Rudyard Kipling

This is a fictional story about two British soldiers who venture into a fictional land in the Hindu Kush mountain range and are changed forever. It’s an exciting, thrilling tale that will resonate with anyone who wants to leave their normal life behind and forge a new life in a new place. My only criticism is that it’s technically a short story, so it’s over sooner than you want.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

Have you seen these pictures on Instagram of the breathtakingly-beautiful Hindu temple in Bali, Indonesia? People pose between stone posts with mountains in the background, with a mirror-smooth reflection of themselves coming from a lake below. Isn't it stunning? Doesn't it make you want to stop what you're doing and get on an airplane and fly to Bali right now?

Me too. I've been looking at images like these for months now, appreciating how gorgeous the other side of the world can be, and feeling like I've just go to go there someday. I mean, look at those pictures! Have you ever seen anything so spectacular in your life?

How depressing is this Tweet?

Trouble is, those photos are faked. Every... single... one of them. Yes, it really is Bali. Yes, it really is a Hindu temple. Yes, those are real stone walls. But that perfectly-still reflecting lake below? It's a total, utter, and complete fraud.

According to Lifestyle Insider, the reflection that gives such an otherworldly magic to these photos is—literally—a tiny glass mirror held by the person taking the pictures under an iPhone. These photos taken were paid for by the tourists who stood in a line, some for hours supposedly in order to participate in the sham photoshoot.

Do you feel tricked? Confused? Do you wonder how that's even possible? See for yourself: a writer with Fortune Magazine took a trip to the exact spot, and noted how the site looked completely different in real life.

In case you couldn't tell, this makes me really mad. Maybe unreasonably so. After all, people can take whatever photos they want, and do whatever they want with their own money. So why do I care? A few reasons:

1. Almost nobody discloses the fact that these photos are, in fact, manipulated.

2. Nobody (that I can see) discloses the fact that they stood in a line, and paid for these photos.

3. It shows how desperate people are to impress others on social media. They'll go to extraordinary lengths to trick their "viewers" or "fans" into a false sense of wonder.

4. Destinations like this are already gorgeous enough! You do NOT need to try to make it look any better artificially, and doing so actually detracts from the location's reputation and can, in fact, harm tourism.

5. It creates (even more) unrealistic expectations in an industry that's already rife with misleading and deceptive advertising.

If you want to see the fraudulent images, view them on Instagram. Otherwise, here's a a comparison between what people prefer to portray versus what's real:

Fake Photo of #gatesofheaven

Real Photo of #gatesofheaven

On an important note, I do not fault the enterprising locals for coming up with the idea, or for profiting from it. Kudos to them—that's a totally friggin' brilliant move.

I do, however, bitterly resent the fact that there's enough demand for taking inauthentic photos from tourists who want to satisfy their desires to showcase a pretend, online version of themselves and adding #blessed #bestlife #lifeisgood #wanderlust tags.

Seriously: are these people so pathetic that they reason they went to Bali was to take (doctored) pictures? They're missing the whole point—taking fake pictures to share with people who aren't there is NOT the point of travel!

Perhaps I'm a bit oversensitive since I know that I would have received an "F" in my photojournalism classes in college if I had ever submitted photos like this in a project. I would have been sternly reprimanded and maybe even kicked out of the program altogether because it's dishonest to represent reality through photography in this manner.

Yes, again, I know that Instagram is not journalism school. But I also know that professional photojournalists, after school, are held to an even higher standard, and they would be fired from their jobs if they published work like this. And, in this day and age where social media is filled with professional travel "influencers"—people who are literally paid to share their experiences traveling—aren't they in some sense photojournalists? Aren't they professional photographers to some extent? Why don't we hold them to the same standard, or any standard?

This, to me, is an especially egregious example of the dark underbelly of the "amateur" travel industry. Since there are no industry codes of ethics as far as I can tell, a lot of manipulation, post-processing, and ad fraud is slipped into the news feeds and photo streams of unsuspecting fans.

In my opinion, the offline world of photoshopping supermodels for magazine covers is unethical because it makes people (women, especially) feel like crap because they portray an outrageous and unrealistic expectation of beauty.

This is just a digital version of the same unethical behavior, which makes people (like me) feel like crap because it portrays an outrageous and unrealistic expectation of travel.

Seriously, think about the people who went to to Bali and got there, only to discover: "I've been tricked!"

This game of extreme sensationalism and deception has got to stop. It will hurt travel, tourism, and travelers in the end unless we demand change.

This post will be the first of several on the topic of working as a digital nomad. My blog, resources, and podcast will focus heavily on the benefits of being a remote worker, choosing your work location, and finding ways to travel while still making income. I hope you find it helpful!

For nearly a dozen years, the work that I do for a living has allowed me to work from almost anywhere. I don't just mean my employer lets me work from home on occasion. I mean I can take my work with me anywhere: home, a coffee shop, the bookstore, the gym, my kids' school, the airport, another country, on a boat, etc.

Not being tied down to one geographic location is one of the greatest "job benefits" I can possible think of. For much of my adult life, I've been self-employed, and since I work in the digital space (web design, internet marketing and consulting, etc.), all I really need is a laptop and an internet connection.

Heck, these days, I don't even need a phone: I almost never make or receive calls. It's just email, screen sharing, and text messages. I literally take my entire office with me everywhere I go, in my backpack. The only difference between working from my home office and on the road is that I'm not sitting at my own desk.

A few years ago, I realized exactly how powerful this freedom was on a random day when I had an epiphany. I was working from home on my computer, looking out the window, thinking "Ugh. It's snowing again in Colorado. I sure would rather be somewhere warm. Wait—the only thing stopping me from going somewhere warm is me. I can still get at much work done in a warmer place as I am right now."

So what did I do? I took a trip! I flew to California, and visited a good friend of mine in a much warmer climate. And got a lot of work done in the process. Win-win!

I've noticed that a lot of people who travel frequently have digital/remote jobs, so what I do is actually pretty common. In fact, there's even a term for it: "digital nomad." That's a great term that really makes sense.

The problem I've seen though, in a lot of blog posts and YouTube videos is that people who digital nomads hype the idea as though it's the easiest thing in the world. It's almost an afterthought. It feels like they're saying "Yay! Go travel the world and follow your dreams and pursue everything you ever desired. All you have to to do it work remotely. It's that easy."

I hate to be disagreeable here, but: wrong! It's not that easy. It actually very tricky. It's not hard per se, but it involves a lot of complex personal habits, attention to detail, and advanced planning. There unique nuances involved in working across state lines, borders, and time zones.

I think people who prioritize a lifestyle of travel first, then think about what they'll do for work afterwards are putting the cart before the horse. It's exactly the opposite.

If you want to be a traveler that can work from anywhere:

First, build up a career that allows you to travel or work remotely.

Then, you can think about traveling, working remotely, and being a digital nomad.

In my podcast, blog posts and videos (lots more coming soon), I promise I will always be honest about the topics I discuss. And this topic is too important to gloss over. So you'll see as I add more articles over time, that I'm very enthusiastic about living as a digital nomad of sorts (I don't do it full time). But I'm also very cautious about telling people it's simple, because it isn't.

For example, I once launched a new website while sitting in the passenger seat of a rental car, balancing my laptop on my knees, trying to tether to the internet with my iPhone while driving through vast miles of rocky crags in New Mexico with spotty reception, racing to make my deadline. I pulled it off, but it was a super-stressful event. Usually, things work out fine. But sometimes, it's really frustrating and difficult and can even ruin your travel plans.

But I'll talk more about that in future posts. Stay tuned for more.

Sometimes, when people hear that I've been out of town and see me when I get back, they'll ask how my "vacation" went. I have to chuckle at this, because when I travel or take trips, it's almost never vacation, and definitely never relaxing.

I'm not saying that taking a vacation is bad or that relaxation isn't a worthy goal when taking a trip, but 99% of the time, when I leave home, it's most decidedly unrelaxing.

About a year ago, I went to a friend's wedding in California, and took along my daughter to give her a special experience with dad. We spent about three days on the trip, and most of the time involved getting there and back. When we got back in town, a lady said "I heard you went to California! Did you have a relaxing vacation?"

I laughed out loud and said "It was not a vacation," then caught myself and realized I may have come across as unkind and felt bad. But it's really a strange thing: if people find out that I'm out of town or out of state, they assume I'm sitting on a beach for hours and hours in the sun, drinking boat drinks, unplugging for several days. But that's almost never the case (I can only think of one trip I've taken where that was the case, actually).

In the case of the wedding, for example, the event was in Fresno, but as long as we were going all the way to California, I was determined to take my daughter to the beach. In order to pull that off, we had to fly into Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) airport, rent a car, and drive three hours to our AirBNB in Morro Bay. That means we got into Fresno around 8:00pm, then spent 3 hours in the car, and finally got to the place we were staying at midnight.

The next morning, we got up around 9:00am, went to the beach at 10:00am, and then headed back to Fresno, spending 3 hours in the car, so we could get to the event in time.

Was it worth it? Yes, going to the beach on a trip with one of my kids who had never been there before was worth it. Was it relaxing? No way! It was exhausting, and involved a tricky schedule to pull it off.

My point is that traveling to new places, sharing new experiences, and taking journeys is one of my favorite things to do. But when I'm on a trip like that, relaxation is almost never in the cards. I'm taking a trip, or traveling. Not taking a vacation. They're still worth going, but I'm totally spent when I get home.

So if you see me after I get back home from a trip, don’t ask how my vacation went.

Please.

One question that everyone who spends time (and a lot of money) traveling will have to answer for themselves is: why do I travel?

I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong answer to this question. It can be different for everyone, and it can change over time.

As I've started racking up the miles on my personal travel odometer, it's something I ponder from time to time. I wonder: am I escaping something? What am I looking for, exactly? What questions am I asking, and what answers am I hoping to find?

For me, as I ponder this, I think it ultimately boils down to a few very specific reasons. There are lots of little ones, but here's a short list of the ones that are the easiest for me to answer.

To expand my view of the world.

Yes, I know that sounds trite, but it's true. When I was about 13 years old, my family took a trip to the U.K., and while I was excited to go, I didn't understand the deeper meaning until I read something my dad wrote in an email to a friend. He explained that one of the reasons he decided to take us there was to help us learn about the country that America came from. (I don't recall exactly how he phrased it, but it was something to that effect).

My 8th-grade brain hadn't really thought about that before. I thought it would be fun to fly across the ocean and see another country, but I hadn't considered the important historical connection and how the country I lived (USA) in wouldn't even be a country without the U.K. That was eye-opening perspective. Plus, riding on an airplane for 15 hours showed me just how big the world is. That's something you just can't properly appreciate as a middle-schooler who's never left your country before.

To meet new people.

This is an extremely obvious and simple answer, but also one of the most important. When I met Duško, a man from Macedonia, on a cruise ship, he had a different perspective than me. Having lived in a former socialist republic in Europe, his entire life was different than mine. Yet we met, and become friendly, and I learned from him. That was only possible because I left home and went somewhere new.

To find new ways of thinking.

I had a philosophy professor many years ago who told me that she took trips to Japan as often as she could, because it was the furthest culture she could think of that thought about life in an entirely different way than we do in the west. I think I've kind of adopted that mindset: I try to find people who don't look like me, believe like me, and think like me, and see what I can learn from them.

I don't believe the west (in general) or the USA (in particular) has all the answers. So when I have the opportunity to see how other countries, and cultures operate and think, I'm going to listen to that whether I ultimately adopt it or not.

It's much more interesting to GO places than see them on TV.

As much as I like watching nature shows about the Australian outback, I would much rather actually go there and see it for myself. Certainly, TV, podcasts, videos, magazines, and other ways of learning about the world are helpful. But if I possibly can, I'd rather see it with my own two eyes.

It clears my mind.

In my limited travel experience, I've seen a tendency for some people to use travel as a way to avoid responsibility, or put off "growing up" as long as they can. That annoys me, and what annoys me most is how some people seem to think that they can escape their problems if they just go far enough away from their daily lives.

If there's anything I've learned over the years, is that when you travel, whatever problems you have back at home will still be there when you return. Simply putting distance between your circumstances and your current location does nothing.

However, one thing that travel definitely does do for me is this: it gives me enough time, and a change of scenery, to quietly contemplate my issues, and find a good solution for them.

One of my favorite places to do this is, perhaps surprisingly, at my local YMCA. Just a few miles away from my house is the gym that I go at least three times a week. If I'm struggling with a particular business challenge, or a stressful family situation, I'll go to the gym.

Just the act of getting out of the house, driving in the car, hopping on a treadmill and working up a big, heavy sweat, while breathing hard, then getting into a sauna allows me to sit with my own thoughts, undistracted. I write down notes on a pad of paper as I breathe the hot, dry air. I do some of my best thinking in the sauna.

On a bigger scale, I've used travel at several junctures in my life where I had to make a major life decision. Getting out of my normal routine, hopping in a car and driving several hours to another city, alone, where I don't know anybody is a huge benefit as I weigh the big issues I need to think about. Some of the most crucial decisions I've made as a married man happened this way.

I'm certain that if I wasn't able to extract myself from the daily grind, I wouldn't be as confident in my ability to decide the best choice. But, as I said, I can't escape the problems I have in my life: when my trip is over, I need to go back and deal with them.

It makes me more appreciative of my life, home, and family.

Traveling away from home can be an exciting experience, and sometimes you can't wait until it's time to leave. But, just like a kid who spends too many nights at his best friend's house, you can eventually start to get tired of living out of a backpack and you start to miss your own bed. You may even miss your mom's cooking (which is something you never thought you'd miss until you tried other moms' cooking).

That happens to me too: when I go away from home, it's good. But it's also really good to have some time away from the people I love because it reminds me how much I love them.

When I'm driving down the highway, 2,000 miles from home, and see a sign that reminds me of an inside joke my wife and I share, it makes me a bit sad that she's not there to see it. And so I store up little mental notes to share with her when I get home. That makes me miss here when I'm away, and excited at the thought of coming back.

It's energizing.

Similar to how I mentioned that travel clears my mind, it also gives me energy in a way. It offers a break from the ordinary in a way that recharges and refreshes. Like summer vacation during the school year: one of the reasons we're able to survive going to school all day, every weekday during the school year, is that we know there will be a big break with a change of pace every summer.

Being able to take a few months off in the summer gives students enough rest and energy to come back and attack the new semester with gusto. Travel, at least for me, is almost never relaxing (because of the way I do it) in the sense that I get sleep and have lots of down time. But it does energize me in the sense that I can come back home after a trip and finally sort the garage, or finish that paper, or whatever I'm wanting to accomplish, because I'm just somehow ready. It's not always that way, but oftentimes I make lists of "things to do when I get back" because I'm all full of vigor and ready to take on the challenge. That's good for me, and my family.

Final Thoughts

What about you? If you're reading this, and you travel often, have you thought about why? Or, if you don't travel, have you thought about why not? Let me know! I'm always open to having a discussion with people on the topic.

Thanks for reading.

Here's a video of when I was at Maho Beach in St. Martin (on the island of Sint Maarten in the Caribbean). This beach, just off Simpson Bay, is strangely positioned right in front of Princess Juliana International Airport which means it gets airplanes coming in and out all day long that fly right over where people are swimming.

