Travel Tip: How to Sleep on Buses, Trains, and Planes

Sleeping on moving vehicles packed with people is a skill. It can be learned. Some people are naturals at it, but most have to practice a few times before they get good. There are techniques which help you get better at it more quickly.

If you're an independent traveler on a budget, this is a skill you'll want. Spending a night on a train or a bus saves you the money you'd spend on a hotel or hostel. It also means you can hop on a bus for 12+ hours, if you really just want to get from point a to b, and that's the simplest and cheapest way to get it done.

Like a lot of things in life, there's no one "right" way to do this, but I do know a few tricks that work for me. I'm going to be writing this the most common (and next-to-hardest) situation in mind: something that has you sleeping in a single reclining seat with people next to you. I'll say "bus" throughout this next example, but this applies equally to many trains, most airplanes, and some boats.

Getting to sleep easily for me is all about routine. If I can do all the little things that signal to my body that it's bedtime, it's a lot easier to sleep in something uncomfortable and un-bedlike than if I've just been running around in circles drinking red bulls. I don't drink caffeine (or taurine) right before bed, so I don't do that if I'm about to sleep on a bus. I usually brush and floss my teeth before I go to bed, so I try hard to make sure I do that before going to sleep on a bus. Learn to do this with just a water bottle and a place you can spit without making anyone mad, and you'll go far. If you have a bathroom with a working sink on the bus, take advantage of it. To do so, you'll need your toothbrush, etc. in your carry on bag, so decide when and where this will happen before you check any bags.

This next trick might seem a little extreme, but it works for me. I never recline my seat unless I want to sleep, or unless the seat is just leaning forward too far (Japanese Shinkansen, anyone?). This means, after a few times, my body associates a reclined seat with sleep, and drifts off more easily when I lean back. Also this means to really wake myself up in the morning, I just return the sight to its upright position.

I tend to sleep more easily in the dark. Light (especially sunlight) wakes me up very quickly. So, before I sleep I blindfold myself. This keeps me asleep whenever we go through a bright town or the lights come on. There are cute little eyemasks for this purpose everywhere, but I just tie my bandana around my eyes.  As a warning, with either method, friends will sometimes find this kind of cute and hilarious, and will show you the pictures they took of you while you slept the next morning. You'll get used to it.

Next is simple comfort. Most of this is mental, these seats aren't going to be very obliging. If you obsess about the one thing that's poking you or doesn't feel right, shift a bit and concentrate on the parts that are comfortable. An inflatable neck pillow can help, though I don't have one. What I usually do is just make sure I'm not too hot or cold, and then use something as a cover, usually my jacket. I'm used to having a cover on a bed when I sleep, and this mimics that enough to put me to rest.

Know what kind of noise level lets you go to sleep, and get it. I sleep best with no noise, or maybe some white noise like rain, so I use earplugs. I personally prefer swimmer's rubber earplugs to the cheap foam kind, but try a couple different ones to see what works best for you. If you're like some of my friends who usually go to sleep with a TV on, get some noise-blocking earbud headphones. They don't have to be fancy, the $6 pair with the fitted rubber buds work almost as well as the fancy electronic noise canceling types, and are usually a lot less conspicuous. A pair of those and your mp3 player (or anything else that does music) should do the trick nicely. Make sure your music device is tucked away somewhere that's not obvious to any would-be thieves.

While we're on the subject, make sure your belongings are safe. On buses, you can usually check them into the compartment below. Trains are trickier. If you're on a bunk, there's sometimes a space underneath you can put your bag that can't be accesed without lifting up your bunk. if you're on a top bunk, just sleep holding your bag or with it possibly tied to you somehow. It's actually a lot easier and more comfortable than it sounds. On airplanes, rest easy. With that many flight attendants hovering around and the paranoid air about any kind of security, you can just about dangle half an electronics store and jewelry shop across your lap and wake up with all of it there in eight

Finally a few specific notes for airplanes. Do yourself a favor and do not watch the movie unless you'll have enough to time between its ending and half an hour before landing to sleep. If you're on an airplane ride long enough to sleep on, chances are good you're making a big time zone change. As soon as you board, change your watch to the time zone you will arrive in, and try to mentally shift to that time. The meal schedule won't always oblige, but just think of whatever meal it is as being oddly early or late (or just think, "hey! breakfast for lunch!"). And sleep no matter what. Think of it either as a daytime nap or you nighttime sleep, whichever makes more sense depending on the current time in your destination. These, combined with holding out until bedtime to really sleep in your destination will help prevent jet lag.

