The Forgotten Continent

It's fair to ask what our ultimate travel goal is. But all I can answer at this point is that it is a work in progress. The classic answer is that we want to see the world. But let's face it, there are many places we won't have the time or money to see, and there are plenty of places we have little real desire to see (mostly because they are not particularly safe or welcoming to visitors).

Focusing on Europe has been an obvious place to begin because it has a deep history we are familiar with and connected to, and because it is relatively comfortable, very safe, and perfectly suited for do-it-yourself tourism. That last point is particularly important for us because we have little interest in being guided through a visit anywhere. We don't have any interest in experiencing some sort of made-for-tourists tour from the windows of a bus - our route being carefully chosen to pass only the most attractive areas while the places people really live remain safely out of sight. We couldn't afford the extra cost involved in trips like that, anyway. Planning and executing the trip ourselves makes the overall experience much more educational and rewarding. A simple test a place has to pass for us to feel comfortable visiting might be the car rental test; We have to be able to rent a reliable car and drive it anywhere without worrying about getting lost to the point of putting ourselves in danger.

But that does put some serious constraints on where in the world we would consider visiting. There are many places, particularly across Africa and Asia, where there are potentially fascinating places to see but little realistic way to do it effectively or safely without either being guided or being sequestered from real local life by staying in places locals would never go. I know there are ways to partly overcome these challenges. I'm always running across stories of people having a wonderful time visiting places you never even considered would be well-suited for tourism. But we have a limited budget and young children, too. I wouldn't know where to begin planning a trip to China, Thailand, Tanzania or Madagascar. Maybe several years from now when I know more about these more exotic options, the children are old enough to be independent (or are too busy to join us at all) and some of these places have more tourism infrastructure in place, then we will give these locations more serious thought.

In the mean time, in addition to Australia and New Zealand, there are still many other places I would like to visit outside of Europe. Many places in Central America have become mini tourism hot spots recently. Costa Rica seems to have evolved into one giant eco-tourism resort.

But the place my curiosity keeps coming back to is South America. Our neighbor to the south that you don't even have to cross an ocean to get to, is almost completely forgotten as a place of interest for most Americans. It seems to reside in a sort of tourism no-man's-land. North America is home. Africa is more dark and mysterious. Asia is more exotic. Australia is more familiar. Europe is more classic. There is something for everyone in those five choices. Perhaps South America simply lacks a tourism identity.

But from what little I know (and it is very little, indeed) South America seems to have a great deal to offer, including many wonders of nature, deep history, and interesting cities. Most intriguing, though, is that it seems to be populated by people going about their lives in relative peace, comfort and safety (at least compared to many other exotic locations) and yet their lives and lifestyles rarely ever enter our consciousness. I'll bet we know less about Peru than we do India; less about Argentina than New Zealand; less about Chile than Kenya. Why is that? It sparks my curiosity....

Undecided and confused...

I have been reading guide books for the last several weeks, but I am not one step closer to figuring out where we might go next. I am torn.

My initial impulse was to focus on Australia (and perhaps New Zealand) as a way to take a break from the common attractions of Europe. I have noticed that the typical visits to castles, cathedrals, and museums full of millenia-old artifacts has gotten somewhat less interesting over the last four trips. With the prospect of visiting Italy on the horizon, I don't want sites like that to get glossed over as merely "same-old, same-old..."

But the more I read about Australia and the Queensland/Great Barrier Reef area (where we would be likely to spend most of our time keeping warm during their "winter") the more I wonder about what we would do and how we would do it. We have developed a set of expectations for trips like these and Australia does not fit into those expectations. There are rain forests there, but how do you visit a rain forest effectively? There are some great beaches there, but how much time can you spend sitting on a beach? There are amazing islands to visit and dives at the reef, but those activities are terribly expensive to say nothing of the risks involved taking a family of non to barely adequate swimmers diving in a sea full of strange creatures.

Visiting Australia would be logistically awkward as well. We would be required to fly into Sydney. Then, once we have seen the city, we would have to drive some 1,400 miles to get to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. Worse, that drive is along a route that would take us past almost every tourist trap in Australia. I am envisioning 1,400 miles worth of strip malls and traffic moving infuriatingly slow. Then, of course, we would have to backtrack at least as far as Brisbane (900 miles) to fly home.

I have done some preliminary looking into lodgings and have discovered that, aside from youth hostels, the other options are not particularly economical for a family of five. After our hostel-filled trip this past year, it would be really nice to not focus on hostel stays next year. Also, the hostel web sites there have a distinctly college-age-party vibe that you don't find so much in Europe and I would rather avoid.

All other things being equal, New Zealand actually seems more appealing to me, if for no other reason than because it is more off the beaten track and it's sights are distributed all around the two large islands and not focused along one long beachfront. Unfortunately, their winter is really winter, with temps in the south approaching freezing. I don't think we could enjoy that, nor do I think that's the best time for a once-in-a-lifetime visit.

On top of it all, even with cutting every possible corner it would still costs at least $2,000 more than any of our previous trips. For a guaranteed fantastic time, that would be worth it. The problem is, at this point, I don't feel that it would be a guaranteed fantastic time.

Then there is Italy. We will go there sometime in the next three years. I have read the guide books. I pretty much know exactly how I would like to do it and I am confident we would find good and affordable lodgings. I am certain I could keep costs in line with past trips while doing everything we would want to see and do. I just don't know how wise it is to either see this great area while Joshua is so young (he would be 8) that he might not remember it well, or as trip number five in a row of European castles, cathedrals, museums and Roman ruins. I fear some of the magic could be dulled.

I have read up on Ireland & Scotland as well. That seems like a pleasant trip. But that holds many of the same pitfalls already mentioned about Italy. How much mystical magic can we feel looking at Ireland's piles of 1000-year-old rocks when that's what we have done the last four trips in a row? As pleasant as the trip might be, I don't think it has as much of an upside as the trip to Italy would. So if we were going to take the 5-consecutive-years-seeing-Europe plunge, I would rather it be to Italy.

This all begs the question "Is there somewhere else in the world we could go and see something amazing while staying safe and comfortable and not breaking the bank?" I don't know. Any ideas?...