These aren't just little puddle-jumper prop planes, either. Check out this enormous commercial plane (I'm not sure which kind) that took off right behind us. Hopefully you can see through the shaky video just how insane the air coming from the jet engines is. The sand was whipping at us so hard that it was blinding, which is why my friend (holding the video camera) can be seen trying to shield the lens.

(Warning: this video is very loud!)

I've never seen anything like it, but the people who run the bar on the beach sure have, as they watch each load of tourists come in and learn their lesson the first time (and hopefully not a second time). I'm sure they laugh all the way to the bank. The planes sure draw people to come visit.

Here’s a map, in case you’re wondering where it is, exactly.

If you ever go there, be sure to take some photos and videos, and make sure you don't get sandblasted by the jet engines as the planes take off. (It hurts!)

Also, when I went, it was many years ago—I don't know how it fared when Hurricane Irma hit in 2017. If you have an update on the damage or rebuilding, let me know!

This is a transcription of an interview recorded for the Ron Voyage! Podcast. Some of it may be difficult to interpret without listening to the podcast episode. Feel free to read this interview, or click on the link above to hear the entire episode. This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity and to correct grammatical errors.

Episode Intro: In today's episode, I'll be doing something slightly different. Rather than recount one of my own travel experiences, I'll be interviewing someone else who took a trip that I think is absolutely fascinating.

This episode is all about a trip my dad took over 30 years ago, where he rode a bicycle across the United States from the west coast to the east coast. Riding on a bike for more than 3,000 miles over a period of 42 days and seeing ten states in the process, it's one of the most ambitious trips undertaken by anybody I know personally.

As you listen to this interview, you will probably hear some road noise and dogs barking in the background since our conversation was held outside on the porch at his home near Orlando, Florida. But first, some background on our guest. My dad, who is also named Ron Stauffer, by the way, is one of the most interesting people I know.

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His life story is filled with variety. He went to college at Cal State Bakersfield in California and earned a bachelor's degree in biology. From there, he decided to go to seminary and get a master's degree in theology. After school, he worked in several diverse industries. He spent nearly 20 years in medical sales, then was a general manager of a construction company and eventually served a few years as a prison chaplain at a Colorado correctional facility. Finally, he moved to Florida, where he now serves as the lead pastor of a church in Leesburg.

I think most people who know my dad think of him as a kind, humble man who is very deep and thoughtful. I also think that many people who meet "Pastor Ron" would be shocked to learn that the steady, unpretentious guy who faithfully shows up every Sunday morning has accomplished some remarkable journeys in the past that he wouldn't tell you about unless you asked him.

Like me, my dad is an explorer, thinker, and traveler, who ponders the meaning of life while journeying to new places. He has taken several trips that require sharp mental acuity and physical fitness, including camping in the wilderness in the Carolinas without taking any food or water, backpacking across Europe, spending half a year living in Germany and learning the language, and taking a bike trip across the country, which we'll talk about today.

To me, Dad's bike trip has always been something my family talked about, but it seemed more legend than truth. I've never really taken the time to learn about that trip, why he took it, how he prepared for it, or any of the other details. So in today's episode, I finally asked the questions I've always wondered about. If that sounds interesting to you, keep listening.

Ron: Hi, Dad.

Guest: Hey, Ron.

Ron: Many years ago, before I was born, you took a trip across the country on a bicycle.

Guest: I did.

Ron: You spent 42 days riding on a bicycle from the west coast to the east coast.

Guest: A most unremarkable bicycle.

Ron: So that was in the year 1980, right?

Guest: 1980, summer of 1980, yes.

Ron: And you started in California?

Guest: I started in Oceanside, California. I dipped my back tire into the water. There was a family strolling along the beach. I asked them to take some pictures with my camera, so we have some pictures of that. And I find it kind of remarkable to look at those pictures nowadays, the pictures from the Pacific Ocean, and then 42 days later, the pictures at the Atlantic Ocean. I think my thighs were twice the size at the Atlantic Ocean because I had put 3,400 miles under my belt by then, and those legs grew, baby!

Ron: Okay, so you left on Sunday, June 29th, 1980, and you finished what, August…

Guest: August 10th, 1980, 42 days later.

Ron: So, the first question that comes to mind is: "Why?" Why are you doing this? Why are you spending 42 days riding your bike from the west coast to the east coast?

Guest: Well, I had a strong sense of adventure from some previous adventures that I had done with traveling, some in America, and some over in Europe. And there was this Christian conference I wanted to go to in New York City that summer, and I just, I kind of played around in my mind with different ideas of how to get there. And just to really draw, you know, outside the lines—to color outside the lines. So I went back and forth, you know, shall I roller skate, run, walk, skateboard, and you know, I just kind of landed on: ride a bicycle. It's faster; it's overland, it's not motorized. And so I did that. Plus also, I had read this book by Peter Jenkins called "A Walk Across America." And man, I admired that guy so much. He thought that he would, you know, walk across America from the east coast to the west coast and said: "Hey, how hard could it be? I'll be done in six months, tops." Five years later, he finished his trip. But he had these great adventures along the way, and that intrigued me, and I thought: "I'd like to see America like not through a windshield. Not in an air-conditioned car." And my reasoning was: the more primitive you travel, the closer to the land you get, the closer to the experience you get. I had already had some experience in that, with backpacking through Europe the previous year and so, yeah, bicycle. Why not?

Ron: So you're kind of putting the cart before the horse. It was not that you were this insane cyclist who had done many, many trips on a bicycle, and you said: "The next thing would be riding from the west coast to the east coast." It was the opposite? It was that you said, I want to make this trip. I guess the bicycle is the best way to do that.

Guest: I didn't even own a bicycle. I was like; I don't think I had owned a bicycle for the previous, I don't know, seven or eight years or so. So I just thought: "Yeah. I'm going to ride a bicycle across the United States. I guess I better get a bicycle to do that." Right?

Ron: And it was an unexceptional bicycle. Or what did you say? An "unremarkable"….

Guest: Very unremarkable bicycle.

Ron: So you did not go to a bike store and say to a clerk: "I want to ride this thing for thousands of miles. Give me the best you got?"

Guest: Here's how I did it: I just had this picture in my mind of how much money I had and what kind of bicycle I wanted, and I kind of tempered one against the other and reasoned it out. And I thought: "I want a bicycle. I don't care how expensive the frame is." Now, frames are really a big deal. If you're in the bicycling world, it's a big deal. You can spend thousands of dollars on a frame, but I thought I could do a cheap frame, but I want really good moving parts. So I got on my knees, and I just said: "Lord, could you find me a bicycle that I can get with a really not-so-hot frame as long as it's lightweight, but really good moving parts," and "by the way, Lord, I've only got $100 to spend." So, long story short, I met up with a guy at work, and he had a bicycle for sale. What a coincidence, right? With a cheap kabuki Japanese frame and Campagnolo derailleurs, SunTour GT Luxe brakes, RIGIDA rims... I mean. The best moving parts there were. I asked him: "How much do you want for it?" He said, "I'll take a hundred." It's like he was listening in on my prayers. It was amazing. I added a few extra parts to it there, and I started working out with some buddies from college, and I sucked at riding a bicycle. I was so bad. They left me in the dust. We'd be out riding up these hills, and they'd be a hundred yards ahead of me. It was just like, it was embarrassing. I thought I was in good shape. I was in pathetic shape.

Ron: So to prepare yourself to ride across the country, you didn't like map out a plan and say: "For the next six months, I'm going to slowly build up my endurance," like a marathoner?

Guest: That would make sense! That would actually be very common sense. No, what I did is I spent about four weeks riding with these other guys, two or three times a week, and some early morning workouts, and they taught me how to ride a bicycle. And they taught me how to ride well and some techniques for building strength and so on. But really, I was at the mercy of just; I figured I would just get in shape while I was riding on the trip.

Ron: So, from the first time when you bought that bicycle to when your trip started, how long was that?

Guest: Not more than three months. Probably two months.

Ron: And how many miles do you think you rode on that trip?

Guest: I think on the trip, I rode about 3,400 miles.

Ron: So what, before that trip was the longest trip you had ever taken on a bicycle?

Guest: 30? (Laughs)

Ron: So from 30 miles to 3,400 miles in two or three months?

Guest: Probably, the longest training run I had done [before that] was 30 miles.

Ron: So the equivalent of walking around the block, then running a marathon, with almost no time to train in between?

Guest: Yeah, Probably something like that.

Ron: Okay. So 3,400 miles from the west coast to the east coast. How many states was that?

Guest: Well, let's see: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia. Nine states right there. Did I miss one? I bet I did. [Note: forgot to add Illinois.]

Ron: So, it was about halfway between north and south? Central…

Guest: You know, I started out, there was a, there was a trail. Back then, we didn't have the internet. And so you, you know, how did you find information on: "Well, I wonder if somebody ever mapped out a bicycle route for other people to take?" and you just kinda had to go to the library and do your research there. There were no personal computers. There was no world wide web. So I figured this out in the springtime of 1980 and somebody had already done the heavy lifting on developing a—not developing a trail, but mapping one out that you could ride on and not get yourself killed on the trip, and it was called the Bikecentennial Trail. The idea being: "Hey, let's get a bunch of bicyclists together and ride across the country in 1976 for a celebration of the bicentennial of the United States of America." And so that was four years before I needed it. So I found out about this, and I sent in my $25 or whatever to their organization. They sent me back a box full of little booklets that showed, you know, okay, you go through this town and go through that town. Kind of like the book, the tour books, you know, Europe that—you'll laugh at the price. Back then, when I went to Europe, I took a book with me called "Europe On Five Dollars a Day," because you really could do Europe on five dollars a day back then if you were really careful. But, um, yeah, so I just followed those maps. And there were two basic trails: there was one called the Bikecentennial Trail that started out in [the] Seattle, Washington area, and went all the way across the United States by going down in a southeasterly direction to like Independence, Kansas and then straight east from there to Virginia. Well, I didn't want to take that northerly route. I already lived in California, so I thought, well, I want to start further South. So, they also had another map for something called the Southwest America Bicycle Trail. And that went from Southern California across the Southern United States and intersected with the Bikecentennial Trail in; I believe it was Independence Kansas. So I started out on the Southwest America Bicycle Trail. Took that for, what would that be, three weeks or so? Maybe three and a half weeks, and then joined up with the Bikecentennial Trail in Kansas.

Ron: So you mapped out your trip ahead of time.

Guest: It was kind of mapped out for me. Yes.

Ron: And did you say to yourself: "I will adhere religiously to this and do everything they say," or…

Guest: Absolutely not. That's not my way. It's a good suggestion. I'll follow it the best I can. I thought, and you know, sometimes, uh, there would be stretches where the map was not accurate. There'd be stretches where the road would be out, or there would be stretches where, well, they built an interstate on that old county highway. Now the county highway is gone, and here we are, we just have a six-lane interstate that doesn't even allow bicycle travel on it. So I did a little of everything. I tried to rarely break the law while I was riding, but you know, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do to get through the day.

Ron: Sure. Do you recall where you stayed each night?

Guest: I was digging through my stuff today, and I found my diary from this trip, and so... do I remember it off the top of my head? There's a lot that I don't remember, but as I was flipping through this diary and reading, it really brought back the memories, and I could start to see the people…. Of course, there were some favorite places that I got to stay. My dad worked with Xerox Corporation, and they had a network of offices all across the United States. And especially back then in 1980, it was a really big, popular corporation with sales offices everywhere. So my dad offered to call ahead to those different offices roughly along my route and say, "Hey, I got a boy who's riding his bicycle across the United States from the west coast to the east coast. You think you've got anybody there who could maybe give them a little hand, give him a place to stay for a night, maybe a meal?" And it was a pretty neat deal. I always took a pocket full of coins, you know, and would go to a payphone and call my dad almost every night and say, "Well, what do you got for me tomorrow?" He'd say, well, tomorrow, here's this Xerox business office, and call them, and there's a guy named Roy you want to ask for there. And he said he's got a place for you to stay. Great, Roy.

Ron: Oh, wow. So you didn't map out where you would stay ahead of time, so you would periodically check in with the home base and say…

Guest: That's right.

Ron: Okay, so grandpa, your dad, my grandpa, also named Ron Stauffer, by the way, was calling ahead as you were progressing? So maybe he had mapped out a little map himself and said: "Okay, so three days from now he might be in such and such"…

Guest: Oh, he was a logistics officer. He had a command post at home with a map of the United States up on the kitchen wall and little push pins in it and names and phone numbers, and it was amazing.

Ron: So, so, okay, how much did it cost? A trip like that, 3,400 miles on a bicycle. Did you save thousands of dollars?

Guest: That would make sense. Wouldn't it? Save thousands of dollars (laughs)? You got to understand what I was going through in my life at that time. I had recently become a Christian on March 17th, 1977, so I had known the Lord about three and a half years at that point. And I was on a very strong faith journey, with the innocence and the faith of a child, and I just believed that God would take care of me along the way. And I believed in my own toughness and resiliency and ability to figure things out, and I believed in my dad, who could help me find places along the way. And I believed in prayer, and I still do, by the way. So this was a really, you know, a strong formational point of my Christian life. And the whole thing started because I wanted to go to a Christian conference of the church that I had gone to for a couple of years. It was taking place that August in Brooklyn, and I just wanted to go out there. So I came up with this way to travel out there, and I just said to myself, "if God wants me to go on this trip, God will provide the means to get there."

Ron: So you didn't fundraise and ask for support?

Guest: No, no. I had a job at a drug store. And I saved what I could, but I had spent most of my money on my bicycle and some gear. I bought that bike for $100, put another $50 into it, got some gear for another $50. I think I had $200 into stuff to do the trip. And I started out with $82 in my pocket. After a couple of days, I got a traveler's check from my parents, which represented my income tax return, which had come home. I had my dad forge my name to cash my Income tax return That was like $100 or so, and he sent me a Traveler's check in the mail to one of the Xerox offices. And so there I'm up to $182

Ron: A whopping $182!

Guest: Yeah. Which, by the time I got that, I think I was in Texas. I had made it, you know, from California to Texas on $82. Now that includes my food. I never did once buy a room. But it included whatever food I bought and really, the most money I spent was on tires and inner tubes.

Ron: How many tires and inner tubes did you have to replace?

Guest: I never did count it up. I would guess. Fifteen inner tubes, maybe. And about eight tires, maybe.

Ron: Okay.

Guest: Yeah, they weren't cheap. You know when you're only living on $182, and you've got to buy a $20 tire, that's a big deal.

Ron: Is that how much it was? Wow!

Guest: They were—I don't remember the exact price…

Ron: But enough to put a damper on your budget?

Guest: It was several days' worth of food. Put it that way.

Ron: Interesting. Now you brought up an interesting point: you never paid to stay over on an overnight?

Guest: "It wasn't in the budget old chap!" It wasn't in the plans. No, I had a sleeping bag with me, and I had actually a youth hostel bed sheet from the previous year when I had traveled in Europe, so I had that, and I had a sleeping bag. By the time I got a couple hundred miles into the trip—and it was a hot, hot summer, there was a heatwave going across the United States where every new town that I arrived in, the newspaper headlines in the news racks that day said something like: "Six People Killed This Weekend in Record-Setting Heatwave." And so this heatwave went before me, and it cooled off just a little bit. By the time I would get to each city. So it was spreading from west...

Ron: You were following the heatwave?

Guest: I was following this heatwave! People were dropping like flies out there, and I'm out there in the middle of the sun, riding. So after a couple of hundred miles, I said, forget this sleeping bag thing. I finished the trip with nothing but a bedsheet. That was my sleeping gear.