The bad news? None of these tricks will work the first time you try them. It took me two straight nights on buses for them to really solidify. the first night I barely slept, and then the next night I was so exhausted that I slept like a log. I don't really recommend such a crash course (though I will say three consecutive nights on transport will make you an expert at falling asleep just about anywhere). My point is, that it will be a few times before you'll be able to drift off normally on these things. Like I said in the beginning, it's a skill, and it will take practice. Best of luck, and sweet dreams.

American in the Middle East

Traveling as an American alone in the Middle East is fraught with risk. I have learned this the hard way. Without warning, you might be kidnapped, fed, whisked through the town sights, taken into a stranger's home, fed (again), and tossed in a very comfortable bed, have your captors drop everything to show you whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, and then finally shower you with a ridiculous number of gifts when you finally convince them you need to leave.

I should have taken it as a warning sign when I was given a free coke, tea, AND coffee when I was just sitting around waiting at the border for my visa application to be processed. But it was still a surprise when, after my bus-to-minibus-to-minibus transport to Aleppo, I had walked less than half a block when two Arab guys my age saw me ask directions from a shopkeeper and asked if I wanted a hotel. I was friendly, but a little evasive, figuring they were touts trying to get me to stay at *their* hotel. But they just wanted to help me find a place. Then they asked if I was hungry. We went into a fast food place, I tried to pay, and was strenuously opposed. Then it was time for evening prayer, so they asked if I wanted to see the grand mosque. A few hours later, I was sitting in one of their uncle's houses, polishing off a home-cooked meal with homemade ice cream and homemade chocolates with hazelnuts and being told by everyone in the room that I should “feel at home” for however long I liked.

At one point about midway through the evening, we passed by a historic lane filled with traditional candy shops. Tareq, my eventual host, mentioned that candy was a traditional gift in Arab society. I immediately took the hint, and said I wanted to buy them some. But the plan completely backfired when Tareq and his buddy physically barred me from paying while they got out their own wallets. “Come on,” Tareq said, as he handed me the bag of sweets, “it would make us very very sad if you paid.”

And the trend continued for three meals out, at least ten rides in taxis, tea in a traditional hammam, two CDs of Arab music, a set of Muslim prayer beads, a Syrian flag keychain, and a build-your-own jewelry box with an Arabic inscription congratulating someone on completing the Hajj (pilgrimage).

Lonely Planet guidebooks usually have a color section in the front with their highlights of whatever country or region you are visiting. In the China guide, this had things like the Heavenly Temple in Beijing, The Great Wall etc. In Australia, it had the Great Barrier Reef, Ayer's Rock, etc. In my guide to the Middle East, one of the highlights is listed on the last color page: Syrian People. I've learned why pretty fast.

Overall it's been a pretty intense cultural experience, I've spent the last couple months in similar places where I was seeking out the differences between the place I was and my home. Now I'm back to territory so different that I'm seeking out the similarities between here and home instead. Just crossing the border, even from another majority Muslim country like Turkey, I really had to take a second to just absorb the scene, the carpet sellers, a couple camels, the uud and drum music playing through loudspeakers, the long, flowing clothes the men wore, the veils of the women, and mosque a ways across the rocky desert. There's something rewarding about a place seeming just how you imagined it.

Inside the house in Aleppo were a couple implicit guidelines. There were a couple times when I went to exit a room and was told to wait a few minutes. Even at one point when I went into my room to grab something, Tareq came after me, and said I wait to wait a second to exit again into the hallway. It didn't take long to put this together with the fact that I'd been introduced to the uncle, a brother, and two male cousins, and that they were the only ones I'd seen in the house. The men and women do not mix, even in the home.

