Backpacking 101

I have to be honest, 5 years ago the only other country I'd travel to besides my own was Colombia, which looking on perspective its kind of cheating, considering that I'm half Colombian, and being there felt more like my second home than another different and unexplored place.

But that changed these last years, and more after I joined this AIESEC thing (here is the website http://www.aiesec.org/venezuela/usb , free advertisement for them and for me as well cause I helped make that website :D ) , I realized that I wanted to get to know more about other countries and cultures and that the world in the end its just a big book, and the ones who don't travel are just reading one page of it (I'm pretty sure I'm stealing this quote from several friends, to all of them: yes, I know). So after I knew personally and virtually so many different people from different nationalities I thought it was a bout time to put myself into some backpacker shoes.

Every backpacking experience always begins and ends in a pub or bar

In this year I realized that I traveled to more countries than I traveled in the rest of my life. I don't want to say how many because I will feel small in comparison to the rest of my trainee friends (actually I'm too lazy to count as I'm writing this post). Every country visited its a different experience, its a different way of seeing life as a whole, and its whole different set of cultural attributes that makes such a big learning experience in general.

Here in Europe its so easy to travel to many countries and on a reasonable(cheap ass) price, specially if you are in central Europe. Here in Budapest I can be in 2 hours and 50 mins in Vienna by car, or in 9 hours by train I can get to Munich. In South America its a little bit harder, because we don't have such an integrated transportation system. And the distances are way bigger, for example this two hours and a half distance its the same to go from two "neighbours" cities in Venezuela :  Caracas and Valencia, and its just the central part of the country. To get to Colombia from my city its a nice 23 hour trip by bus, and I heard that getting to Ecuador from Caracas could take up to 3 or 5 days  more or less. One thing that I think its missing in South America and Europe has its the low cost airlines. This could make so much easier backpacking trough latinamerican lands.

Of course this whole traveling thing its not made with all the luxuries, and thats why the name of this post. Its backpacking on the maximum level . Paying just enough to get to the place, finding the most affordable hotels and hostels, the most affordable places to eat, its all a big math exercise, specially when you are living under a trainee salary and when some unexpected things happens, like a 30 Euros fine for not paying for the public transportation (thanks a lot Prague). But in the end its just a really cool and fun experience, and keeps you motivated to try it even more as time passes.

 Im quite sure this was the street where I got caught cheating the Czech Transportation System

What is one my long term goals? . I say on this date (August 28 of 2011)  that one of my long term goals is to travel to at least one country on each continent. This is totally doable and I have friends who have achieved this goal so far, so this motivates me more to try to achieve it. Of course I need money, and for this money I need to work more, and to work more I need more time, so this will take some time and patience...

 Even better when you do these kind of trips with the ones you love :)

But yeah, its totally doable

Adios, Bye, Szia!