Ron: So, no pillow?

Guest: I spent a number of nights outside, camping in a sheet, and I sent most of my clothing home. I had, you know, long pants and long this and that, and the other. By the time I, I sent all my gear home. I sent this box home. It must have weighed probably 12 pounds that I had been carrying. It had a sleeping bag and a bunch of my clothes, a spare pair of shoes and stuff. So I did the trip with one pair of Adidas running shoes. Two athletic shorts (gym shorts), two pairs of underwear, one tee shirt, one long sleeve tee shirt, a bandana, and that… I think that was it for clothing. That was my clothing. I slept in that, I rode in that, I went to church in that… I'm serious, and this is back when they had those really short shorts for men, you know, like REALLY short shorts, right from 1980. And I'm going into a Southern Baptist church and all the people going there are like, they're dressed up in these white shirts and tight ties and three-piece suits in the middle of the summer and everything. And I'm coming in in a really short pair of gym shorts and some Adidas, and I don't smell that great.

Ron: Sure, So how old were you at the time?

Guest: I was 22.

Ron: Were you still in school?

Guest: I was. I was 22—that should be the year that I would have graduated from college, but because I took a year off college to travel in Europe, what would have been my junior year. And because I slowed down a little bit and took a semester off to do some work to pay my bills and save some money for school. I got out of school in six years instead of four years with a bachelor's degree. So I graduated from college at age 24. So yes, so I had two more years of school to go before I would graduate.

Ron: But this was in the summer, so it didn't affect…

Guest: This was in the summer, so it didn't affect schooling at all. It affected my ability to earn money for school, [by] spending money, not earning it.

Ron: How did you afford the time off work? Did you, literally tell your boss, "I want to take a trip to New York, and I need 42 days off?" or how did that conversation go?

Guest: Yeah. I just went to my boss, Mr. Bruce Claussen, at Skaggs Drugstore on Ming Avenue in Bakersfield, California, 93309, and I said, "Uh, Mr. Claussen, I want to take the summer off. He said, "Well, I can't do that." And I said, "Well, I'm going, and I hope I have a job when I come back." And he said "Okay. You put it that way? I'll hold your job for you."

Ron: Wow.

Guest: Yeah.

Ron: So, okay, so you had a fan in your, maybe not a fan—a reluctant supporter in your boss. How about the other people you told? Or did you even tell people "I'm going to ride my bike all the way across the country?"

Guest: I told a few people. It's not something that I really wanted to publicize that much, you know? We're to let—the Bible says: "Let another man's lips praise you and not your own." And I just, I didn't know a whole lot about humility, but I knew it's probably not good to brag about something you haven't done yet. So I didn't, I didn't want to sort of puff up that adventure before it was accomplished.

Ron: Of the few people you tell, did anybody say: "What? Why?"

Guest: Not the people who knew me. The people who knew me were just nothing but encouraging cause they knew I could do it. Because I've basically always accomplished everything I've ever set my mind to. And those who knew that about me just said something along the lines of: "Yeah, that figures. I'm not surprised you're going to do something like that. I would never do it, but yeah, you can do it."

Ron: What about your parents?

Guest: Oh, they were all for it.

Ron: So you said: "I'm going to do this," and they said: "Okay?"

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. My dad and my mom were both—they were all for it. They were very encouraging. They had nothing but faith and believed in me. You know, Ron, that's what I grew up with, though. Both of my parents always encouraged me. [They] always believed in me, and they would always tell me: "Ron, whatever you set your mind to, I believe that you can do it."

Ron: And the fact that grandpa called ahead and got the Xerox crew on board to help you was obviously proof of that.

Guest: Yes. It was, totally. He was proud.

Ron: He was telling his friends and coworkers and people who worked for the same company that he'd never met before.

Guest: That's right, so in a way, the pressure's on, right?

Ron: Better not screw it up!

Guest: Right.

Ron: At some point along your Journey, people caught wind of, wow, there's literally a guy on a bicycle riding across the entire country. We should find out about his story. Can you share a couple of examples of that?

Guest: Sure. I'm trying to remember the names of some of these towns now, and I'm sure it's in this journal. There was one lady I stayed with, and I don't remember how I met all these people. Sometimes they were Xerox people; sometimes they were just people that I just met…

Ron: Like at gas station, filling up?

Guest: Yeah. Okay, so there's a gas station in Kansas, and I'm on the payphone out in front of this 7-11. I called my dad. And I said: "Well, dad, you got anybody for me here in this town?" He said: "No, I got somebody for you in the next town." I said: "Okay, great." He asked: "Where are you going to stay tonight?" I said: "You know? I don't know where I'm going to stay. I guess I'll look around here for a park or something, but I love you, dad, and I'll call you tomorrow and let you know that I'm okay." And there was a tall gentleman, a handsome fellow in a business suit, and he had just gotten off of another payphone there, and when I hung up the payphone I was on, he said: "Pardon me for listening in, but I overheard you talking to your father there. I'm (I forgot the fellow's name. Let's say his name is Bill Smith.) My name is Bill Smith, and I'm the president of one of the two banks here in this town. And my wife is the president of the other bank. So we're business people here, and we've got a nice place. And I just got off the phone with my wife, and she said, 'Heck yeah, sure. Invite that young man over to spend the night with us.' So we'd like to adopt you for the night." And so I said: "Sure!"

Ron: So the bank president at a city in Kansas that you'd never met overheard your conversation on a payphone and said, "My wife has invited you to spend the night in our house?"

Guest: "We'd love to invite you to come spend the night. Spend a few days if you want!" I didn't, you know, but they took me to their cabin on a lake or something, and we spent the evening, swinging off rope swings into the lake and barbecuing outside and, and I just enjoyed that. There are all these stories going all across the country. You know, what I learned is that the people of the United States, there's a lot of good, good people here with really open hearts and we don't share about those people enough. They're the salt of the earth, and sometimes you need to open your heart to strangers and accept some help from them; accept their hospitality. And don't be afraid to take a little risk that way. Now, I had sharpened my people-judging skills the previous year, backpacking and hitchhiking through Europe, going through countries where I didn't understand the language. And if I got my thumb out and I'm hitchhiking, and some guy pulls over and speaks to me in a language I do not understand, I have about three seconds to figure out whether this is a good ride or a bad ride, and I don't have any clues from the words being spoken because we don't even speak the same language. You develop some real survival skills that way. Real people skills when your life is on the line, and those kinds of skills—That kind of street-wise instinct did me very well in the business world, the world of commerce, the world of sales, and just… the street. I learned a lot about humans and human nature, and sometimes I met some people that were questionable, maybe not so honorable. But I've found ways to not get into trouble over that.

Ron: At some point on your trip, people in the media: radio, newspaper, folks like that caught wind of what you were doing and thought: "Hey, this is a good story. I'd like to share it with our public." Weren't you interviewed a couple of times?

Guest: I was. So, word would get around, maybe somebody would see me writing out on the highway, and that'd be 20-30 miles outside of a town and word would kind of, the buzz would start happening in the town there and they had time to prepare for me to come in. There was a time a lady came out who was associated with a radio station in Texas, and she offered me a place to stay. She was old enough to be my mom, you know, and I felt pretty safe there. So I got interviewed there on the radio and then got back into the car and went and stayed there and went to church the next day with that lady and, and you know, further… And then one news outlet talks to another and they read each other's stuff. And then I got to, by the time I got to this little town in the panhandle of Texas: Borger, Texas. And I wound up for somehow staying with a family there and they called the local newspaper. The guy came out and interviewed me, and took some pictures. It was a big excitement, you know, one of those towns where the newspaper comes out once a week, and it's about six pages long. Okay. So, like, this long-haired young guy from California, in very short shorts. He's big news, right? Big excitement in town. It's is one of those newspapers where they have half of a page dedicated to: "Well, the Lansings invited the Jennings over for dinner this last Friday night. Had stroganoff, I hear," so it's a big deal, but they're good people.

Ron: What was it you wanted on this trip? Aside from, okay, I've got a conference to get to in New York. Like in what way did you expect that a trip like this would change you or teach you something or shape you, and how did it actually do that?

Guest: I think that my expectations of what the trip would do to me and for me, were much lower than what the trip actually did for me and to me. I think I had low expectations. I thought it was going to be fun. I thought I would get in shape, and I thought I would get to see America. So it did all those things. I did not realize ahead of time; I could not imagine the impact on my spirit and the impact on my psychology and my faith life that this trip would have. I told you before that I started the trip with $82 in my pocket and 3,000 miles in front of me. I didn't really stop to think that much about what that means. Like that's, you know, that's a penny a mile or something crazy like that. I wound up leaning on God more than I ever imagined. I wound up needing to trust strangers to a far greater extent than I ever would have thought was reasonable or prudent. And to wake up, hours before the sun each day, and to see the sunrise in your face, (cause I'm going east) every day, generally along a quiet country road, you're so close to nature. It's a primitive form of travel, and you have eight to 10 hours a day alone with your mind to think about: "Why am I here?" and "What is my purpose?" And I think it formed a basis for what kind of man I would become. It was much more than just getting big thighs while riding a couple thousand miles and seeing America. The fact that I deliberately took on a challenge that I was almost certain was beyond my ability—this did more to build up my faith in my young Christian years than just about anything else I ever did.

Ron: And it sounds like a big part of that was meeting people that you could never have known ahead of time, that you bumped into at a gas station in Kansas?

Guest: Yes. And I got to see that regardless of their faith or their ideology or whatever, everybody is a human being. They all deserve a basic measure of respect, and we need not be afraid of everybody that we meet. I look around today. Then I see in the news and social media; I see a lot of hatred. I see a lot of mistrust between people, and that goes completely counter to my experience with people riding a bike across the United States. People who are different than me, who believe a little bit different than me; they're not my enemy. I can love them and respect them and live with them. Yeah, it was a spiritual thing. Getting to meet different kinds of people. I met people who were amazingly wealthy, and I met people who were really poor, and both were very giving and generous to me and just poured out their hearts to me. And so I learned that extremely wealthy people are not bad because they're wealthy. They can be absolute salt-of-the-earth, good, Godly, wonderful folks. And the same thing with people who are very, very poor. They have as much value as anybody who's really wealthy. And I know we learn that and we talk about that in Sunday School, and in college, and you know, wherever your circle of philosophy is, and discussion is. But when you get out, and you are living in other people's homes, spending the night there, they're cooking for you; they're helping you plan your next day's trip. You get to meet their families and their dogs and their, you know… I stayed with people in single-wide trailers. I had never slept in a single-wide trailer before. I grew up in an upper middle class, fairly prosperous lifestyle. And to go stay, for example, on an Indian reservation where everybody there either lives in an Adobe hut or a single-wide trailer, they're good people. It was a great experience.

Ron: What was the worst part of the trip? Was there a low point?

Guest: I don't remember one. I had a few negative experiences, but they didn't qualify to make it a bad trip or a bad day. It's just some negative things that happened. Not many, but a few that there's just, you know, that's just something you overcome, and you move on. Nothing that ever made me despair or say: "Oh, this stinks. I don't want to do this." No.

Ron: On a more positive note, we talked about what you learned about America; what you learned about people. What did you learn about yourself? I would imagine 42 days, essentially alone, coming into contact with other people, but essentially alone, you learned something about yourself on a trip like that.

Guest: Well, it reinforced in me the conviction and the confidence that also I, but I think, I mean everybody: if I really set my mind to something and I'm willing to sacrifice enough, and I'm willing to deal with some difficulties with a good attitude. Man, that'll get me through just about anything. Not to be braggadocious, but I think you can accomplish just about anything you really set your mind to if you just decide that's what you're going to do, and you're going to pay the price to get there. I'm not saying a person can do anything, but I'm saying if it's really important to you, here's what I learned for me: For me, if something's really important to me, and I'm willing to save up some money for it and do a little research about it and just like launch out and take a risk and try something… pretty good odds that it's going to go well. As long as I stay on top of my attitude…. I learned that about me. That I can pretty much—it's not because I'm special, I think it's within most people, but for me, I learned this about me—I can accomplish almost anything I set my mind to. I don't mean to be the positive of power of positive confession. I'm not into all that. But if you set an athletic goal, a financial goal, educational goal, and you sacrifice a few things to get there, you can pull it off. But also, I learned this trip enabled me to be alone enough in my own head. I learned that I like it there in my head. It's a good place to be. I like thinking about things. I like deeply contemplating the mysteries of the universe, the nature of God. I think it was the beginning of my journey to becoming an intellectual.

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Ron: So you're on this trip. 40+ days, 3,000+ miles. It's over. It's done. It's the last day. What's going through your mind?

Guest: So I remember I had called my cousin Susie to come to pick me up there at the Chesapeake Bay at a certain Wharf. I was not going to finish the trip until she got there. So, you know, I had spent a couple of hours there waiting for her to arrive while I'm looking at the ocean, not completing it.

Ron: It's so close. It's so far away.

Guest: It's so close yet so far away! I gave her my camera, and said: "Hey, why don't you take some pictures of me as I ride my bike down into the ocean?" It was a little anti-climactic because—it sounds quaint to say—it wasn't about the destination. It was about the journey. The greatest part of the trip was not arriving at the Atlantic Ocean. That's not the purpose. The purpose was going—it was journeying there. And so for me, what I learned out of that, it was a metaphor for life. I mean, it really drove it home to me in a way that I could never have experienced otherwise, probably, which is, you know, an old-age retirement with a big house or something like this—if you live your whole life and that's your destination, "I'm going to build the dream house, and I'm going to have the woodshop in my garage and do all these things that I can, finally, when I have time, I can do all these things" and then you arrive and you go: "Huh. Maybe not so fulfilling." And you look back on your life, cause I'm getting closer to retirement age now. You look back on your life, and where's the real joy? It was in the hardships of being a 35-year-old father trying to bring home the groceries, and you get through these hard things in your life, and you forge relationships and love and family and friendships, and you suffer. And those are the good things of life, not going through the suffering, but coming out on the other side. And so when I finished this bicycle journey, little over 3,000 miles, six weeks, it was good to finish it, but it wasn't the high point in my life. And that was a real, I won't say it was a real let down, but it was a real "aha moment" for me, like thinking: "I should be happier than this. This should be a bigger deal for me. I should be just like jumping out of my skin to be here at the destination."

And I wasn't, it wasn't a letdown, it was, it was a pretty cool moment, but…

Ron: But it wasn't, the high point.

Guest: It was not the high point of the trip. And there wasn't any one real high point of the trip where I could say, like: "Oh man; this was the best day right here." I suppose the last day of the trip was a high point of the trip in the sense that I could look back and on a lot of experiences gained that made me who I am today and that that point more than any other point in that 3,000-mile journey. Then I could really appreciate: "Look what I have done. Look what I have come through. Look what God has done for me in all this. I'm closer to God. I know more about myself. I value my parents more than I ever did. I value family. I value the people of these United States. They're great, good people. This has been a great adventure. I'm sorry it's over."

Ron: So less about being happy that it's over and saying: "I did it; it's done." And maybe you felt more like: "I'm a little bit sad that it's done?"