The kids too were separate. When I sat down to eat with the men of the house, the kids would stick their head in and out occasionally, and the oldest would sit there to obey orders from the patriarch, like filling empty glasses with tea or bringing sugar when needed. Before leaving for school, the littlest ones would line up to kiss their father's hand and tap it to their forehead, the traditional way to ask for the elder's blessing.

Tareq asked me at one point why people in the west are afraid of Muslims. I answered the best I could, explaining that most people in the west don't really know Islam or Muslims, they only know news reports about war and terrorist attacks in the middle east. I don't know if I'm right, and I'm sure there's more to it when it comes to perceived and real differences in culture. But a lot of the stuff that seems strange to me as a modern American is stuff I've either seen elsewhere or that I knew happened where I'm from in our past. In Mexico the kids don't usually leave the parents house until they get married. Not all that long ago, Christian women were expected to cover their heads, especially in Church. Yes, the veil is a bit different from a bonnet, but does it justify the attitudes we hold?

I'd encourage anyone who actually wants to learn about this to come check it out. Just be careful, you might get abducted by Arabian hospitality.

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Houses of Earth and Wind

I have spent the last couple of days living in a cave. I recommend it highly.

People here in Cappadocia have been living in caves for thousands of years now. The caves are man-made, and they've been carved into the super-soft rock, known as tuf. The rocks come up in peaks, and if you look closely, a lot of them have little holes in them for windows. Some of them are little one-room caves, but not all. Many Christians in Roman times holed up (sorry) inside these caves and even made churches out of them. There are elaborate altars with 1000-year old frescos of Jesus, Mary, the Prophets, and other biblical characters. Unfortunately, a lot of them have been defaced. I mean that literally, their faces are gone. It's a combination of Christians (among others) taking a piece for good luck and Muslims and also early Christians removing the face intentionally-- the eyes first because early Christians felt that Jesus was watching them, and then the rest because images of all kinds, but especially of holy people, are forbidden by Islamic tradition.

After catching a bus from my cave hotel in Ürgüp and hiking through the Rose Valley filled with abandoned cave houses and churches, I came to the abandoned village of Çavuşin. It's not just a set of caves, its a vertical labyrinth. The picture you see here is a view from near the top, looking at the rest of town.

It's been a long time since I've had so much fun exploring a place. I was traversing ledges, finding tunnels and hidden stairways, following the wind through the cracks to find little nooks with fantastic views over the valley. I couldn't decide whether I felt more like I was in an Indiana Jones movie or just an adult-sized McD PlayPlace made out of stone.

But that place was a little vertical tube compared to the underground cities. There are hundreds of known underground cities, and one of the biggest open to the public is in Kaymakli. If you've ever wondered what the inside of an anthill looks like to an ant, I think this might come pretty close. It's an eight story (five excavated) network of underground tunnels, pits, and caverns. This is the kind of thing you think must exist only in fairy tales. Let me tell you, the real world is full of them. Not as full as you might like, and not usually in the places you think they would be, but they're there.

My only complaint? The days are too short to enjoy the place. Though of course that doesn't stop enjoying things like Turkish food, or even more so, the company of the Turkish people themselves.

I feel like the vast majority of places I go, people are friendly to travelers, but in Turkey, especially here in Cappadocia, the people take it a step further. I've lost track of the number of times people have come over, just to ask me where I'm from, and try to talk with a mix of my phrasebook-Turkish and their high-school-English. They're almost always smiling, happy to see me, and often aren't satisfied until they've given me some hot tea in one of their trademark tulip-shaped glasses. When I leave, they want to know when I'm coming back.

I think my Turkish vocab runs about to "Hello", "Do you speak English", "I don't speak Turkish", "Please," "Thanks," "What's that," "Toilet" and "Where's the bus stop." It doesn't matter if those are the only words we have in common, I still get a seat, a tea, a lot of smiles, and any kind of help I can figure out how to ask for. I remember the word for yes, but I keep forgetting the word for no. I wonder if that has anything to do with why people seem to like me so much here...

