Thursday Traveler(s): Caz and Craig of y Travel Blog

Every Thursday, A Dangerous Business will be shining the spotlight on a world nomad, travel blogger, armchair adventurer, or just someone really cool in the travel world. This week, the travelers are Caz and Craig of y Travel Blog. Caz and Craig have been living and travelling around the world since 1997. They now share their free Ebook on lessons learned from travel at their travel blog, where they also share travel tips and stories.

1. How do you define the word “traveler,” and why would you consider yourself one?

I think a traveller is someone who sets out on a journey with the intention to learn something new about themselves and the world around them. Their intention is based on the need to grow and expand and to find their unique place in this incredibly diverse planet.

There is only one set rule for this definition and that is that you agree to allow your mind to be open to experience places, people and cultures and be willing to learn and let go of perhaps some previously limited beliefs that no longer serve you.

If you open your mind and heart this way then you will be so surprised by how dramatically your life will change and how much you will come to understand just how amazingly similar all of us are.

Bear in mind, that this definition may mean that you do not leave the boundaries of your own country. This does not mean that you can’t travel or discover newness.

Yes, I am and always will be a traveller.

2. What has been your favorite travel experience thus far?

I think backpacking through Africa for five months. From gorillas in the wild, to holding lion cubs, riding ostriches, climbing the world’s highest sand dune at sunrise, forming friendships on buses with roosters pecking at your head and children in your lap, to quietly watching the sunset over lakes and oceans, Africa will get under your skin and change your life forever.

3. How about your proudest travel moment?

I think reaching the summit of Mt Fansipan in Sapa, Vietnam. At 3,143 metres, the highest in Indo-China, it was the highest mountain I have climbed and an extremely difficult journey. I was so relieved when we made the top and didn’t even care that we were shrouded in mist and could not see five feet in front of us.

Who needed views? I had just conquered a mountain.

4. Have you had any travel mishaps or bad experiences? If so, have these influenced how you view the place where they happened? Would you go back?

I was once “kidnapped” on the back of a motorbike in Sumatra, Indonesia. We were on Samosir Island, Lake Toba; a place infamous for magic mushrooms. I can find no other plausible explanation for the fact that my driver absolutely turned psycho on me.

“I killed the tourist and then I stole her passport,” was his evening serenade to me, as I clung on the back waiting to be thrown from the bike in his crazy attempt to seek revenge, for what I don’t know.

“If we crashed right now, no one would ever know, or find your body you know?” Enter maniacal laugh. It was at this stage I resigned myself to death, and strangely enough after a few more bends in the winding mountainous road, village lights appeared in the blackened night, and I arrived safely back to my guest house.

There’s a lot to be said for those mushrooms.

I did not look behind me as I sailed away on the first ferry at morning’s light. Though, the place was very beautiful and I would love to go back and discover more of it.

Freakshow ended my time there prematurely.

5. Name one thing you can’t travel without.

My open mind.

6. Name one thing you wish you COULD travel without.

Visas!! Especially working ones.

7. What do you think has been the biggest thing you’ve learned while traveling (about yourself, a destination, a culture, travel itself)?

I think the biggest thing I learned is that essentially no matter where we come from, we are all the same. We may speak and look different and have different traditions and beliefs, but we all dream, laugh, cry, celebrate, and hope in the same way. I think this is all that matters.

Knowing this that has helped me to be tolerant and understanding and allows me to see each stranger I meet as a friend who I can relate to and learn from. I connect with them on this deeper, similar level first, and then I’m interested to find out more about the outer differences. That’s where I can learn new ideas and ways of being. Even if I don’t like them or want to practice them myself I can easily be respectful and appreciative of them.

8. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

Thailand. It’s the place where I feel I most belong. It’s just the round peg in the round whole complete fit.

I love the laidback lifestyle, the cheap living, the warm and friendly people and the exoticness of Asia. Not to mention the food and the fact that I could have a maid, eat out three times a day and get a daily massage.

9. Name one place you’d like to see or one experience you’d like to have before you die.

South America. We have not been to this region yet and it looks so amazing. So diverse with many different experiences to have. And I’d love to learn Spanish.

10. If there was one thing you wish somebody would have told you before you started traveling, what would it be?

Start a travel blog!! Imagine where we’d be with it now and we would never have to worry about work visas again!

Visit Caz and Craig’s site: y Travel Blog
Follow them on Twitter: @ytravelblog
“Like” them on Facebook: y Travel Blog

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Are you a travel blogger who has something to say on these topics? Do you know of somebody really interesting in the travel universe that you’d like to see interviewed? Speak up! The Thursday Traveler needs some interview subjects.