Guest: I was. I was a little bit sad that it's done. Yeah. But from that sadness came a determination, Ron, that I want to keep doing this, not a bicycle trip, not big, high adventure, but a determination that I want to keep experiencing every day to the max and squeeze the maximum out of it that I can and be open to those little things like these little experiences that make the day, like when that snake slithers across the road that you're traveling on your bicycle in Arizona in the high desert. And I get off my bicycle, and I look at that snake and I poke it with a stick, and maybe I pick it up and play with it and go: "This is a gorgeous snake. Praise God. What beautiful nature this is." Or to see—you know, I remember seeing a reservoir in New Mexico. Oh my goodness. It's got to be the driest state in the U.S.! New Mexico is a dry, dry, dry state. And I came to this—in the middle of this dry cactus desert—there's this big reservoir. And I got out, and I went swimming. I don't think you were supposed to, but I did. And uh, and I realized: "Wow! Water is a beautiful thing." And to be able to cool off on a 105 degree day in the New Mexico desert, in this pool, and just these little tiny things that add up to where you say: "Man, in the rest of my life, I never want to lose sight of the joy in the little things in the middle of the day when I least expect them." Part of my philosophy of kind of going through life is: if I'm traveling, if I'm going somewhere or if I'm doing something and there's an opportunity to see something cool or to do something fun along the way… to stop, take the time, go experience the thing, and, like, put it in your portfolio of things that you've done now. For me, part of the joy of life is building this portfolio of memories and experiences of, "I did this thing in Puerto Rico, I did this thing in Germany. I did this thing in Arizona." And, not to get a notch on your belt, like "Look at me, what a great list of things," but they start to form who you are as a person. So I encourage anybody—especially anybody in the Stauffer family—if you have the opportunity to do something cool, even something that makes you a little uncomfortable, makes you stretch a little... costs you a little money, just do it. Then nobody can ever take that experience away from you, and you will be a richer person because of it.

Ron: That's great. That's very much in line with what I try to focus on in this podcast, which is travel the world, explore, and you will be changed in the process. You will learn things; you'll be a better person for it. Travel is painful. You get sunburn on your legs; you get blisters. You say: "This hurts. It's hard. It's difficult. Why am I doing this?" And you go home, a better person, and you love your wife more, and you're more thankful for your kids.

Guest: Which is why in 1987 when I took my wife, your mom, behind the iron curtain in communist eastern Europe to Czechoslovakia and Hungary, I was having a great time because I was stretching myself beyond my comfort zone, and I said: "Isn't this great? Look at all this oppression in these Soviet countries! There were Soviet Army people there and tanks!"

Ron: And she hated every minute of it.

Guest: Ron: And she hated it! And I was going like: "Look how great this is, honey! We're behind the iron curtain!"

Ron: Okay, so in closing, this is, it sounds like this was the most transformative experience of your life before getting married.

Guest: Hmm. This trip on the bicycle was probably the most transformative experience of my life before getting married. There's one more that rivals it, and that was outward bound in North Carolina. Especially the solo experience of sitting for four days and three nights under a tree, by myself, not eating food or drinking water, but only with my Gideons New Testament and my journal. Yes, outward bound as a 17-year-old, it taught me that there are things out there that I'm being pulled towards. That are both scary and attractive to me, and I have no idea where I'm going to end up, and I have no idea how I'm going to get there, and I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life, but it's going to be an adventure and somehow it involves God.

Ron: Okay. So what would you tell somebody else? Let's say a 22-year-old man who comes to you and says: "Hey, I want to ride my bike across the U.S.?" Would you just not tell him anything and let him learn it on his own, or would you give him very specific guidance about…

Guest: No, I would only want to encourage a guy like that, but I think before you launch out on something that is really out there, to at least some extent, you should know yourself. You know, this whole business of going out on these fantastic journeys or whatever, to find yourself. I think you should have a concept of who you are first before you go out to quote-unquote find yourself. I think it's dangerous to go out into the world, especially today. It's a more dangerous world today, I believe. I think it's dangerous to go out without some kind of self-awareness, self-knowledge. There's a certain, there's a level of I had, I had a pretty high level of maturity going out there. If I saw a young person who was really immature and naive, I would discourage them from this trip. I would only want to see somebody go on a trip that involves some risk if they have common sense, self-awareness, and are a fair judge of people because you're going to be putting yourself in vulnerable place out there. So you should have some skills in judging the character of others people. Uh, I would also encourage a higher level of danger awareness than what I exercise. I think some situations I got through by the grace of God.

Ron: If you had this trip to do over, there are at least one or two things that you would do differently that you've mentioned. What are those final thoughts where you say, I would, I would do this a little bit different.

Guest: I would stop a little more often. If I could do anything differently about the trip, I think it would stop a little more often and experience a few more things. I made the trip pretty athletic, so to keep up a 92-mile pace, for me, that was a pretty blistering pace. It's a lot of miles, and you know, without any support, didn't have a support vehicle or anything. So you're carrying everything by yourself, and I think I would do fewer miles per day, probably closer to 70 than 90. Okay. And I think that would be more enjoyable. I'd get a little more sleep. Uh, although, you know, I was 22, so what the heck? You know, maybe that was okay back then, but I remember even thinking back then, yeah, I think I would do it slower next time. So instead of 42 days, maybe make it 50 days or 55 days or something. Okay. And I really did enjoy taking a zero-day once in a while, stopping, and just hanging out, doing something fun.

Ron: Do you have any final highlights on a zero-day? Like things that you might have done when you weren't on your bike?

Guest: I did just hang out in Borger, Texas, with that family. I really enjoyed them so much, and I just took my bicycle apart piece by piece, and I just polished up every piece of it with a toothbrush and some comet cleanser, you know? And put it back together. Okay. It was just contemplative, restful, just talking with some good old Southern people and enjoying some good food. Man. I must have eaten every scrap of food they had on their table. One thing about a trip like this is like, I normally just eat like a bird. I don't eat that much. My goodness. I couldn't shovel enough food in my mouth on this trip. I think I calculated; I was consuming at least 6,000 calories a day. That's a lot of calories. So like I found myself in the position of sitting at a table and asking everybody: "You going to eat those mashed potatoes? Here, I'll eat them." You know, some of the high points were really just sitting down and taking a day with the family and enjoying it. There was this one lady, I forgot her name, in the, in the mountains and the coal mine and towns, some coal mine in town in Kentucky. Man, I just enjoyed staying with her. She was really old, and she lived, she was in a wheelchair, and it was like this little house. I don't think even there was electricity in that house. It was like kerosene lanterns or something. And she got up at like 3:30 in the morning. She was frying chicken for me from my breakfast. And it was just cool. And I just about died that day with coal trucks knocking me off the stinkin' road. But, um, it was really cool to stay with the, you know, just kinda hillbilly folks there. It was neat.

Ron: Nice people.

Guest: Good people. Good, good folks. Yeah.

Ron: Thanks for being here today, Dad.

Guest: Thanks for having me.

Ron: It's been fun.

Guest: It has been good. I appreciate the interview. I learned a lot about myself tonight.

During a recent trip to Florida to spend time with my family over Christmas vacation, I got the chance to take a flight in a hang glider. Just like my experience riding in a hot air balloon, it came about in the most unexpected way, and I didn't even have to pay for it!

In the middle of December, I flew from Colorado to Florida to spend an "early Christmas" with my parents and siblings. (Since my parents moved to Florida several years ago, their house has been the "home base" for family get-togethers). Some years, my siblings and I who live across the USA go to their house to spend some time celebrating Christmas a week or two before the actual holiday.

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On this particular trip, one of my brothers decided to give a gift to a family member that turned out to be a bit more complicated than he expected. Here's some background: about five miles from my parent's house, there's a small airfield where people fly ultralight planes, or take flying lessons and rides in various types of aircraft like helicopters, hang gliders, and more. My brother had decided that, for this Christmas, he would give, as a Christmas present, a ride on a hang glider to one of my siblings.

Of course, this was a thoughtful and generous gift… but it is also the kind of gift where you might want to ask the recipient, "Does that sound interesting to you? Would you actually want to go on a hang glider?" before you do it. In this case, it turned out that the "giftee" was completely surprised and totally unprepared to take this kind of flight, which has no seat belt around your waist and no tray table in front of you.

And so, being the generous brother that I am, I volunteered to accept the gift instead (you know, in order not to waste it). Both the giver and the receiver of the present were generous in letting me take the ride instead, so it was a win-win.

After carpooling to the airfield, we got out and looked around at the flat, green stretch of land surrounded by the thick, Florida forest, and watched as an ultralight plane in the sky made some loop-de-loop moves, and eventually landed on the grassy landing strip. We followed the pilot of the plane into the office building, where we talked with the staff for a while about what to expect on the flight, we discussed the basic safety rules, how hang gliders work, and more.

Then I filled out the paperwork in order to take the ride. Funny enough, in order to actually ride the thing, I couldn't just sign a liability waiver like I did for the hot air balloon: I had to technically "enroll in flying lessons." Even though that lesson only lasted for the time I'd actually be in the air on that one ride; this is the only way they could legally offer flights to people without a pilot's license. So I signed the waiver, and applied to became a "tandem student" at a flight school, and even had to pay dues (a whopping $5!) to join the "United States Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association" for 30 days as a "student/affiliate" member.

Since I didn't have to pay for the trip itself, one thing I did actually pay for was the additional fee for having them videotape the whole trip on two GoPro cameras mounted on the hang glider. I gave them something like $25 or $30, and they put new SD cards inside each one and recorded the flight. I'm glad they did: it gave me a way to remember that trip forever, and it was great way to show the people on the ground "what it looked like from above."

When it was time to go, I went outside and got strapped into the glider. It's a bit awkward riding in a glider as a passenger. You have to squeeze into what looks like a sleeping bag suspended from one of the top bars, and you're right above the pilot, so you're essentially laying on top of him. It feels and looks a bit weird, but it's not too bad.

The glider was attached by a cable to a small plane, and it slowly took off, towing us behind it. We lifted up, and circled around and around, gaining altitude until we reached our maximum loft. The pilot told me we were about 3,000 feet up in the air.

When we were towed by the plane, it was really windy and pretty loud, because we could hear the airplane's propeller. But then, when we reached the 3,000-foot mark, about six and a half minutes into the ride, we popped the tow line from the plane, and we were on our own power for the rest of the ride.

This was the coolest part: we floated around, very quietly, smoothly, and gracefully. The pilot has a little handlebar that he can steer the craft with, both left and right, and up and down. I had to lean my body along with his as we tilted the glider in order to steer it the direction we wanted.

It was fun to see just how long we could make the ride last. If we pointed down, we could gain some momentum, and then, by pulling up at the last second, we'd float weightlessly for just a second. This was a lot like riding on a roller coaster, where the car speeds down the track, down, down, down, down, and then crests a hill, and just for a second, your body lifts out of your seat, and your stomach feels like it's flying up and away.

We did some dips, dives, swirls, and more. It was neat to see the amazing number of lakes surrounding the airfield. In Lake County, Florida, where we were, there are over 1,000 lakes, and we could probably see most of them from our vantage point.

Since there's no motor or propeller on a glider, it's an amazingly quiet ride, and you really get a sense of what it feels like to be a bird. In particular, birds that soar without flapping their wings, like condors or hawks. We were flying just like they do, holding out our giant sailcloth and aluminum wings, occasionally catching thermals that took us up higher, and eventually, slowly making our way to the ground.

The ride itself took about 13 minutes and 15 seconds. As I mentioned, the first six and a half minutes were spent being towed up into the air, and the remainder was spent just calmly soaring back to where we took off from.

The glider had wheels, so when we made it to the ground, we just softly landed like an airplane does. The only difference is that we had no brakes, so it just came to a stop naturally.

After we landed, I pulled out my phone that I had zipped into my jacket pocket and looked at the screen. Before we took off, I wanted to be able to track the route we would take, but since I didn't have any hang gliding or aviation-specific apps on my phone, I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to track it. But I had a last-second thought: "My running app has a GPS tracker in it… I wonder if that would work?" I quickly pressed "record" on it, to track my "run," and then got into the glider.

So, after landing, I was giggling, looking at my phone, because it actually worked! My running app showed that I had run almost eight and a half miles, at an average pace of just 2:10 per mile! Not only that, but my route showed that I had run a bizarre, squiggly, pretzel-shaped route all over streets, forests, and on top of lakes. It was hilarious… but it actually worked!

The only thing it didn't quite track accurately was the change in elevation: it claimed I had only climbed 166 feet, so it was off by about 2,800. Oh well. Running apps can't do everything.

Final Conclusion

Similar to a hot air balloon, flying in a hang glider is a surprisingly smooth ride. And even though I was thousands of feet above trees, lakes, and my friends and family members, I really wasn't scared. Honestly, the scariest part was when the plane first took off, and we started lifting off the ground. Once we actually got up in the air, everything was fine. (And, if you recall from a previous episode, I'm very afraid of heights).

The flight was less than $100 (well, it was actually free, in my case), it took no training at all, and the whole thing just took an hour or so, so it was a great excursion to try during a holiday vacation with my family.

My recommendation? Do it! Even if you're afraid of heights: just tell yourself it's going to be fine once you get up in the air. I think you'll have a blast and you won't regret it.

Lessons Learned

Usually, I'd make a big long list of lessons learned here, but in this case, there isn't a whole lot to share. There are a few quick things I'd suggest if you want to ride in a hang glider:

#1: Put on a long-sleeve shirt or thin coat if you can.

In my case, I wore a long sleeve shirt and a scarf, and I'm glad I did, because it's cold up there, especially when you're moving fast.

#2: Don't bring or wear anything that isn't strapped down.

I wore a helmet, which was strapped to my head, and emptied my pockets ahead of time, so that was fine. The one thing I forgot, though, was my sunglasses. I was wearing sunglasses, and seven minutes into the flight they flew right off my face. And there's no way to recover those: they're gone forever. Probably in someone's backyard, or in a pond.

Lesson learned: if you're wearing sunglasses, make sure you have sunglass straps like croakies or some other way to tie them to you, so you don't lose them. In my case, my sunglasses cost about $5. If, however, I was wearing nice $100+ Oakleys or Ray-Bans, I'd have been pretty upset. Wearing sunglasses that aren't strapped on to your face is a way to very quickly turn a fun $100 flight into an anger-inducing $200 flight.

#3: If you can, get the flight filmed.

It's so cool to watch yourself take the trip, and it's even cooler to show your friends and family. Even if they were there with you. standing on the ground watching you take off and land, once you're in the air, you turn into a little white triangle in the sky, and it's painful for them to try to look up into the sun and watch your flight. If you have the opportunity to have your flight filmed, pay the extra money and do it. It's worth it. (Check out my video below to see why!)

So that's it! Flying in a hang glider is a fun, simple way to spend a morning or afternoon, and I recommend you try it if you can.

For many years, I had always wondered what it would be like to take a ride on a hot air balloon. It wasn't something I thought about often, but every once in a while, I'd be driving around town, especially early in the morning, and I'd spot a hot air balloon, and think: "Cool! That would be fun to try someday."

And it's actually kind of weird to think about that exact scenario: I can be driving in a car, on a paved road, in the 21st century, with the radio playing, and my smartphone giving me turn-by-turn GPS directions, while a balloon flies overhead, with people in it.

It's such an anachronism: hot air balloons are over 235 years old, and yet, we're still using them. We're using them today even as we drive in cars and trucks, fly on planes, and take rides on trains, buses, and even rockets and space shuttles. All of these are essentially methods of transportation to get people from one place to another.

