broadcasting Journalism Master's program but I decided to go RTW instead, and met up with two BNA members in London along the way.

I landed this BNA gig a few months after I got home and moved out to Portland in January.

When I'm not updating Australia Guide, the Women's Section or writing various other things, you can usually find me on the boards, competing with LN for the title of biggest procrastinator of real work.

After work, you can usually find me drinking wine when everyone else is drinking beer, eating my way through new cities or planning my next trip to Eastern Europe/Central Asia.

As always, I loooove e-mail distractions from BNA members: court at bootsnall dot com

Court

P.S. For all you newbies, I'm the sole Bootz Gyrrl. My avatar is a pic of PB brushing his teeth!

"...People don't take trips- trips take people." John Steinbeck

Hey everyone.

I'm Kevin Duffy. I currently live and work in New Jersey. Right nowI am a case manager for World Trade Center victims (and with less to do each passing day, i find myself playing on the internet more and more). Before that i graduated from the University of Maryland and have worked in Washington DC as a lobbyist. I'm a crazy liberal who wasted lots of potential travelling money on Howard Dean the Screamer.

I've never lived overseas, but decided that i want to try after trips in the Caribbean, Costa Rica and to London.

A unique story about me - i quit my last job (lobbying) to fly across country (San Diego), pick up a car there, drive to pick up a friend(South Dakota) and proceed to drive across country stealing from casinos in a slot machine scam.

In October I am moving to Spain to teach English as a second language. Starting in 2006, a friend and i are planning a RTW trip with the early itinerary looking like Spain, Amsterdam, Base Camp at Everest, Thailand, Indonesia, New Zealand and hopefully closing it out by checking out the Northern Lights in Alaska / Canada.

"It's a Lifestyle"
- me

Hi everyone,

My name is Emma. I was born in London but moved out to Indonesia with my parents when I was a tiny three weeks old. I lived there, Thailand and Vietnam until I was 18 at which point I came back to England to go to univiersity. 4 years later and I'm nearly done (16 days and counting till the final final exam!) and will be travelling off hopefully to India, and definitely back home to South East Asia for 6 months as soon as I graduate.

I've got 6 months off before I have to come back to London to do the proper job that some nice people have given me...but I"m sure I'll be plotting lots of other ways to get back out travelling, with lots of bootsnall help of course!

Hi, I'm Mimi. I am pretty new here, but every day I learn more groovy stuff and become more and more jealous of all the RTWers who are seeing the whole world whilst I content myself with short vacation trips.

Let's see...my life goal is to join the Traveler's Century Club. I have 89-ish countries to go, though, so I better get moving!

In the meantime, I'm an unpublished writer trying to think of a good way to put all my travel experiences thus far into a book. And trying to come up with a feasible way to live off writing and traveling.

What else is there to say? I don't know. I'm on my way to London for my first non-weekend trip. Sigh, just in time to wish I was in Hay-on-Wye for the Hay Festival! Ooh, but maybe...


Traveling bookless is like Sartre's hell.

Aloha All,My name is Crow Duran and I have been living and working in Honolulu, Hawaii for the last 18 years. I just quit my job, and have a travel jones that is screaming for attention. I just don't know where the hell to go. At this point I plan to aimlessly wander the planet to see what I can shake loose. This will be my first solo wandering and I would appreciate any input you experienced travelers have to throw my way. Much Mahalos.

Hi, my name is Molly and I guess you could say I travel for a living, I'm a flight attendant. I've been doing this for 12 years. 2 airlines, and 2 continents later... I've been living in Hong Kong for 8 years (just got my permanent ID card!!) London before that, San Francisco before that, Burlington, Vt. before that, Mcdonald PA before that, and before that, Bellevue Washington where I was born and raised.

I learned at an early age that I was better at languages than math, so in junior high I started with Spanish and lived in Mexico for 3 months as an exchange student when I was 13. My senior year of high school was spent in Baden Baden, Germany as an exchange student and it pretty much took off from there. Armed with a degree in German Language and Literature I got a job with an airline and flew the "German Line" mainly to Frankfurt, but also to Munich. Now in HK, I am reduced to watching DW TV by myself as my husband doesn't speak German. My Spanish is still OK; last week there was a little boy and his sister on the flight (Chinese family from Peru) who spoke only Spanish. He insisted on following me around when he found out I spoke a bit and wasn't fazed one bit when I couldn't come up with a word or didn't quite understand him!

I'm also trying to join the Travellers Century Club, (48 more countries to go!) beacuse I want to go everywhere. My husband is beginning to regret signing up for the travel channel!

There is such a diverse group of people on here, with fantastic travel tales and travel plans!! I like hearing people's plans, it gives me ideas!!

Hi everyone. My name is Beth and I'm a travelholic. Do I have the right board????

I currently live in New Jersey running my own small business but mainly raising my 5 kids. We got one off to college a couple of years ago, with the rest of them running on down to second grade.