Before coming to Turkey, I figured out that I had a dozen or so friends who just happened to be connected to Turkey or really like Turkey, and I was a little surprised at the coincidence. Now I know it isn't a coincidence at all.

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PS. Happy Thanksgiving from Turkey! I'd say "no pun intended," but I was taught that lying is a bad bad thing.

Travel Tip: Talk to Strangers

People ask me about me how I get into interesting situations, meet interesting people, and walk away from a place with interesting stories. Today, I'm going to tell you one of my tricks for accomplishing just that.

Your mother may have been one of the few mothers to tell you not to talk to strangers as a child. I'm going to tell you the opposite. If you want to get a full travel experience, you need to talk to strangers.

Talking to strangers teaches me about local culture and history, and gives an excellent sense of what's really happening wherever I am. It's the reason I'm never lonely while traveling solo. It also regularly gets me free food, drinks, transport, places to stay, tickets to cool stuff, and invitations to the kinds of things you only hear rumors about in guide books. All I have to do is talk to someone I don't know yet. If you try it, you'll reap benefits, too.

A disclaimer: This does not mean you should wander up at night to the group of shifty-looking characters with baseball bats in a back alley and ask if they can break a $100 bill for you. Please be selective in who you talk to.

If the person makes you nervous, that's not always a bad sign. You just have to think about why you're nervous. If you're just nervous that the cute girl/guy at the bar won't like you, suck it up and go talk to them. If you think the old man on the porch won't speak your language or won't like people of your demographic, just be extra respectful, smile when you say hello, and judge further conversation based on his reaction. If you're nervous that bothering the guy wandering down the street at midnight swinging a machette might put you in physical danger, then maybe you should trust your instincts and go elsewhere.

I particularly encourage you to talk to local people. Fellow travelers are easy to talk to because you already have travel and being foreign in common. But locals are often more rewarding to meet. Ask for directions, instructions, and recommendations. It's flattering and you'll pick up information, maybe some new skills, and, if you click, a new friend or three.

If approaching random people on the street for that kind of thing scares you, we'll start somewhere easier. In fact, we'll start with four somewheres: your accommodation, on public transport, near tourist sites, and in nightlife areas.

For accommodation, it's going to be a lot easier if you stay somewhere with shared facilities than if you stay in a hotel. If you have a single room in the hotel, your opportunities are limited to the busy staff and people you see in hallways, elevators, and other places where extended conversation gets awkward, fast.

If you stay at a hostel on the other hand, you expand meeting places to a shared kitchen, common lounge most hostels come with, and of course the dorm you sleep in. Here are the magic words: “Hey, where are you from?” You can turn to anyone in any hostel anywhere and start a conversation, completely out of the blue, with those five English words. Even better, the staff are usually locals who like travelers, know the area, and often are more than happy to hang out and even show you around town after their shift is over if you take the time to actually talk to them.

As for transportation, especially on long train and boat rides, conversations spring up naturally if you're open to them. Everyone is going to be kind of bored and will be happy to talk to someone from out of town. Even if the “talk” is mostly gestures or passing a phrasebook back and forth. This is where you'll most often score free stuff like food or drinks. Just remember to share some of yours too.

Tourist sites, weirdly, are better places to meet people than you might think. Obviously you can meet tourists. But you should also talk to the staff, especially tour guides. They're mostly local people, most of them will speak English (and a few other languages to boot), and a lot of are often otherwise really bored and happy to have someone to chat with. You'd be surprised how little interest tourists seem to show in these people's lives outside of their jobs. Don't make that same mistake.

Finally, there's meeting people the same way a lot of people meet each other at home: nightlife districts. Pubs, bars, and clubs everywhere are places where you can, by unwritten law, strike a conversation with just about anyone. The only problem is that it's probably the most intimidating place to do it. If you're feeling self-conscious, just remember that 95% of the people you talk to are going to be worrying too much about what you think of them to pass any kind of judgment on you.