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Yet, as advanced as our modern transportation technology has become, we still feel the need to keep using a very old, very expensive, very inefficient method like hot air balloons, not because we need to, but because we want to. How funny.

Like vinyl records, black and white photography, black powder hunting rifles, printed books, and wristwatches, many technological inventions are still used today despite being totally outmoded and despite the availability of more efficient, less expensive options. In fact, as of last year, typewriters are making a comeback, and print book sales actually increased while eBook sales dropped.

While I still have a few vinyl records in a box in my basement, I don't have a record player anymore, and I sold my black and white photography and darkroom gear over a decade ago. But the hot air balloon was—and still is—intriguing to me.

So, a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised with the opportunity to ride in a hot air balloon, and it happened in the most unexpected way.

I was working for a company in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The company had been a long-time sponsor of an annual event held every Labor Day, which (at the time) was called the "Colorado Balloon Classic." (The event is still held today, but it's run by a different organization and is now called the "Labor Day Liftoff.")

As an event sponsor, the company was able to place a banner bearing their name on one of the hot air balloons. They also received two tickets to ride on the sponsored balloon. The year I went, I was a relatively new hire, and the company had just been sold to a new owner. He was impressed with the job I had done, so as a reward, he gave me the tickets. I asked my wife if she wanted to join me, and of course, she was surprised at such a random gift, but was happy to accept. Riding a hot air balloon had been on her bucket list for a long time as well.

How was our experience? Well, it was unlike anything I'd done in life up to that point. I'll explain how it went in two ways: first, a basic timeline and summary, then I'll fill in some details and give a deeper analysis.

Basic Timeline of the Trip

After initially hearing about the opportunity, and accepting the tickets, I found out that it wouldn't be as simple as just driving up to the balloon on Labor Day and stepping into a basket and floating away. It was much more complicated than I expected.

A few days before the event, I was required to go to a lunch meeting to learn about how it all works. A speaker explained the rules on where to park, how early to show up, how long it would take, what to expect while we were in the air, and how weather conditions could delay or even cancel the liftoff, and more.

I met Buzz, our pilot, who told me where he would be on the big grassy field that day. He gave me info on his balloon, his experience, and so on. Buzz was a veteran hot air balloon pilot: he had flown them for 35 years. He told me his balloon was called the "Second Wind," and it was called that because it was his "second" balloon, which replaced his first balloon, the "Amarillo Drifter." (Note: I didn't ask what happened to the Amarillo Drifter, but I was sure hoping it hadn't crashed!)

I was given a liability waiver that my wife and I would have to sign in order to ride, and let me tell you: that is one liability waiver you want to read carefully! I had to agree that I understood that hot air balloon flying is an inherently dangerous activity and that the pilot has very little control over many aspects of the ride, especially landing.

In fact, it explicitly stated: "under normal landing conditions, bruises and/or abrasions are not unusual" and "when landing, it is not unusual for the basket to tip on its side, subjecting the passengers to physical contact with each other or the sides of the basket." Seriously: when's the last time you signed a disclaimer like that?

It got worse, actually: it stated that I would hold everyone harmless in the event of "bodily injury or even death." All of these, I expected to some extent. One clause I wasn't expecting at all said that I would agree to release them from liability if I landed on private property, which could "lead to arrest for trespassing or other violations." I've certainly never seen verbiage like that in a contract that I've signed before! Despite the scary language, I took a chance and signed the waiver.

Saturday morning, the day of the event, we arrived at 6:15 am and walked out onto the huge grass field and found our "balloon team."

We put on some leather gloves and helped unload the parts of the balloon from the trailer. It took several people to lift the big basket (also called a 'gondola') from the trailer, and we laid it on its side. The team attached a big metal burner to the top, as we set to work tying all the ropes from the basket to the "envelope" (which is the actual "balloon" part of a hot air balloon).

The envelope was made of nylon, so when we unrolled it and spread it out flat on the ground, it looked like a massive tent that we had pulled out of the biggest "stuff sack" I had ever seen. It took at least seven adults to open it up, spread it out, and hold it open to fill it with air.

The pilot turned on a massive industrial fan, while I held open the "throat" to let the air in. Once it started filling, he also fired up the burner and shot a giant flame into the envelope, and it began to expand and lift. (By the way, those gas burners are LOUD! Much louder than I would have expected. We had to yell at each other over the sound of the burners both on the ground, and during our flight).

When it was about a third of the way full, Buzz turned off the burners, made sure the fan was doing its work, and walked inside it, I assume, to inspect the fabric and make sure there weren't any holes in it. Surprisingly, he then invited me and my wife to come inside and walk around it. It was totally surreal standing inside a hot air balloon envelope, looking up and around at this giant bag of hot air.

When the envelope was almost full of air, the team turned the burners back on, and the basket righted itself. It was now completely off the ground, and looked like it was ready to start flying away. Several people held the basket down as we climbed aboard.

Then, when it was time to go, the pilot blasted more gas, and we lifted…. up! We floated above the lake by the park, the trees surrounding the lake, a parking lot, a bunch of power lines, a highway overpass, and, then, just as the ride was starting to get interesting, we began our descent and landed.

For some reason I couldn't understand at the time, and still don't understand to this day, our pilot, in his judgment, decided that we needed to land. I didn't have a stopwatch on, but if I had to guess, I'd say we had maybe 6 or 7 minutes aloft.

This was kind of—no pun intended—the low point of the event. After all the planning and preparation, it was over! We landed in a stranger's front yard, a mile and a half from where we lifted off. Our ground crew came, helped us out of the basket, then we deflated the balloon, rolled it all up and packed into the trailer.

We then hopped into the truck and headed back to a gazebo in the park near the place where we lifted off. My wife and I were given a lapel pin of our balloon, and bright highlighter-yellow t-shirts that said "Second Wind Hot Air Balloon Team" on them, and a little business card with "The Balloonist's Prayer" printed on the back.

They told us it was time to have the traditional champagne toast to celebrate a successful flight. We removed our hats, then got down on our hands and knees, in devout reverence as the prayer was recited.

The Balloonist's Prayer

"The winds have welcomed you with softness. The sun has blessed you with its warm hands. You have flown so high and so well that God has joined you in your laughter and set you gently back into the loving arms of mother earth."

Two small cups were placed on the ground (mine had champagne, my wife's had soda, since she doesn't drink), and they asked us to pick up the cups with our mouths and drink without using our hands. As we were leaning down to pick up the cups with our mouths, we were shocked when ice-cold water was poured on our heads by the crew!

I was confused, and humiliated and angry as everyone laughed while I rose, wiping the water off my face… but after a few seconds, I calmed down and realized that we had just been pranked. Apparently, this is a tradition (at least in some circles) for first-time riders.

I almost couldn't believe that this was real tradition, but, funny enough, just a few minutes later, I walked over to the gazebo next to ours where I saw another balloon team "initiating" their riders.

Coincidentally, I noticed that the riders, who were about to have an ice-cold surprise, were a couple I actually knew, so I quietly stood watching their initiation ritual, taking pictures and laughing at them as they experienced the same humiliating tradition that I just gone through. This made me feel much better, and then I knew for sure that I hadn't been singled out.

Afterward, we all talked for a while, I got dried off, and then went home. It was still morning: it wasn't even 10:00 am on a Saturday, so the day had just barely started.

And that's it. That's the end of my story.

Okay, okay, that's not it: that was just a basic summary. Next, I'll explain a few parts of the trip in more detail, and share seven things I learned about riding in a hot air balloon, and about hot air balloons in general. Okay, so, I explained what happened, and when. But there are a lot of details I left out that you might find interesting. I'll elaborate on those now.

First of all, I did have a good time, and it was fun to make a memory with my wife doing something not everyone gets to do. Second, most importantly, I was very thankful that I didn't have to pay for it. Third, it was a total surprise. Since this was a gift, it wasn't anything I was planning, so it was just something fun that came along unexpectedly. My expectations were very low.

Having said that... it was a somewhat complicated experience. I had a good time on the ride itself and was happy to finally be able to check "ride a hot air balloon" off my bucket list, but the ending was just… disappointing. I talked to the pilot afterward about it a little bit, and he did give me some info on why and how our flight ended up the way it did. A lot of that has to do with how hot air balloons work.

7 Lessons I Learned About Hot Air Balloons

So, based on that (and some research I did after the flight), here are seven things I learned about taking a ride, up in the air, in a basket, attached to a balloon.

Lesson 1: Hot Air Balloons are old… much older than you might guess.

Get this: the hot air balloon is one of the oldest forms of mechanized transportation. It was invented by the Montgolfier Brothers in France in 1783. That's over 30 years before the first truly functional bicycle was invented. And it really hasn't changed much even centuries later.

Hot air balloons still use hot air heated by fire, and the baskets are still, literally made out of wicker and cane. The envelope isn't made of any special space-age material: it's nylon just like jogging pants. So, consider this: you're floating in a giant picnic basket, made of wood, under a huge flying tent, and you're being propelled by a flaming ball of fire lit by gas. How crazy is that?

Also, did I mention that you can smell the propane burning as you fly? It's a really strong scent, and made me woozy, so I tried to turn away from it, and breathe in the fresh air, but since it burns the entire flight, it's kind of just a necessary evil.

Okay, on a total side note: what's most surprising about this is if you look at the timeline of human flight, the Wright Brothers flew their first airplane in 1903, and Neil Armstrong successfully landed a rocket on the moon in 1969. That means humans went from the very first sustained airplane flight EVER, with a distance of 852 feet, to flying all the way to the moon (238,000 miles away from earth) in just 66 years!

Yet, here we are, in the 21st century, still using the essentially unchanged method of flying balloons—the very first method ever created. Why do I bring that up? Good question; it leads me to my next point.

Lesson 2: When riding a hot air balloon, you can't steer, at all.

Unlike a sailing vessel, which is powered by the wind but has a rudder and sails that can be maneuvered to steer the ship where you want it to go, a hot air balloon pilot can't "steer" the craft, at all.

The only control a pilot has is to rise or drop in altitude and hope the wind currents blow you in the right direction. There's no rudder, sails, motor, keel, or anything else: your controls are up or down. That's it. That's part of the reason hot air balloons are typically launched at sunrise: in addition to being a beautiful time to be in the sky, the winds tend to be calmer then, which is what you want.

Now, as you might imagine, being at the mercy of the wind presents some unknown variables when you lift off. Of course, you have a general idea of where you might want to go, but until you get into the basket and the air takes over, there's no telling where you'll end up. In the case of our flight, I did some measuring using a map and GPS after the trip and found that we went 1.53 miles (as the crow flies), heading south by southeast. But according to our pilot, he flew his balloon at the same event the previous year, and, on that trip, they landed at the Air Force Academy, which is 9.85 miles north! Same craft, same pilot, same day of the year; entirely different direction. So with an inability to steer, you may wonder how they can pick their landing spot.

Lesson 3: A hot air balloon will land wherever it chooses to land.

Remember that waiver I mentioned signing a few days before the ride? And how it stated there was a potential for trespassing? There's a reason they put that in the legalese. A hot air balloon will land where and when it wants to, and there's very little a pilot can do about it.

Have you ever seen the movie "The Great Muppet Caper?" During the opening credits of the film, Kermit the Frog, Fozzy, and Gonzo are all flying in a hot air balloon. The movie then begins with a thud, as they touch down right in the middle of an intersection. Taxis and bystanders stop and watch the balloon deflate and see if they can catch a glimpse of the strange people who just dropped into their lives, right in the middle of the road. Even though that is a scene from a movie, a real hot air balloon landing is exactly like that.

In our case, we landed in someone's front yard, right on top of a bush, squashing it. I felt awkward about that, especially when the homeowners opened their front door and walked out to meet us. They were very kind and accommodating. They took pictures, and even made us coffee!

Others have not been so fortunate. For example, when our pilot landed the year before at the Air Force Academy, they actually landed on the airstrip. The Air Force was not happy about this, and the balloonists were greeted by angry guards carrying big guns. They didn't get arrested, but still… I'm sure nobody was expecting that for their landing!

Lesson 4: You have to pack up the balloon where it lands, but you don't know where that will be.

This part was really funny to me. Remember how I said it took seven adults to set up and launch the balloon? Well, when we landed, there were just three of us: myself, my wife, and the pilot. So we had to wait for the rest of our team to show up with the truck and trailer to put it away.

Question: how does the ground crew know where to go? Answer: they don't!

They have to drive around town looking up in the sky trying to see where you are, and where they think you're going. The vehicle they drive is literally called a "chase vehicle," and it takes two adults: one person drives, and the other looks up at the sky and acts as a navigator, telling the driver, "It looks like they're headed south near the Hancock Expressway; turn right!" It's much less exact then you'd imagine, plus, when the balloon lands and deflates, there's no way to see it anymore from the chase vehicle, so it's hard for them to locate you if they haven't actually seen you land.

Lesson 5: As ancient as hot air balloons are, they're actually considered "aircraft" by the FAA.

They have to be flown by licensed pilots that have passed a test and have training, experience, insurance, and no serious medical issues. The balloons themselves have safety standards and have to be maintained and inspected annually.

This is important because, as I mentioned before, a pilot has very little control, and, in fact, sometimes people die while riding on hot air balloons. Sometimes they crash into power lines, or sometimes, the entire balloon catches on fire. Overall, though, it's considered very safe when compared to other transportation methods.

Another interesting part of this is just how expensive they are: I've seen estimates that say a hot air balloon can cost between $20,000 and $60,000 or more. So while there aren't any moving parts like jets or propellers, the costs are definitely up there, just like other aircraft.

Lesson 6: Taking off is quite a spectacle, and people everywhere are watching you.

It's a bit awkward to feel like the center of attention, and when you're lifting off, everybody around you is watching and looking up at you. If you have friends or family on the ground they'll wave at you, and as you wave back, it's almost embarrassing: you feel like you're in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or Grease, where everyone on the ground is smiling and waving as you float away into the sky in a flying car.

The cool thing about riding a balloon at a festival like we did, though, is that there are lots of hot air balloons lifting off all at the same time. It looks like a big giant has blown on an enormous dandelion, and the balloons are the little seeds dispersing across the land.

Lesson 7: The ride in a hot air balloon is actually very smooth and very stable

This was, by far, the most surprising part of this trip. If you're afraid of heights, like I am, you might be nervous at how scary the thought is to float high off the ground, swinging back and forth in the air. But here's the thing: from the second you lift off the ground, you just notice how smooth the ride is. It's not like standing on a wobbly diving board or really tall ladder, where you have a genuine feeling that you're going to fall off, and die, especially if the wind starts blowing.

In contrast, a balloon is just different. Because you're moving with the wind, it's a remarkably calm feeling. With an airplane, for example, your engine may be pushing you into or against the wind, and it may make you rise or fall due to turbulence. But at least in my experience, because a balloon moves in perfect sync with the wind, it felt very sturdy and solid the whole time.

Final Conclusion

In all, it was a great experience, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to fly in a hot air balloon. And even though I've done it now, I'm still keeping it on my list of things to try. This initial trip was so short and had a disappointing ending, I'd like to give it another try someday and see if we can stay in the air longer.

If you get a chance to ride in a hot air balloon, I highly recommend you do. But even if you can't ride in one, just check out a balloon festival or a launch. It's fun to just watch the process unfold, and if you're on the ground at a festival, you can walk around and see all the various balloons that come from different locations. They have different shapes, size, colors, designs, and some of them are really creative—many are quite different than the standard upside-down teardrop shape you're used to seeing.

