Travel thoughts: you grows up and you grows up

Writing today from the patio of the lovely climbing campsite/compound where we have been staying these last several days. The climbing is outside of Antalya and Mu has covered it in great detail on the previus post, which i encourage for folks that might not be that familiar with the sport. It has been very relaxing to slow down a bit and really dive into a sport that we both love, with several more weeks upcoming at climbing meccas throughout Europe.

View from the patio

The slower pace has allowed me to really ruminate on the differences between our approach to this trip versus past extended travels, either together or independent. It has been a gnawing topic in the back of my mind and i am glad to have this time to unlock it a bit.

There is an inherit ying/yang dynamic at play in our travels, in that Mu and i want to employ the travel tricks and techniques that have been so successful in the past, yet maintain the 'wisdom' we have garnered in our 5 years of marriage. It is an unavoidable (and pleasant!) fact that our lifestyle and station in society has increased dramatically in the those 5 years. Both of us had interesting and serious professional jobs, and our framework for vacationing/time/connection rose accordingly. One simple example is sampling many of the great restaurants in San Francisco, a city known as a culinary mecca, and not really thinking too much about what a luxury those meals represent. However, we face a reality that if we traveled in the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to in the last 4-5 years, our trip will be many months shorter than we have planned. This is the essnce of our ying/yang.

Upon reflection, i have come up with 3 major areas that define the difference between those past trips and this experience, Technology, Transport and Time.

- Technology: the world of technology continues to evolve at a lightning quick pace. I write this from an ipad2, which is our lone computing tool for the trip. Thus far, it has performed brilliantly, and i am sure that will continue. We are able to do most everything, with excellent battery life and a great synthesis across our various accounts and media.

The ability and opportunity for technology to improve lives is something i was fortunate to work on and write about at my old job, both at Avaya and Nortel, so this is an area i feel quite comfortable. There is always a concern about being too connected, and that is the challenge of a highly mobile and connected society/workforce. Thus far, i do not feel too connected, and feel very fortunate to have this blog for example to share our jounrey.

Another interesting change from past extended travel is the prevalence of wifi instead of internet cafes. Wifi has won the battle and the availability of internet cafes to plug in, and waste away a couple of hours catching up, has waned considerably. This seems like a nice development, but only for those with a computing, connected device. I can attest that it is much, much better to write, call, read and share from this ipad on the verandah than it is in a dingy cafe. However, sharing one mode of communication between two people is tricky.

Lastly, is the mesh economy (http://meshing.it/) that has been created over the last 5 or so years. The best example for our travels is Arbnb, but other examples include Zipcar and CouchSurfing. These networks allow people to share assets, be it cars, houses or realy anything else you can think of within that servce. We are jsut using Arbnb for now, which enables people to rent out their living space(s), and has proved qutie reasonabvle thus far for big cities. Instead of a stuffy hotel room or a drab room in a hostel, we had a really nice studio in Instanbul, right on the cutest street imaginable. That is a win/win situation and an example for the market and network enabling pareto efficency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency) .

- Transport: i will be honest, i love night buses. These allow the traveler to save a night of accomdation, can be quite pleasant and give a nice view of the countryside rolling along. They can also be exhausting, if sleep proves ellusive and the night becomes interminable. In many ways, this encapsulates my early 20's internatinoal travel. Until a week ago, it had been quite some time since i had taken a night bus anywhere, altough i did take my fair share of redeyes over the past several years. Even though we have grown quite a bit, Mu and i are back on the night bus bangwagon. We have taken two in the last week+ and have one upcominhg for tomorrow night. For me, the advantages listed above far exceed the potential downfalls and having a travel compaion (plus an ipad to watch the tv series, breaking bad, and movies) makes it even more of an appealing mode of transport.

A second major differnces in our approach to transport is the use of rental cars. Mua nd i have used them extensively for trips in Austrailia, Croatia and Costa Rica, all to great sucess. Having a car gives so much flexiblity and freedom, making it possible to really cram in a ton of things into a very short amount of time. It is a travel tool that we are well versed and will be using more in our trip. We had a car for a week in Isreal and will have one again for 6 days in Italy, then again with friends in Sardina. It can add stress to our life, when we argue about directions and the like, but again on balance the advantages vastly exceed the disadvantages. In my 20's i would never have contemplated renting a car, for one i think it was more expensive before these aggregator sites existed and two, it was intimidating.

- Time: in our past travels, there would be dead time where things went a little sideways or otherwise led to gaps between an arrival and departure. Here we are almost 3 weeks into the trip and this has occured exactly once thus far, a rate far lower than in the past. Some of this results from better technology and information, and some just comes from being better able to navigate the journey. This seems unambigously good. However, some of the best times and experiences come from the unexpected. I wonder if by having a tighter and more succesful schedule, we will end up missing some of those wondrous and spontaneous momments.

Where does this leave me/us? I find that we should endeavor to keep the best of our past experiences with extended travel while leveraging the new knowledge and tech that we have at our fingertips. By being mindful about the potential downfalls of these new tools, i feel confident that this intersection will be additive and a catalyst for amazing experiences.

What about you, anyone else thought and dealt with this dynamic? Any recs for how to keep the best attributes of youth while taking advantage of the wisdom, and knowledge we gain as we make our way through life?