These are just a few places to get started. Don't let them limit you. You can talk to strangers just about anywhere you can find strangers, from in a public library to knocking on someone's door to ask to borrow some cooking ingredients. Unless stated otherwise by cultural taboo (see your travel guide or guidebook for details), they're all fair game.

If you're stuck for conversation starters, use props. One of my favorites is food. I've been a lot of places, and I have yet to find someone who doesn't smile when they're offered a cookie. Even if they turn it down, they'll often try to talk to you or offer you something of theirs within a few minutes. Another good prop is anything technological. If you've ever walked down the street with a friend who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch, you know how this works. My little netbook still gets me a lot of attention. But really anything interesting enough to elicit comment (though not offensively so), can work. I still remember walking down the street in Chicago with a bouquet of lilies and having every third woman I passed say something to me (mostly "oooh are they for ME?").

One last piece of advice. Think about the age of people you talk to. I was born in 1986. Almost anyone in the world my age or younger will speak some English, or be with someone else who does. However, if you've got the language skills, try to talk to older people. The older, the better. These are the people who lived the history of their homes and who can teach you more about the culture of a place than any of us youngsters can.

Now get out there and talk to people!

Nobody's Business but the Turks

In the background is the Hagia Sofia, also known as the Ayasofia, rebuilt as a church by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century, converted into a mosque in 1453 by Sultan Mehmet the conqueror after his conquest of Constantinople, (formerly Byzantium, today Istanbul), and finally secularized by President Ataturk and turned into a museum. It's an architectural marvel and a fascinating religious symbol, covered in Islamic tile work, slowly being scraped away to reveal Christian images beneath.

In the foreground is a cat sitting on my lap, purring her head off. She really liked tummy rubs.

If there's two things Istanbul is full of, it's these: historic architectural marvels of the ancient Roman and Islamic world, and stray cats.

It makes some sense. According to some here, Napoleon once remarked that if the entire world was a republic, this city would be its natural capital. It was the capital of both the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire. It's the only place in the world I know of where you can take a ferry for about a dollar, cross to a different continent, and still be in the same city limits.

And as for the cats, the city of full of fishermen at every dock and bridge to feed them, tons of tourists to lavish them with attention, and the craziest nooks and crannies you could ever hope for to explore and hide in. It's a pretty good life.

Like a lot of tourists, I spent a lot of time ogling things like the Topkapi Palace, containing what they claim to be Moses' staff, John the Baptist's skull, and an odd collection of Mohammed's teeth and bits of his beard. Then there was the magnificent Blue mosque, the only mosque outside of Mecca with six minarets (the towers from which we hear the call to prayer five times a day). And of course relaxing in a turkish bath, sampling turkish delight, and stuffing my face with kebap. Search “travel blog istanbul” and you'll see similar stories about those.

I also met and petted a lot of cats. You might read something similar about that in those other blogs too.

So I'll write about something else. It starts with a local connection. Some of my best hosts on this trip have been connections that sound like something out of the Mel Brook's movie, Space Balls. This time, it was my father's colleague's identical twin sister. She invited me to a talk for an NGO about helping women entrepreneurs in countries like Turkey. Intrigued, I accepted.

I got to the talk and realized I'd gotten the concept backwards. I'd assumed I was coming to join a group of people, who generally wanted to do good in the world, listen to a speaker who was an expert in going to different nations and helping women entrepreneurs. Instead, I was in a room with some of the most powerful businesswomen in Turkey who had gathered to hear a motivational speaker who generally wanted to do good in the world.

So, the most interesting part for me wasn't the speech. It was the questions from these women leaders.

After the speaker went on for a bit about The Power Within You and how Nobody Can Lead Like You , and how We All Have The Same Goals and the effects of these Principles on Synergy, he opened the talk up to questions, so that he could try to address the specific concerns of women CEOs and business owners in Turkey.

They were not easy questions. A lot of them had to do with stories. One started with the phrase “Istanbul is not Turkey”. She went on to explain that she was the owner of her (Istanbul-based) business, and even in Anatolia, when she went to another company for a meeting or deal of some kind, the men there refused to believe she was the owner. Every time they spoke to her, they insisted on asking for her boss. They still cannot believe that a woman can own a business.

After a few more questions and stories like this one, the speaker came out with what he was really thinking:

“You know,” he said, “I think I'm giving this talk to the wrong people. It sounds to me like it's the men of Turkey who need the help, not you.”

The women laughed, and then looked around. Including me, there had been three men in the room at the beginning of the talk. Early on, both of the others had left. From the murmurs I heard in English, nobody seemed to know why.

That was one of two points that really stuck out for me. The other was a question posed by my host:

“I have always I wanted to be independent. I want to stand on my own two feet. Yet I also feel that I want to be a good muslim. I asked one of the muslim leaders I most respect about how I can unite these two principles. He told me that, after a time, I will enjoy being submissive, and that I won't feel the need to be independent anymore. I rejected that, yet I still feel a need for some connection to my faith. Something that doesn't conflict with my independence. How can I resolve this?”

Nobody had an answer for that.

Even in the car, before I was dropped off, one of her friends showed me something.

“Look at this, I have this on the radio.” She turned on the car radio and flipped through stations until we heard a man with a deep voice speaking evenly without any background noise.

“It's the Koran. Twenty-four hours a day. I listen to this in the car all the time, and I just can't stand it. I can't agree with Islam as I know it. I just wish there was something somebody could show me that could unite some of the principles we talked about tonight with the faith.”

It's funny. I'm used to giving advice to people on all sorts of things. Even if I don't have an answer, I usually have a few ideas, including for the other questions that had been posed that evening. But this time, I had nothing I to offer. All I know about “a woman's place” in Islam is what I'm fed by western media about extremist groups. I never believed that could represent mainstream Islamic thought. But if this night was anything to go by, maybe it's a bit closer than I realized.

With any luck, I'll learn more about this over the next few weeks.

EDIT Nov 22, 2009:
Just got this response from my good friend, Ayse, a Turkish-American dual citizen:

"The problem is, is that it's not mainstream muslim thought if one looks at the amount of female doctors, lawyers, etc., in Pakistan, India, America, England, etc.. If you were to go back to Turkey in 1923, you'd find that there were women leaders in the revolution and, early on, many women in parliament.The world's first female fighter pilot was Sabiha Gokcen, a Turk and daughter of Ataturk. The problem, especially now, has been the AKP government and the regression of modernity in Turkey as a response to rejection by the West.

P.S. How many female CEOs are there in America? Not many."

I thought that ought to be shared. 

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Travel Tip: Get Quick Dry Clothes

Today, I have another tip for you that's simple. When you're shopping for a long trip, especially if you're backpacking it, buy clothing that dries quickly.

Obviously, clothing that dries quickly makes life easier if it accidentally gets wet from tropical rainstorms/saltwater spray from friendly dolphins/spilled oktoberfest beer. Wet clothing that stays wet is uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing. Remember, Murphey's law states that all spilled liquids will magically aim for the crotch of your pants. The longer it's wet, the more stupid jokes you have to make up about your 'little accident.” More importantly, packing wet clothing in you backpack causes problems, including making half of what's in your bag smell awful for the rest of the trip. Actually, that's more of a symptom. I'll let you imagine the problems it indicates for yourself.

The other big benefit of clothing that dries fast is that you can do your own laundry and have it ready to go soon later. Saves time and money over the ho(s)tel's laundry service, even if it “only takes 24 hours.” Since you won't be carrying that much clothing, you're going to need to do laundry a lot more often than you do at home. You'll want a drain plug, some laundry detergent, and a clothesline.