Another bonus: a lot of festivals are free. Just show up and see how it goes! And many times, the balloon teams will stay until the evening, and put on what they call a "balloon glow," where they keep the balloons tethered to the ground, but light them up so you can walk around and see them glow like giant paper lanterns.

Also, during a balloon glow, sometimes you can actually ride on them, while they're still tethered, so you go up in the air, about 75 feet or so, and then come right back down, and have a small taste of a hot air balloon ride, and get a great night view of your city.

So count me a fan of hot air balloons, and I guarantee you, someday, I'll give it another shot.

A few years ago, I took a trip on a cruise ship with a friend—my first cruise ever—and for today's episode, I thought I'd share my experience.

My friend and I flew to Florida to take a 7-day Caribbean cruise. Our ship was the Carnival Dream (which, at the time, was the biggest ship owned by Carnival Cruise Lines). We debarked from Port Canaveral in Florida (just south of Cape Canaveral—we could actually see Kennedy Space Center from the ship) and headed out to the Caribbean islands.

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(And by the way, I still don't know for sure whether it's technically pronounced "cuh-RIB-bee-an," or "CARE-uh-bee-an," but "cuh-RIB-bee-an" is how Carnival Cruises pronounces it, so I'll go with that).

In my case, our trip to the Eastern Caribbean meant we would stop at these three places:

#1: Nassau, Bahamas (the capital of a country that is a collection of over 700 Islands, which was formerly a British Crown Colony, and is now part of the Commonwealth of Nations).

#2: St. Thomas (one of the four islands in the US Virgin Islands, a territory of the USA).

#3: Sint Maarten (the lower half of an island half-owned by France and half-owned by the Kingdom of the Netherlands).

A map of our Eastern Caribbean Cruise Route[/caption]

My experience on a cruise ship was interesting: "taking a cruise" has long been on my bucket list, so it was good to finally give it a try. After my trip, I took extensive notes about the experience. And so, here are 15 things I learned while taking a cruise to the Caribbean.

#1: You’ll Either Take Just One Cruise, Or Fifty or Sixty

Taking a cruise is not like any other travel experience I know of. You’ll either become one of the "cruise people" if you like it, or you’ll try it once and... that will be the end of it. In my case, I think I fall into the latter category: I certainly had fun, but I think this was the only cruise I’ll take. In contrast, I met several people on the ship who take cruises quite frequently. I met one man (who must have been retired) who said he’d been on 42 cruises in the past six years. He liked them so much that he had already booked himself on the next cruise out on the same ship. As soon as we got back, he got off the boat, then turned around, and boarded it again for his next cruise.

#2: Cruise Line Employees Are Incredibly Geographically Diverse

Cruise ship employees are from just about every country, except the USA. You can always tell because they have their home country printed on their name tag. And I’m talking every country. Even countries you forgot existed. Seriously: when have you ever met someone from Grenada?

On my cruise, I met people from all over the world: the Philippines, Bosnia, Peru, Mexico, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Jamaica, Thailand, the UK, and many other countries. In the seven days I spent on the Carnival Dream, I saw exactly one staff member who was an American: the cruise director. That's not to say she was the ONLY American, but she was the only one I saw.

One employee I met and got to know a little bit was from Macedonia. He was a lot of fun to talk to, was kind of a joker, and told us all about the working environment on a cruise ship. Which leads me to my next point…

#3: Working On A Cruise Ship Is Shockingly Bad

Working on a cruise ship requires hard, tedious, non-stop work. Actually, the whole cruise industry is becoming somewhat infamous for just how bad working conditions are, and that’s probably a good thing. Here’s the dirty secret that you as a passenger would never know: cruise ship employees work on a contract basis, but that contract is for seven days per week until it's over. Some employees literally work nine months, seven days a week, without a single holiday or day off.

One staffer I met was on a seven-month contract. I asked him how he felt about it, and while he wasn’t excited about how long his contract was, he told me that when it was over, he’d go back to his home country and take three months off. It’s all a very strange arrangement. Surely the only way cruise lines can pull this off is because they aren’t subject to labor laws like those we have in the USA. And who would want to work such grueling shifts, anyway? Remember the name tags? Ding ding ding: people from poorer countries who have fewer employment opportunities. That’s who would sign up for a nonstop nine-month contract out to sea without a single day off.

#4: A Cruise Ship Never Stops Rocking Back And Forth

The ship rocks, constantly. A giant cruise ship like the Carnival Dream doesn’t get tossed violently in the waves, but it does still rock from side to side, very slowly. And it never, ever stops unless you’re in port. You eventually get used to it: your coffee cup at breakfast slides across the table to the other side, and you think nothing of it. But it definitely takes a while to adjust to it.

A strange side effect about this is just how long it took me to adjust back to normal AFTER the cruise was over! My body kept swaying back and forth while standing on dry land, for at least two days after the cruise. I first noticed this while looking at myself in the bathroom mirror. I saw that I was moving back and forth, ever so slightly. How strange.

#5: Cruise Ships Are Gigantic, Like A Floating City

According to the Carnival Cruise Lines website, the Carnival Dream can hold 3,646 guests, and 1,367 crew members. That's 5,013 people—the size of many American cities.

This means that you will always be standing in line for everything. If we wanted to use the elevators, we had to wait in line. When it was dinner time, we had to wait in line. When we were in port and it was time to go on an excursion, we waited in line to get off the boat. When our excursion was over, we had to wait in line to get back on the boat.

I’m not trying to complain about this, just stating my observation. I think it was so noticeable because, in many other travel experiences, you can always find ways to avoid standing in line. If you’re at a hotel, for example, you can just take the stairs if you don’t want to wait for the elevator. Or if you don’t like driving in heavy traffic, you can take a train or a bus. On a ship, though, you’re a captive audience and, well, you just have to wait your turn.

#6: Most Of Your Trip Is Spent Just Getting There

Large ships move painstakingly slow, and a majority of your time spent on a cruise ship is spent just waiting as you head toward your destination. Very little time is actually spent at your destination. I'm talking just a couple hours in some cases.

For example, it only took us one day to arrive in the Bahamas after our launch from Port Canaveral, but it took us more than two full days "out to sea" to get back from Sint Maarten. And if you’re claustrophobic or get cabin fever, that is a really, really long time. It’s no wonder cruise lines have to invent silly games to try and break up the monotony. Would you ever attend an "International Men’s Hairy Chest Competition" on dry land?

There are lots of things to do on a cruise ship while out to sea: games at the swimming pool, stand-up comedy shows, pillow fights, musical variety shows, bars with jazz piano players, karaoke, and other things of that nature, but all of them are clearly attempting to distract you from the fact that you’re stuck on a boat, over a thousand miles away from land and there’s nothing you can do about it for days. Most people didn't seem to mind this. But to me, that time felt wasted.

#7: Water, Water As Far As The Eye Can See

There’s simply nothing to view when you look out a cruise ship window, except for when you pull into port. Otherwise, when you’re out on the ocean, there’s not a darn thing anywhere. It’s just dark blue water as far as the eye can see. It’s a shocking realization that you can be so far away from civilization without seeing anything but water for more than a day at a time. The ocean, in a sense, is like a desert that way: it’s like vast plains of absolutely nothing. Every once in a while we’d see an occasional ship from another cruise line going in the opposite direction, but that was about it.

#8: Cruise Ships Are Very Easy To Get Lost In

Ships designed to hold, feed, and entertain over 4,000 people at a time have complex floor plans and layouts. It is surprisingly easy to get lost in them. We got lost nearly every time we left our cabin, even up to the very last day. There are many hallways, doors, elevators, and staircases that all look exactly alike, so it's easy to get disoriented. There are even floors that are dis-contiguous: for example, on one floor on our ship (I think it was the third floor), you couldn’t walk straight from the back (the aft) of the ship all the way to the front (the bow) in one shot. Halfway through, you had to go up one floor, walk for a while, then go back down the stairs back to the 3rd floor to continue. We never got used to this. Many times, I would think I was about to walk out to the Lido Deck (the 10^th floor) and accidentally popped out onto the Panorama Deck (the 11^th floor) and vise-versa.

#9: All The Food Is Included—Yes, It’s All Free! (Except for Alcohol)

The food is all included, and it’s all-you-can-eat all the time! I can’t think of another travel experience I’ve had where this is the case. You never have to pay for food: and there’s always food available somewhere. There are multiple food joints, buffet lines, and restaurants, and nobody ever asks you to pay. There was even a 24-hour pizza joint with free pizza, as much as you wanted, whenever you wanted. How cool is that?! We loved it.

The food options truly are amazing: there was a chocolate bar (where you could get dozens of chocolate treats), a grill (with cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and the like), a pizza joint (as I said—open 24 hours!), a sandwich shop (with about 15 different kinds of sandwiches, and it was also open 24/7), an Indian place (this was, by far, my favorite: I ate a lot of Tandoori Chicken, Fish, and Naan here), and much more. This is really one of the best parts of taking a cruise.

The only exception to all this free food was for alcoholic drinks: you always pay for those. Unless you bought an upgraded "beverage package," where you'd pre-pay for drinks and just scan your room card, you always had to pay extra for anything alcoholic.

#10: There Are No Laws Against Gambling And Smoking In Cruise Ship Restaurants

Remember how I said cruise ships are like floating cities? In some cases, it feels like that city is Las Vegas, Nevada. If you’ve ever been there, you know that Las Vegas is famous for their smoke-filled casinos where people gamble all night long while cocktail waitresses bring mixed drinks to your table. If you like gambling and smoky bars, you would LOVE a cruise ship. If, however, you’re underage, or you’re not into smoking, drinking, or gambling, your days at sea will be spent watching lots of TV in your room in the evenings.

#11: Beware The Discrepancy Between Island Time and Boat Time

This is a big issue that can ruin your vacation if you’re not careful. "Island Time" and "Boat Time" are two different things. If you have any excursions planned on an island, make sure you find what time it starts, and ask whether they’re talking about island time or boat time. For example, I wanted to go scuba diving in the US Virgin Islands, so I scheduled a boat dive in St. Thomas for 9:00 am the day that we would be there. Everything was set: I did my research early, found a dive shop I wanted to use, and prepaid for my dive weeks in advance. They even told me they’d come to the ship and pick me up. Score!

When I got off the ship at 8:30 am that day, I felt good about showing up early. But after waiting for a while and not seeing anybody, I called the dive shop to find out where they were. They told me "Oh, we already came for you at 9:00 and you weren’t there. We waited a while, but had to leave since we couldn’t keep the other divers waiting."

Oh no, what happened? Ahhhh! I arrived at 8:30 am boat time which was actually 9:30 am island time, so I actually showed up a half hour late.

Now, how could it be that a professional dive shop run by people who make their living selling dive trips to tourists who arrive via cruise ships could forget to mention this difference? I have no idea. But in my case, after I panicked and my head spun for a while as I tried to figure all this out, it turned out okay. I got a full refund from that dive shop and was (miraculously) able to find another dive shop that was about to take a boat dive and I was just in time.

#12: For A Great Excursion, Go Far Away From The Ship Itself

The trick on a cruise is to find the spots where the tourists don’t go when you’re on an excursion. What I found out is that many people don’t go far from the ship. Great example: when the nearly 4,000 patrons were herded like cattle off of our ship onto the dock in Nassau, Bahamas, there were all kinds of vendors hawking their wares, and outfitters offering to take people on tours of the islands and scuba or snorkeling adventures. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people went to Junkanoo Beach, not even one mile from where the ship was docked.

My friend and I didn’t take the bait in the tourist traps. Instead, we got on a bus and paid a whopping $1.25 for a ride across the island, and when all the other tourists got off at Junkanoo Beach, I asked the driver if he could take us somewhere that nobody else was. The driver (who only had one eye) keep driving for about four more miles, then stopped in the middle of a road and pointed to a break in a fence and said: "over there." Feeling like I had maybe been tricked, I followed his instructions anyway and was delightfully surprised: we found a secluded area on Cable Beach by a restaurant and it was perfect. There was nobody else there!

#13: You Can’t Use Your Phone On Most Caribbean Islands

Mobile phone coverage in the Caribbean is horrendous. It’s just not worth bringing your phone. Not only will you pay outrageous roaming charges (I’m talking several dollars per minute and over $20 per megabyte of data transfer!), the plain and simple fact is you just can’t get reception. I even paid for AT&T's international plan on my iPhone for the month to help cover roaming charges, but it didn’t help since I couldn’t get a signal, so it was pointless. I should have just left my phone in my room on the boat the entire time.

The only exception to this was in St. Thomas, USVI. Since it’s technically part of the USA, the cell phone coverage was good, and I even got data and didn’t have to pay any roaming fees. But everywhere else, I kept my phone turned off the entire time.

#14: You Can Make Phone Calls On A Cruise Ship, But It’s Exploitatively Expensive

On my entire trip, there is really only one mistake I made that cost me a chunk of money. That was taking a phone call from my wife on the ship. Obviously, there's no phone service out on the ocean, so if you want to make a call, you have to connect to the ship’s wireless "advanced roaming network." It works just fine, but DARN is it expensive!

Late one night, I was tired, and my wife was getting weary of being at home without me so she called me. I answered the call and, foolishly, we chatted for something like 10-15 minutes. Normally, in the USA, I wouldn’t even give this a second thought. But get this: you know how much I paid for that phone call? More than $75.00! It wasn’t even an important call: just a relaxed conversation about "what did you do today?" and things like that. That makes it the most expensive phone call of my entire life. No offense to my wife, it wasn't worth it.

#15: You Can Buy Duty-Free Items On The Ship, But You Can't Consume Them On The Ship

Cruise ships are like airports in that they have the ability to sell items "duty free" (or tax free). You can spend time browsing in their stores which proudly advertise low-cost giant bottles of wine, rum, whiskey, and other alcoholic drinks, as well as tobacco products. If you're into that sort of thing, you might look at a huge bottle of whiskey and say "Boy, are we going to have a party in our room tonight!" …but here's the catch: you can't actually use those items on the ship, at all.

They will literally take them away from you and lock them up until you're back on land and your trip is over. To me, this is the most ridiculously self-defeating proposition ever. You can take a cruise to a tropical location, and literally buy gallons of rum on your trip, but you can't drink any of it until the trip is done. How silly is that? On the ship itself, your only option is to pay top-dollar for your normal-sized boat drinks, complete with taxes and tips, and you will cry a little bit on the inside, knowing just how badly you're being ripped off. And the tiny little bottles they stock your fridge with in your room just like a hotel? Don't even get me started on how expensive those are.

I really detest this whole operation. It feels to me just as silly as going to a restaurant and asking to buy a bottle of wine, but being told you can, but you can't drink it there—you can only take it home with you after your meal. During your dinner, you have to buy overpriced wine by-the-glass.

Why would they do this? Because they can! They're in control and you're a captive audience. We wouldn't tolerate this on land, because we have choices. On a ship out in the middle of nowhere, though, you have no other options. In my opinion, it only makes sense to buy booze or tobacco like this if you're trying to get a good deal and stock up for the whole year, or something like that. But who takes a trip on a giant ship across the ocean to tropical islands in order to buy discount liquor? Maybe some people, but I don't view cruises as a good place to "save money" on shopping in bulk. Especially when people like me have to fly on an airplane to get to the cruise ship in the first place—if I showed up at the airport with my bag full of expensive alcohol that can't be brought on the plane back home, now I'm just paying for additional charges for more checked bags, making the whole process…. just so absurd that I'm going to stop talking about it now.