I never traveled much as a kid either. Besides heading to NYC to visit relatives, we only took one family vacation and that was a disaster. I think Dad planned it that way so he never had to go again. At 17, I took off for CU Boulder to go to school (because I wanted to live in the mountains ... lots of mature planning with that one). Once there, I caught rides with anyone going anywhere to see anything and the Travelin' Jones began. Life set in along the way and I had to earn a living but I was lucky enough to hook up with companies that sent me all over for work. I spent time all over the US, Europe and the Far East. Though I had to work, I always had a local who wanted to take me to some strange place that isn't on the map. Thanks to all of them! Throw in there my own trips to Russia, back to Europe and the East, the Caribbean, and cruising vacations (sailing that is), and my address book is quite full. Along the way, I happened to marry a great guy who roamed Europe at 19 then went to work for a year on a kibbutz shoveling chicken shit ... no kidding. He was born with traveling boots on.

So ... the kids are great, everyone is healthy, life is good, but something was missing. So my partner comes up with the idea to pull the kids out of school, sell the house, some of what's in it (sorry, I'm old, I can't part with a lifetime of stuff) and go rtw. You should have seen his face when I said okay. Makes a funny picture. So July 2005 the seven of us go. Our suitcases don't have wheels, we'll have to lug a couple of textbooks, I still need a decent bed, and we may be on the beaten track more than off but at least it will be around the world. The only way to make the world small for my kids is to make it big first.

You guys are the best ... thanks for all the info, advice, and the many laughs.

Howdy everyone. My name's Llew, short for Llewellyn.

Reading these introductions has me really impressed with the variety of experiences (and especially homes) you've all had. I've lived here in Toronto for my whole 28 years, except for four years in my early twenties when I was studying civil engineering in Montreal.

Before that, I was lucky enough to do lots of travelling with my family, but have done relatively little on my own since leaving home, though what I have done has led to almost uniformly positive experiences.

I'd been talking forever about doing a good long trip, and really taking some time to explore the world, and finally got off my butt and made it happen... I'm leaving for a year to go RTW this July (and am beginning to get very anxious and excited for my departure.)

This is way beyond any trip I've ever undertaken, much less ones I've done by myself, so I'm terribly grateful to everyone at BnA for the encouragement and all the wonderful resources here.

Just in case anyone's interested in my screen name (although I don't imagine many people who don't already recognize it are) Oswiu was a king of Northumbria around 650 AD who, among other things, defeated legendary warrior King Penda of Mercia against tremendous odds and began the golden age of the Northumbrian Kingdom. In case you couldn't tell, I have a bit of a thing for medieval British history. As well as rugby, beer and really geeky board games.

Looking forward to continued chatting with you all.

My real name is Michael J. I live in a big ranch in Santa Barbara. On the ranch I have an amusement park, a pet monkey named Bubbles, and a hyperbolic chamber that I sometimes sleep in. I used to hang out Emanuel Lewis and Gary Coleman.

Kidding aside, my name is Donovan Pacholl, 29, I work with Sean, Court and Dave at the Bootsnall Headquarters in Portland. I am a green native Oregonian (sort of hard to find these days in Portland) and returned a year ago from running a hostel and a project for Porters on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

Although I am a little bit nervous, I am getting married at the end of this summer to a wonderful woman named Carrie, who is equally as infatuated about travel and the world.

If you're ever headed to East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda), let us know. We are in the process of developing our East Africa Guide and also have plenty of contacts in the region.

Hi all, My name is Luke Ache, I am 27, I was born in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil and my parents immigrated to the USA when I was a child(best thing they could have done for us!). I speak 3 languages fluently (Portuguese, Spanish and English) and was trying to learn a 4th language but I didnt succeed. My Mom and my stepfather are both international flight attendants for Continental Airlines and although I have not travelled as often as I would like to..I have had the opportunity to visit and live in a few different places (Brazil, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Texas,New Mexico, Arizona, Minnesota,). I will be going back to college this Fall to complete my degree in Computer Science and I really hope to be able to find a job that would satisfy me once I graduate.. I have travelled mostly here in the States but I would love to go to Europe and Asia (even though I havent had the opportunity to go overseas yet). As far as travelling goes, I would love to be able to fly somewhere every weekend..I have been flying out at least every other weekend(mostly in the USA) but I still havent had the time to plan a trip overseas..I really want to explore the US more before I try to go overseas..I currently live in Saint Paul, Minnesota.. Feel free to email me at achel@bluemail.ch See ya!

My name is Cheyenne (yes, for real ), I'm 31, and I currently live in Idaho in the US. I'm mom to two terrific girls, aged 12 and 9.

I'm currently in school again (for massage therapy), and I have far far too many hobbies to list. I enjoy experiencing new things and like to keep myself open to people and experiences. A few of my diverse interests include; hiking, bellydance, homebrewing (currently I'm going cordial crazy, just got three new ones going!), alternative architecture, playing the Native American Flute, homeschooling my girls, volunteerism, activism, roleplaying games, reading...

My mother used to joke that she couldn't sit still longer than five minutes so we moved a lot when I was a child and I kept on going when I grew up without really thinking about it. I've lived all over the US and have been to almost every state as well as Mexico. I haven't made it overseas as of yet but I've been dreaming about it far too long, I'm finally working on it.

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Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult.