Dispatch II

Fellow Vagabonds!

COVID has thrown the world a curveball, and it’s thrown us one too. Just a few weeks ago we thought we were sitting pretty, heading south in the general direction of Antarctica. Then everything changed. 

Four times we tried different routes to and down South America, from cargo ships to re-positioning cruises. Four times the trips were cancelled. We thought we were on our way to the Incan ruins of Choquequirao in Peru, Chile’s Atacama Desert, the wilds of Patagonia, and the vast and beautiful west coast of South America until at last we found Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, and the Argentinian toe of land that would lead us at last to Antarctica. 

It’s all changed now because the virus in South America is running rampant and vaccines are in short supply. Africa is struggling. Europe is closed and there are no ways we have found to get to Asia without flying.

When we got news of the most recent cancellations, Cyn and I felt like a couple of bummed out kids disbarred from Kennywood. 

BUT WE’RE STILL HEADING OUT

While we’ve temporally run out of international options, we still intend to travel to all of those destinations. Just not right now. The current plan is to reboot in the spring of 2022. 

Meanwhile …

… Cyndy had a thought. “Why not still travel, but visit our own country instead, until things settle down?” Of course! After all, U.S. travel had always been part of the VAGABOND ADVENTURE, except we saw it as the final leg, not the first. 

So come September 27th, we’ll be exploring the good ol’ US of A, and a bit of Canada and Mexico while we were at it. Rather than fight the virus, we’ll follow the vaccine until the pandemic, or the lack of one, makes setting sail for international waters possible again. In the US we’ll continue to avoid jets and so have decided to travel as much as possible by train, or boat, and when necessary, car or horseback, on foot or by snowshoe. 

Here’s the rebooted American Plan that we hope will get us through Fall and Winter in interesting, road-trip style, this time heading in a northerly, rather than southerly, direction. (Train names are in parentheses.)

• Pittsburgh to New York (The Pennsylvanian)

• New York to Vermont and it’s vibrant fall colors (The Ethan Allan)

• Vermont to Boston (The Shoreline Limited) — Molly, daughter # 1, lives in Boston :-).

• Boston to Portland, Maine (The Downeaster)

• Wander along the coast of Maine by car

• Take a Ferry to Nova Scotia - visit Viking Ruins

• Possibly train to Quebec from Halifax, Nova Scotia, then to Montreal and Toronto before bouncing to Buffalo to pick up the Shoreline Limited to Chicago.

• OR

• Return to Maine and train back to Boston

• Boston to Chicago (The Shoreline Limited)

• Chicago to St. Paul (The Empire Builder)

• Depart St. Paul and drive the badlands of South Dakota to Mt. Rushmore - Explore many national parks by car.

• Return by car to St. Paul and train to Glacier National Park and Going-to-the-Sun Road in all of its glory (The Empire Builder)

• Drive South through Montana, Wyoming, the Grand Tetons to Yellowstone (Thanksgiving or Christmas there, depending on how quickly we’re moving. If possible we’ll meet with the kids for the holidays there!)

• Eventually arrive in Denver/Boulder (Annie, daughter # 3, lives there), and then head to Moab, Zion and other beautiful places in Utah before swinging down to Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, New Mexico and the Grand Canyon. Maybe Death Valley and Mesa Verde, home of ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings. Lots to explore!

• From the southwest, we’ll grab a train and make our way to LA and transfer there to turn south to San Diego (and Hannah, daughter #2).

• Then from San Diego to Tijuana to drive the Baja 1000 down the long neck of that peninsula until we run out of land and hit the churning Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean.

• After resting in Cabo San Lucas, we’ll head back to San Diego and train up the coast of California, Oregon and Washington to Seattle. Many stops along the way.

• From there we’ll take a ferry from Seattle to Victoria, Canada and then a ferry from Victoria to Vancouver.

• Later we can grab a train from Seattle back through Glacier National Park and then head onto Chicago and home to Pittsburgh. By then, we hope it’ll be time to head beyond our native shores.

None of this is written in stone. In fact, we hope you’ll help us find the craziest, most beautiful and unique places in the lower forty-eight. The more offbeat the better, and if that means a diversion from our itinerary, fine, because we don’t really have one anyhow. 

By the time we complete our American Odyssey, we won’t be able to head south to Antarctica as originally planned since by the time we’d get there (remember we’re not traveling by jet), we’d arrive in the dead of the Southern hemisphere’s winter. Not a great time to visit the seventh continent :-). 

Instead, in the spring of 2022, we now plan to turn to Africa and Europe, COVID allowing. We’ll go by sea, cruise or cargo ship, arrive in Spain or Portugal and bend to North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia), hop around and across the Mediterranean by ferry to the Middle East to visit Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece until, heading through Albania and Croatia and generally North into the Balkans, we’ll skirt St. Petersburg and make our way from the bottom of Finland to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, maybe even Svalbard (formerly known as Spitzbergen) near the top of the world.

Of course all of these plans may change too, because who knows what fresh hell COVID may bring. But we’ll blow that bridge up when we get to it. It’s all part of the adventure. 

As for now, at least, we have a plan. It’s loose, but that’s the way we like it. It’ll be a good time to try out our gear, see how we handle traveling by train or car or horse, and try out the people and the food we encounter in a place that speaks (more or less) the same language we do. And along the way, we’ll learn a lot about our country and the diverse treasures it has to offer. 

Before we take off, stay tuned for our next dispatch which will ask the compelling question: Can Cyn and Chip REALLY fit everything they will be traveling with in one backpack and one small rolling suitcase each? There’s only one way to find out. 

Thanks, as always, for your support. Which reminds me, if any of you have read my latest book (Immortality, Inc.), I’d sure appreciate it if you would write a review on Amazon. The book has gotten great reviews from The Wall St Journal, Nature andSalon, but COVID has helped get the word out so word-of-mouth and reviews are always helpful and deeply appreciated. Just go here to scribble your thoughts:  https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=1426219806. 

We look forward to your thoughts!

All the very best!

Chip & Cyn

PS: We haven’t given up on the idea of finding ways to give to causes you all support. But we plan to wait until we head on the international legs of our trip to solve that problem. It's complicated to set it all up.

This is a series about Cyndy and Chip’s Vagabond Adventure - our journey to travel all seven continents, all seven seas and 100+ countries without traveling by jet. COVID has forced us to begin in the United States, not a bad start. This dispatch is about the day we began the trip. What will the world be like following a global pandemic? What fascinating people will we meet? What cultures, places, languages and music will broaden us? Our goal is to find out.