One thing I should clarify: when I say “quick dry,” I don't mean it has to be specialty clothing with a label somewhere that says Quick-Dry(tm). It just has to be made of a material that dries fast. Just take a look at the laundry label. Synthetic materials like polyester are usually the easiest of these to find. Nylon is also good, most commonly found when looking for pants. The material you want to avoid is cotton. Unless it's specially treated, cotton almost always takes forever to dry.

Unfortunately, cotton also what about 90% of clothing is made of today. So we need to find that other 10% I tend to look for sports clothing stores, outdoor supply stores, and occasionally, if I find them, dedicated travel supply stores (tough to find outside the US). Then of course there's the internet (don't forget overstock sites for discounts and googling for coupons before checkout).

An extra note on the specialty travel stores. They are good, but they're often the most expensive option, and you run the risk of walking out with an outfit more suited colonial era safari rather than modern Europe, Asia, or anywhere else today. Buy stuff you wouldn't get odd looks for wearing at home.

Now, one thing to note is that even the most expensive SuperDooperUltraQuik-DryMax shirt from BiggAdventure inc. isn't going to dry immediately in cold or damp places if you just ball it up and throw it in a corner. Drying this stuff out is going to take time. If it's completely soaked, it'll sometimes take a few hours. If you're smart, it'll take fewer. Here are three ways to dry your stuff out faster:

1) After wringing it out, roll it up in a dry towel and squeeze. The towel will take a good chunk of the moisture out. Yes, you will then need to dry out the towel, but since you're using it after you (I hope) shower, you had to do that anyway.

2) Hang it up, with space on either side of it, in a place that is warm, airy, and dry. In that order. In other words, hanging it next to your bunk in a heated dorm room is better than on a line outside in near freezing temperatures, even if it is airy and dry out there.

3) Wear it. Given a little time, your body heat actually dries damp clothing out pretty well, as long as you're not wearing much over it to keep the moisture in.

And there you have it! Clean clothing, and a bag that doesn't smell (much). Enjoy.

Online Traveler

Sometimes I think I spend too much of my time these days online. Having a laptop with so much free wifi around is a pretty strong temptation. I see travelers everywhere glued to instant messenger and facebook. Back when I didn't have a netbook, I tried very hard not to be one of those people. I didn't want to spend all my time in a foreign country browsing the same websites and doing the same things online that I'd do at home.

But my line of thinking has started to shift a little bit. I woke this morning in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, and checked my email and one of the three online news sources I regularly read. On it, I found the headline, "Bulgaria Still Stuck in Trauma of Transition."

If I hadn't seen that, I would have had no way of knowing that today marks the 20th anniversary of Bulgarian independence from its communist leader, Todor Zhivkov, and the start of a democratic state. There are no celebrations here in the former capital. There don't seem to be any celebrations anywhere.

The newest and poorest member of the EU is still showing a lot of ambivalence about its new democratic system. Probably the most impressive statistic I saw in the article was that, when asked if the changes in 1989 benefited ordinary people, only 11% said yes. It's a surprising sentiment I've found in a lot of different former soviet states, including places like (former) East Germany.

But my point isn't about the debate over communism vs capitalism (somehow still paired at the hip with democracy, as if democracy can only exist in a capitalist system). My point is that if I hadn't flipped on my computer and spent half an hour on the internet this morning, I would have completely missed the significance of this day in this country.

A lot of shelves and server space is filled by articles talking about how much technology, especially the internet, has changed the world. I don't know if I'm the most qualified to say anything about the subject, but I can tell you it's changed the way I travel.

I spent the first six months or so without any laptop of my own. I even left my old 30gig iPod Photo (remember those?) at home. I had a digital camera and cell phone that technically can browse WAP internet, but charges a hefty amount by the kilobyte in the countries where it works. Aside from the that, the only piece of technology I carried was a portable FM radio. My idea was that I wanted to immerse myself completely in the places I was, rather than sitting in my little American bubble with my American music and my usual American websites where I talked to my American friends.

I'd spend about three hours a week in an internet cafe on on a hostel computer, taking care of my photos, updating this blog, and checking my email. Sometimes, if I trusted the connection, I'd do some online banking to make sure my travel funds were under control. That was all I did with the internet or technology as we talk about it today.