Okay, well, actually, there's one more thing I learned about buying alcohol on a cruise ship that I just have to mention. If you think you can beat the system by buying alcohol off the ship on an excursion, that won't work either. The airport-style security they have as you board the ship will find your purchase and confiscate it until the trip is over.

But here's the funny thing: my friend bought at least two bottles of alcohol on two separate excursions. If I recall correctly, one was rum and one was whiskey. The first time we boarded the ship, they x-rayed our bags, and found the bottle of rum, and took it away. But the SECOND time, they somehow didn't find the bottle of whiskey, so, feeling like school-aged children, we snickered as we took our "contraband" bottle back to our room.

Four Travel Tips

To recap, here are some specific travel tips worth mentioning, if you ever take a cruise to the Caribbean.

Travel Tip #1: Time Zones

Be very careful to find out if your excursions are set for island time or boat time. In my case, the time discrepancy turned out okay. But the difference between the two times could have been a very frustrating and expensive lesson.

Travel Tip #2: Excursions

The further away from the ship you go on your excursion, the fewer people you see, and the better your options are. Also, ask the locals where they would recommend you visit.

Travel Tip #3: Roaming

If you’re going on a cruise to another country, just leave your phone at home, or at least on the ship. Otherwise, you’ll lug it everywhere in your pocket for no good reason, afraid that you’ll lose it or accidentally jump in the water forgetting it’s there and ruin it. Plus, you’re on vacation. Go have fun!

Travel Tip #4: Phone Calls

Do not make phone calls on the ship. It’s just too expensive. And you can’t tell ahead of time what it’s going to cost you because it depends on your cell provider’s agreement with the ship. For a better solution, wait until you’re at an excursion and go to a coffee shop or somewhere like that with free internet (if you can find it) and use Email or text, or use Skype or FaceTime, using their internet connection. That is free!

My Final Conclusion

In all, it was a great trip, and I’m glad to have added it to my list of things I’ve done. And I’m sure going to be more educated if I take a cruise again. Having said that, I can’t really see why I would go on another cruise. There’s just too much wasted time getting to and from your destinations. As I watched planes taking off and landing at Maho Beach in Sint Maarten, I thought to myself: "Next time I come here, it’s going to be on a plane like that."

I’m much more interested in the doing of the activities once you’re at a fun destination. Cruises, while they have their place, are much more about taking a long time to get to the destination and trying to make it fun in the process. Due to the strict timeline of the ship's schedule, it takes so long to get to the island you want to visit that you end up with something like 5 or 6 hours to do everything you want, and then get back on the ship before it leaves.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this, but I’d rather pay more just to get there quickly so I can set out my beach chair, put on my shades, and have a nice cold Corona in my hand and hang out for many, many hours, without having to worry about accidentally missing the boat. But that’s just me.

If you choose to go on a cruise, that's fine! I won't tell you not to. As I mentioned before, some people are obsessed with them and take one or two, or more cruises each year. That's totally fine by me. But hopefully some of the information I've shared here can help you either make a decision to take a cruise (or not). And if you do, hopefully now you can make some slightly more informed choices to make your cruise that much better.

The idea of working on a cruise ship, for many people, is an exciting idea. They might figure they can get free drinks, travel to exotic places, spend some time on the beaches, or otherwise reap the benefits of a luxurious travel job. After all, people who take cruises always come back from their vacations talking about palm trees, beautiful sunsets, steel drum music, endless boat drinks, and great shows on the ship, right? So why not just get paid to do something you love?

That might make sense when you think about it that way. But what I discovered, when I took a cruise to the Caribbean, was that there's a MASSIVE difference between the experience of people taking a cruise, and people working on a cruise ship. Of course, this might sound obvious, just in the same way that it's different to go to a restaurant then it is to work at a restaurant.

But I'm telling you—it's a much, much bigger difference than that. At least for me, in America, when I go out for dinner at a restaurant, I typically see another American serving my table, who is probably of the same economic status as me, or perhaps slightly less. But on a cruise ship, it's a totally different ballgame. None of the rules apply. At an American restaurant, we have things like minimum wage laws, labor practice laws governing things like overtime, unfair work practices, and a lot more. Plus, when I'm chowing down on a pizza at a sports bar, I never ask myself: "I wonder how many days my server has been working without a break." Because... why would you ask that?

So, having said all that, when I took a cruise to the Caribbean, it was a good experience overall, but I spent a lot of time talking to the employees who actually worked on the ship. And I was not just surprised—I was shocked at just how different life is for an employee of a cruise ship. Honestly, working on a cruise ship sucks. I'll list some of these observations below.

Please note: I have never worked on a cruise ship or for a cruise ship company in any capacity, so my perspective is totally based on what I observed, and what I was told by the cruise employees I spoke to. (On that note, if you are or have been an employee of a cruise line, feel free to comment at the bottom and chime in with your own experience or perspective).

#1 - Cruise Ship Employees Work 7 Days A Week For Months Without A Day Off

By far, the biggest surprise I had when talking to cruise ship employees was the fact that they work every single day for months at a time. I literally mean every... single... day... without a single day off, for months. No Saturdays, no Sundays, no holidays. When you're on the ship, you are always on.

I was curious about how this was even possible, and they told me it's because they work on a contract basis. So whereas the typical American worker that gets hired as a full-time employee basically enters an agreement that says: "we agree to hire you, in perpetuity, unless you quit or we fire you," they only work for a very specific period of time. I met employees with 6 month contracts, 7 month contracts, and 9 month contracts. The day the contract is up, they're out of a job unless they get a new contract.

What does that have to do with working 7 days a week? Well, again, unlike the typical American worker whose employment agreement has "office hours" that state when you're expected to report to work, and has days off and vacation time and sick time built in, the contract that a cruise employee has is for every single day for the number of months they work. You have a 6 month contract? You're working for six months—every single day of that six months.

Yes, as I understand, they get breaks and time off each day for lunch, and time to sleep, etc. But they work every single day of their contract. Think about that: if you have a 6 month contract, that means you will literally work for 182 days without a single day off, then your contract is over. Is that fair? I suppose so, in the sense that it's in the contract when the worker signs it, so they could never say "I didn't know." But does it... feel fair? I'm less convinced of that.

I will say this though: the people I spoke to about their contracts didn't necessarily view it as a bad thing. One guy I spoke to who had a 7 month contract told me that when his contract was over, he'd go back to his country and take three months off. I suppose if you make enough money to be able to do this, that may be a nice perk. (Who wouldn't want to take three months off work?). But, again, this is a surprising fact that would likely shock most American tourists who patronize these cruise ships, not knowing that the people working there are any different than a "normal" restaurant or hotel.

#2 - Cruise Lines Are Usually Staffed By People From Developing Nations

This could be a sensitive topic, but I'll try my best to give it the justice it deserves. You know the whole discussion about people who come to America from poor countries, possessing a limited skill set, and work hard-labor jobs and tend to live in relative poverty because they're paid so little for the work they do? And how some people look at that and say: "It's a tragedy! They should be paid a living wage!" and how other people look at this and say: "Yes, but it's better than where they came from"?

Cruise ships are like that. As I mentioned, working more than 180 days in a row without a day off seems, to an American, like an abusive situation. But, and this is a big but—almost ALL of the workers on a cruise ship are not American. At least on the cruise I took: I looked carefully at the name tags of the employees I saw, and since they all have their home countries listed on their nametags (to make it feel more exotic?), it's very easy to know where they come from. On my cruise, I spotted exactly ONE employee from the USA—the cruise director.

Everybody else on the ship, as far as I could tell, was from poor, sometimes war-torn, often tiny little countries that Americans don't really know about or remember studying in elementary school. I met cruise ship workers from all over the world: the Philippines, Macedonia, Bosnia, Peru, Mexico, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Jamaica, Thailand, and many more. Some are from countries that a typical American couldn't even identify as a country or point to on a map. Seriously: when have you ever met someone from Grenada? I did, on a cruise ship. I still know almost nothing about Grenada.

My point here is that the very long hours and very long contracts would not be tolerated by many people in "developed" nations. But that's just it: the employees on these ships aren't from developed nations. So is this exploitation? Or is it a good thing that cruise lines are hiring people from countries with limited upward mobility?

My conclusion, after much consideration is: I'm not sure. But what I'm pretty sure of is that most cruise goers don't know this. Or even if they do see that their server at dinner has a name tag that says "China" on it, there's no way they can possibly know anything other than that their server is from China. They know nothing about the ship's employment practices. If they did, they would likely be outraged.

#3 - Cruise Ships Don't Abide By The Laws You'd Expect (Or Almost Any Laws At All)

This one confused me for a while until I did some research after I got back. I started to think: "Hmm... they let you smoke on the ship. They allow gambling. They make their employees work for months without a day off. How is that even legal?"

Then it dawned on me: they don't have to abide by the rules you would expect because they're working on a cruise ship. A cruise SHIP! Get it? It's a boat—it leaves the country where it starts (the USA, in my case), and goes out into international waters where none of the laws of that country apply.

It's hard to believe it, because we, as mainlanders, who live within the borders of our own country all day, every day, can't imagine being able to flout the laws of the land whenever we want just by leaving. But that's exactly what a cruise ship does—it leaves a country, after picking up thousands of paying customers, and takes them far, far away from that country, completely unaccountable to the laws of the land.

So it all makes sense now: in my case, the ship I was one went over 2,500 miles away from the USA (as the crow flies). Why on earth would it be beholden to the labor laws of the USA? It isn't. That's why they're able to do what they do.

#4 - Cruise Ships Have A "Flag of Convenience" From Foreign Countries (Even American Cruise Ships)

This is perhaps one of the most shocking revelations of all, probably because it seems like such an obvious loophole that it's hard to believe anyone can get away with it. Here's how it works: a cruise ship that starts in an American port, picks up American passengers, accepts American dollars, and takes Americans all over the seas, then drops them back off in America is... what: an American ship, subject to the jurisdiction and laws of America?

WRONG! If it was American, it would fly an American flag. But funny enough, next time you walk around on your cruise ship, take a look at the flag being proudly flown on your vessel. Unless you're sailing on the "Pride of America," there's a 100% chance your ship is NOT flying an American flag, no matter if it started and ended in America, and is run by an American company. (Also, bad news: the Pride of America is owned and run by Norwegian Cruise Lines, so it's not even American).

Here's the dirty secret: cruise ships fly under the flag of bizarrely unknown nations you might think of as poor and third-world countries, and that's the whole point. Why? Because a ship is only subject to the laws of the country whose flag it flies under. Starting to get the picture? What are poor, developing South American countries famous for? Well, aside from military coups, one thing they're famous for is not having any serious labor laws. And therein lies the reason that a cruise ship would intentionally seek to fly under the flag of such a nation. It's called flying a "flag of convenience," and it's, well, rather convenient.

This is no joke: on the cruise I took, the ship was built in Italy, and is owned and run by a company based in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. It sails from Port Canaveral Florida, to the Caribbean, then back to Florida, exclusively filled with United States nationals.

The port of registry on this clearly Italian/American/British Ship? Panama. Why? Weak labor laws, that's why. Are you surprised? They literally pick the country that gives them the most freedom on the seas and choose that. Don't believe me? Check out this article that proves it: Panama is the second-largest country for foreign ship registries.

Final Conclusion: Cruise Ships Aren't Necessarily Bad, But You Should Be Educated About Them

After all this, you may wonder: "So, what can we do about this? Is it bad? Should I go on that Caribbean Cruise, or not?" That's a tough question, and one I can't answer for anyone but myself.

Personally, I've decided that I probably won't take another cruise. That's mostly because I didn't really enjoy my first cruise experience, though. I don't think I can tell anyone not to take a cruise. But one thing I'm SURE of, is that people would think twice before taking a cruise if they had any idea about how difficult the working conditions are on a cruise ship. I don't blame them—the cruise lines are very good at only showing the glitzy, glamorous side of a cruise, and they never, ever even hint at the hard work their tireless employees working nine months without a break put it.

Ultimately, it's up to you, but please be educated in whatever decision you make. Hopefully my thoughts here will help you as you try to make the right choice.

Now that summer is almost over, it's nice to reflect on how it went. The Stauffer Family started this summer with a bang! Rachel finished her A.A. in Dance from Pikes Peak Community College (woot!), we sold our house and moved to a new city, and we decided to take a road trip across the USA before getting settled in the new place.

We bought a car top carrier, filled our van to the brim with luggage, then loaded up our five kids and drove a few thousand miles weaving in and out of a good portion of the deep south. In all, we spent 15 days on the road, saw 15 states, drove 4,906 miles, got rear-ended one time, and spent a total of 106 hours behind the wheel. Whew. We came home tired from that trip!

Here's where we went: Colorado (where we started), New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska.

This was our first "real" family vacation, and our first road trip with the whole family: the most we'd done before was take the kids to Denver for an overnight "staycation." This trip was no staycation, however. Rachel got to see the Atlantic ocean for the first time, and the kids got to see the beach for the first time. We felt bad that our oldest daughter is already 10 and had never seen a real lake or ocean, so we felt it was time to remedy that.

Of course, a road trip by yourself—which I've done many times—and a road trip with a van full of kids are two very different things. I learned many lessons along the way... observations on human nature, how otherwise friendly people change when confined in small spaces for long periods of time with other people, and much more.

Here are just a few simple takeaways from being on the road:

• Your kids will ask "are we there yet?" about 9,000 times... before you even reach the border of your own state. I've heard this line in movies, but I wasn't expecting that the kids would actually say this out loud... and say it as often as they did.

• No matter how happily you start your drive in the morning, at some point in the afternoon, you'll eventually end up losing control and screaming something like "get your toe out of her nose!" like a madman to someone in the back seat. (Yes, I actually uttered those unfortunate words).

• When you need to stop for a bathroom break, you'll find that the state-funded rest stops and welcome centers were by given God in his mercy to traveling parents: everyone goes to the bathroom, runs around outside to burn off their energy, then gets back in the car. Gas stations, on the other hand, were sent by Satan to torture road-weary adults: they're full of evil candy and toys, and serve no purpose besides tempting children and forcing you to spend lots of money. They will make your children cry. Avoid gas stations at all costs.

• You have to tell your kids things that you thought were obvious but you'd apparently forgotten. More than fifty times, I had to remind my sons of one of the most important rules of survival: "Never touch a urine-soaked toilet seat in a public bathroom." This was news to them, apparently... and it was a new concept each time I said it.

• Still speaking of bathroom breaks, it's important to know that your kids will magically transition from politely saying "No, I don't need to go to the bathroom" to yelling "I'm going to wet my pants if we don't stop, now!" while bobbing up and down in their seat—all in the span of about 20 minutes. There is no in-between. There's a switch in their bodies, and it's either off or on.

• People who see you out with your children will make comments about the number of children you have. These comments change based on where you are. In Colorado, some people told us "You have your hands full." In Alabama, a man put his hand on my shoulder and said "They all look just like you! What a blessing!" One sympathetic father in New Orleans told me "Those are all your kids? Wow. Remember, suicide is painless." No matter what they tell you, they can't resist commenting. ...they just have to say something. And, of course, they say it all, loudly, within earshot of the children.