The FM radio worked a lot better in theory than in practice. I got to hear some kids radio plays in El Salvador, and occasionally in major cities I'd find music stations (mostly playing American music), but when the thing worked, I mostly only got talk radio in whatever language the country spoke. Great, if I spoke the language. If I didn't, or if I was between cities (like on a bus, when I most wanted something to listen to), I was sunk. Plus the radio broke and had to be replaced twice, and then was stolen along with my sweater and had to be replaced again. Now it's broken one more time and I haven't bothered with a replacement yet.

Then came the netbook.

I wasn't sure buying it was a good idea. But it was a small, light computer, for about US$180. I fiddled with it some, spent a ferry ride between the north and south Island of New Zealand making a case for it out of duct tape, and got it doing the things I wanted it to. Which it mostly did, even with a tiny (we're talking 800x480 pixels tiny) screen, and a hard drive with only four gigs, more than three of which were taken up by the operating system.

I was still nervous. I determined to limit my time on the thing as much as my will power could allow, because I figured I'd  spend all my time online, not learning a thing about where I was, wherever I was.

But instead of locking me into a bubble the way I thought it would, it led me deeper into my travel destinations. First was the wealth of free information. I could check the local news in my language anywhere I got an internet connection often including responses from the people I met. Through first wikitravel, and then Lonelyplanet.com when I found they posted all their guides' info online for free, I could find out opening hours and tricks to check out eperiences I otherwise wouldn't have known about at all. Then I could go out and use that information to get somewhere and try new things out wherevere I was.

But the bigger impact for me was through online communities. Facebook of course lets me stay in touch with the hundreds of people I've met from all over the world. Travel forums and networks like Bootsnall and the Thorn Tree, I can learn a lot about different people's experiences in different places doing different things. If I wasn't sure if I wanted to do something, I'd just check the forums or other travel blogs to see what kind of people liked it (if anyone did).

But the by far the biggest travel community I've tapped online has been CouchSurfing. 1.5 million people in almost every country in the world dedicated to meeting each other and helping each other travel. And it's growing fast.

So not only has the investment brought in a wealth of information and opportunities, but it's given me free places to sleep, often free food, led me to art exhibitions and shows (yes, many of which were free), and made two-day acquaintances in Asia turn into friends I get to see again in multiple countries in Europe.

Most importantly, it's led me to some of the adventures I started traveling for in the first place. Midnight bus to hike up to the top of Mt Fuji? Tip off of Wikitravel. Cheap ride on the autobahn from Berlin to Munich in time for Oktoberfest? Arranged ride from German rideshare website. Party on a skyscraper's helicopter pad in Seoul? Couchsurfing connection. Last minute deal on an icebreaker to Antarctica? Contact found the Thorn Tree.

I'm surrounded by backpackers calling overseas for free using an iPodTouch and skype. People and reserving hostels at 3/4 price on hostelbookers and hostelworld and finding them with their smartphone's GPS. Even my travel insurance is completely online, down to how I make claims if I ever need to.

Yes, sometimes I will end up curled up IMing my friends from home and watching reruns of the Daily Show. I think a lot of travelers spend too much time on stalkerboo-- erm, facebook. If you're not careful, the web will shut you up in a bubble even more than I originally feared. But I think, if you can use it the right way, you end up getting a lot more out of my travels than you would have otherwise.

Anyway, I think I'll let the pictures do the talking when it comes to the stuff I've been doing offline in Romania and Bulgaria. The only one I can't share that way is the inside of the Peles castle in Transylvania. If I win billions of euros someday, I might buy it. Search online for photos of the interior if you want to know why (I sadly wasn't allowed to take any).

But here's the ending headline that has nothing to do with anything else mentioned in this post (don't you love it when I do that?). Tomorrow marks the beginning of a big transition in this trip: I'm going from Europe into the Middle East.  Tomorrow, with any luck, I will wake up in the city of Istanbul, right smack in the middle of the two. Stay tuned.

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