As a rule, I like road trips, and vacations in general. I like to see new sights, meet new people, try the food, experience the local "things to do," and take a lot of pictures. And I like to learn about the various places I go. On this trip, our whole family learned about the deep south, the Atlantic ocean, swamps, the Gulf of Mexico, humidity, mosquitoes, confederates, alligators, and more. It was an enlightening experience: in each state, we saw some things we expected, and some that we didn't. Here's a little summary of each state we visited, along some of the memories we made or quirks we noticed along the way.

Colorado: Our Home State. The Fun Begins.

We had no big surprises in Colorado, other than that it's rare for us to go so far south in the state. You start to get the hint that New Mexico is coming soon when the signs for the streets, cities, and mountain ranges all turn into Spanish.

New Mexico: Light Green, Rocky, and Empty.

I've stopped at the same gas station in Raton probably 10 times over the last 20 years. I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed a whit since then. When we saw signs for Capulin Volcano National Monument, I was excited to tell them what we would probably see a volcano—something they'd never seen before. Of course, when we actually drove past it, angry voices cried out from the back seat saying "We wanted to see a REAL volcano! Where is the lava? This isn't fun!" Apparently, in a child's mind, an "extinct" volcano is a pretend volcano and parents get no points here. No matter how many times I tried to explain, it was still a big let down.

Oklahoma: Land of Tumbleweeds and Corn.

How do I describe driving through Oklahoma's panhandle? It's long, it's flat, it's straight and completely desolate. There were stretches that we drove for so long that at one point I was sure I could put my 3-year-old son Austin on my lap and let him drive and nobody would even know. Plus I'd win the "Dad of the year award" in his mind anyway. I kid you not when I say it we drove four solid hours in the same direction on the same road. I was very glad the gas tank was full. I can't speak for the whole state, but the panhandle is a deserted place littered with abandoned houses and farms. As we passed probably hundreds of farmhouse skeletons, I thought of "The Grapes of Wrath." It's a fictional tale, but Steinbeck clearly drew his inspiration from very real people who left these "Okie" homesteads for better opportunities elsewhere.

At one point, the largest thunderstorm I've ever seen formed on the left side of the road and I watched it intensely to see if any funnel clouds were forming. I'd had a nightmare (yes, literally) the night before about a tornado sweeping us off the road, but alas, we made it safely through. We stayed in OKC for a night and passed by Bricktown on our way out and I wished there was time to take a tour, but we had to hit the road.

Texas: Heat, Mosquitos, BBQ, and Mosquitos.

Texas was one of the highlights of our trip. We headed down to Austin to visit my sister and her husband (and their two cats). We all had much joy in reminding our son Austin, "You're in Austin, Austin! This is your town!" We rented a house on AirBnB and stayed for two nights. We tried the BBQ, which was great, and spent some time swimming. Boy was it hot! Swimming was a relief.

Did I mention the mosquitoes? For some reason, there were more mosquitoes in Austin than anywhere else we visited, which really surprised me. Telling kids from Colorado to "Keep the door closed—you're letting in the bugs!" seemed to confuse the heck out of them. We never have to close the door during summer, neither to keep the cold air in, nor to keep the bugs out. I still don't think they understood what we meant by "bugs."

Louisiana: They Do Things a Li'l Different Down There.

After our stay in the Lone Star State, we headed east to the home of their French neighbors: Louisiana. Boy oh boy, if our kids hadn't understood "humidity" before, they sure got it this time. Wow: over 90°F with 80% humidity. The weather app on my iPhone said: "Feels like 106°F." Wasn't that the truth! We rented a two bedroom loft on the second floor of a building right in the French Quarter and, like the good father I am, I walked the kids to Cafe du Monde the next day for beignets. I tried to spend some time in "Jackson Park," but, as with the "volcano" in New Mexico, they argued that it wasn't a "real" park since there wasn't a playground. Plus, it was hot and humid. Spoilsports...

We went to an oyster house for dinner and tried crawfish, alligator, shrimp, and more. (Though most of the kids decided they'd rather have a cheeseburger instead). On our way out of the state, we took the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, just to say we'd driven across the "longest continuous bridge over water in the world."

Mississippi: Rest Stops, Rain, Ivy, and Music.

We didn't know anybody in Mississippi and had no stops to make, so all we saw of this great state was a rest stop or two. And might I say, they were actually quite pretty with plantation-style architecture. You can learn a lot about a state and what the people value by seeing their rest stops. They're a statement unto themselves and give you just a glimpse of what the rest of the state has in store. It was raining the whole time we were in the state, so we just kept right on driving. This was the state where we told the kids "remember reading about slavery in the USA? Where we are right now used to be a slave state." This was surreal for them. (It still is to me too). On a side note: there was so much ivy covering the trees that in some places we couldn't even see the trees... just the ivy the had completely enveloped them.

Alabama: Finally, We Saw the Ocean!

We drove through Alabama twice. Once in the very southern part going from Louisiana to Florida, and again in the northern part while leaving Florida and headed towards Arkansas. It's funny—we drove through six states before the kids actually saw "the ocean," and that finally happened in Alabama. Up until then, all the water we saw or drove over was from lakes, rivers, and swamps. Of course, there were no beaches where we were, so on we drove. On a side note, I must say: the worst drivers we encountered were in Alabama. They drove extremely fast and they'd ride up almost touching our bumper if they wanted us out of the way, even if we were already in the fast lane trying to pass someone else. I'm not sure what that's about, but it was definitely noticeable.

Florida: White Sand, Green Water, and Sunsets.

Finally! We saw not just the ocean, but the beach. A big, long, white beach with emerald water. In contrast to Oklahoma's panhandle, the panhandle of Florida is magnificent. I had no idea what the kids would do when they finally saw it: would they jump in? Would they be afraid? Our little mountain-dwellers aren't very good at swimming... so would they walk in and go too deep and drown? Fortunately, they all ran right in (in their clothes) and jumped and splashed around—safely—and had a great time.

We also went to my parents' house near Orlando, which, to the surprise of many outsiders, is swampland. My family lives in Lake County which borders the county that Disneyland is in, and it has over 1,000 lakes in it. That certainly explains all the bugs, frogs, moss, and humidity! Rachel and I decided to spend some time without the kids and go to Cocoa Beach, and hit up Kennedy Space Center. That was fun.

Georgia: Dixie Land and Home of Rebels.

It was interesting to see Georgia—the state where my Dad was born. I've been to Florida a few times but never made it up that way before. Similar to Mississippi, we didn't know anybody here and didn't really have anywhere to go. We just drove through and stayed a night in Atlanta. Georgia is the first state where we saw a Confederate battle flag: that was interesting. I guess I was expecting to see that in Alabama (you know, "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and all that), but I was wrong.

Tennessee: Maybe Next Time...

We drove through Memphis on our way to Arkansas, so we just barely saw enough to say we've been there. Alas, I was asleep, and so I took no pictures. I'd love to go back and see Memphis and Nashville someday, preferably without the kids. We'll have to see.

Arkansas: Surprisingly Friendly and Beautiful.

Arkansas was the biggest surprise of the whole trip. I had no idea what to expect from this little state; home of Bill Clinton, the Duggar family, Johnny Cash, and Wal-Mart. It's a state I've driven close to a few times but had never stopped in before, and now I wish I had. Arkansas was a beautiful state. Beautiful. A shockingly gorgeous state: driving north from Little Rock to Missouri was some of the most amazing scenery I've seen anywhere. We "oohed and ahhed" while driving up Hwy 65, looking at the fields and trees that I had only seen in magazines before. When I was very young, I used to look at full-color panoramic spreads in "Country" magazines that my piano teacher kept on the coffee table in her lobby, and now I know where a lot of those photos were taken.

We got to spend time with our good friends, the Adairs, who have even more children than we do. (I wonder what kind of comments they've gotten!) They have enough kids that each of our kids had a playmate, which was fun since our kids had been in the back of a van for more than a week with no friends and they were wearing on each other. It was a nice reprieve for all of us.

On this trip, we had wanted to do one big special event for the kids. We had been right near Disney World and Legoland a few days before in Florida, but I wanted to find something a little more tame (and less expensive!) in case they didn't appreciate the "magic." So we went to Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. It's like a cross between an amusement park and a renaissance festival, but with an "Ozark" theme. I'm glad we did. It was a great choice.

Like Arkansas, Missouri was a pleasant surprise as well: I'd driven through it before, but much further north, close to Kansas City and St. Louis. I had no idea how different the north and south were. Southern Missouri is a fantastic place. It was warm, but not hot. Humid, but not unbearable. It had bugs, but instead of mosquitos, it had fireflies! We all smiled and stood in awe watching the lightning bugs fly around the trees in front of our rental home as we grilled steaks on Father's Day in Missouri. That was time well spent, and a nice end to a long week.

Kansas: BBQ, but a Different Kind.

Since I can't drive close to a state and not actually go there, as long as we had to drive through Kansas City, MO, I figured we'd pop into the Kansas side for a super-fast dinner. I searched online for the most popular KC BBQ joint and found one that stood out above all the rest: a small joint inside a gas station, that was (ironically) called "Oklahoma Joe's" until a few years ago. (Now it's called "Joe's Kansas City BBQ" for obvious reasons). When we showed up, there were three people in front of me in line. By the time we left, there were probably 50 or more. Apparently, this place gets enormous lines out the door. My assessment: it was good. Different that Texas, but not earth-shattering, and I wouldn't stand in line for it.

Iowa: Some Other Time, When I'm Not Asleep.

We drove through Iowa for a bit on our way up to Nebraska. There wasn't much to see, and I was asleep for all of it, so... no photos from Iowa either.

Nebraska: yep, corn. Like all the other states.

You might think (like I did), that the home of the Cornhuskers would be so chock full of corn that you couldn't stand it. But on the roads we drove through, there was corn growing, but no more than what we'd seen in Florida, Georgia, or Missouri. We came in late, left early, and didn't spend much time in Omaha, other than to hit up a Krispy-Kreme, which the kids had never tried before.

Colorado: we made it back home!

Home Sweet Home! Back in Colorado, on the porch... with no bugs!

I could tell when we were getting close to the Colorado border in Nebraska, because at one point there was a surprising change in the air, and I realized my lips were chapped. I instinctively reached for my chapstick but couldn't find it. That's because I hadn't needed chapstick even once during the previous two weeks. It's amazing how stark the difference in humidity is between the states. It hits you like a wall sometimes. We got to Colorado, crossed the border, and drove an unbearably long amount of time to finally get home. For some reason, that last final stretch was the hardest of the whole trip. We were home... but not quite, which was hard to be patient for. We did finally roll into the driveway late... about 10 pm.

Conclusions: it's a great big world out there.

It might sound obvious to say, but a road trip of that magnitude overwhelms you with a sense of just how big our land is. The USA is SO... BIG... it's huge. Really. There's not much to compare it to, but here is a thought for perspective: we started in Longmont, Colorado; made a stop in Austin, TX; and ended up in Cocoa Beach, Florida, then came back home. If you round it off a bit and take out extraneous stops, that's 2,140 miles, driving in an "L" shape, south, then east. Let's say we lived in Europe and made this same trip. We could start in Paris, France, make a stop in Florence, Italy, and end up in Istanbul, Turkey, and STILL not even have driven as many miles (only 1,930) as we did. If you made this trip in Europe, you would cross at least 9 countries, with different cultures, races, languages, borders, and more. In America, we drove that far, and then drove back, a different way, and never left the country. Everywhere we went had the same language, the same currency, and we had total freedom to travel without passports or visas. ...and we only saw 15 out of our 50 states, so there's still 35 more to go. That's huge. ...and exhausting. I'm just tired thinking about what we'll do next summer!

P.S. In case you wondered how I was able to log every mile of our trip, I used a little device called "Automatic" that I plugged into the van. It logged everything, and showed us a visual representation on a map. Pretty cool!

Late last year, I spent some time in Florida and drove all up and down the state, as far north as Orlando and as far south as Miami then Key Largo. I was on a whirlwind trip, and didn't expect to have a lot of time, so I had originally planned on going diving in Boca Raton where I was staying, but was convinced at the last minute to take the trip all the way down to the Keys. I'm glad I did—it was worth it.

I used an outfit called Sailfish SCUBA, and I definitely recommend you try them if you're in the area. I went on a boat with just one other family, so it was a nice small boat dive (the best way to do it).

We got to see barracuda, a spiny lobster, jellyfish, squirrelfish, trumpetfish, a loggerhead sea turtle, tuna, and a lionfish (though I forgot to mention that to the captain so he could extract it).

I'm glad I got to make this trip: I've now been able to dive in three distinctly different regions: the cold Pacific waters in Catalina, the warm Caribbean waters of the US Virgin Islands, and now the Florida Keys. Next on my list: either night diving, or a big reef like the Great Barrier!

Dive Log

Location Temp Visibility Duration Depth Outfitter

Key Largo - Benwood Wreck 75° 50Ft 0:47:00 45Ft Sailfish SCUBA

Key Largo - French Reef #5 73° 40Ft 0:48:00 33Ft Sailfish SCUBA

I got to check off one of the things on my bucket list this week: trying surfing. I've gotta admit, I grew up relatively close to the ocean and we went to the beach all the time but I never tried surfing before.

San Diego is weird: they have three famous beaches with the most unimaginative beach names in history:

• Ocean Beach

• Pacific Beach

• Mission Beach

Sea World Protestors?

It's much, much harder than I ever expected. It's given me a whole new level of respect for "surf bums" and other guys who do it all day. I don't know how they can—I spent less than an hour giving it a try, and it took every ounce of energy I could muster.

I was constantly winded from the waves pounding against me as I tried to walk into deeper water, I got a muscle cramp in my leg, and I thought I might have broken my toe when the leash wrapped itself around my foot and I fell off the board. In all, I’m glad I got to give it a shot, and I’m still amazed at just how hard it was.

I’ll probably try it again someday, but instead of in the freezing Pacific, I might try surfing in warmer weather, like the Atlantic.

Bucket list time! On my cruise, I got to check three things off my bucket list:

1. Going on a cruise

2. Seeing the Caribbean

3. SCUBA diving in warm water

Up to this point, I'd never really taken a trip on a large boat, so the cruise ship was definitely the biggest one I've ever been on, and the only diving or snorkeling I'd ever done was in very cold water (in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California). The whole warm water thing was awesome. I'm really glad I got to try it—I have nearly no body fat so every time I get in the water, I'm always shivering like a maniac and have try hard to ignore how cold the water is. So to not worry about freezing was a refreshing change.

In the Virgin Islands, the water is quite warm. Not bathwater warm like the Gulf of Mexico right off the Florida panhandle, but still much, much warmer than I'm used to. I had a nice dive on a teeny, tiny boat with Admiralty Dive center, who did a great job (I definitely recommend them).

I made one major mistake though: I totally forgot to take dramamine. Since I had been on a big cruise ship, which rocks back and forth very slowly and minimally, I forgot how much of a difference there would be going on the super-small dive boat. Since the waters were quite choppy, I was extremely seasick the whole time (I had to awkwardly ask the captain: "Umm... so what if I need to lose my lunch while I'm down there?"). Good news: there's a way to deal with that, if needed, but fortunately, I didn't have to learn first-hand. I will never make that mistake again though.

Dive Log

Location In Out Temp Visibility Duration Depth Outfitter USVI - Kennedy Barge Wreck 1:16 PM 1:36 PM Admiralty Dive Center USVI - Fish Butt Hole 2:25 PM 3:09 PM