And then suddenly, somewhere around Derawan, along comes Becky to prove us completely wrong. Adventurous souls still exist and Becky is their queen.

About nine months ago, in the 12 Bar Blue in Cairns Australia, British Becky was talking to a friend about nature’s greatest creation, the Great Barrier Reef. When the topic turned to man’s greatest creation, it was decided that that had to be the pyramids at Giza outside Cairo.

Suddenly, Becky, who had perhaps had a little too much to drink, stumbled upon the brilliant idea of traveling from Cairns to Cairo over land and water without taking a single flight. Her friends countered that such a trip was impossible, primarily due to the challenges of getting from Australia to Southeast Asia.

In a mere eight months, Becky has managed to take a very circuitous route from Cairns to Kalimantan. She crewed on an American sailboat via New Guinea, Yap, and Truk to Pulau. (Oh, wreck diving in Truk – I’m literally dying of jealousy.) Of course, that little hop skip and a jump took four months due to boat repairs. They actually sat in a harbor in New Guinea for two months working on the boat.

When the boat captain went a little “Dead Calm” on the crew, Becky jumped ship in Pulau where she worked at a dive shop for a month. Did I forget to mention that our little 26-year-old is a dive instructor who has logged over 1000 dives? Geez, these overachievers.

Becky crewed on another boat to the Philippines where she worked her way by ferry to Mindanao. (Oh Becky, seriously? Mindanao? My god, are you trying to get decapitated by Abu Sayyaf?) Apparently, a gun totin’, bad-ass Filipina escorted Becky through Zamboanga until she got on the ferry headed to the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo. From there she worked her way south to Kalimantan, where we met her. Thank god, someone has to take care of this girl

Becky has overcome the biggest obstacle and is within a stone’s throw of peninsular Malaysia. It’s mostly down hill from there. Well, except that she still needs to travel a third of the way around the planet. That shouldn’t be a problem, after a serious chunk of time in Africa and Australia, Becky instincts are very well honed.

So Thomas and I officially admit we are wrong. There are still some very real travelers out there. Good luck Becky, we just might be waiting for you in Cairo.

It has been quite a while since we introduced any nomads on our blog. One reason for that is that long-term travelers are fewer and further between these days. Another reason might be that pricier southern Thailand is not as good hunting ground for nomads as India, Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar.

Enter Matthieu and Aurelien, two French bicyclists we met, who were camping at Ao Molae on Koh Tarutao. These two prove that real travel is not dead – not quite yet, anyway. They are spending a year bicycling their way around the world (in chunks, at least). They have already cycled from France to Italy, Tanzania to Zambia, across India to Nepal, and from Kunming in southern China to southern Thailand. From here, they plan to continue south to Singapore. Their trip will then continue in South America, where they plan to cycle from Peru to Argentina. That’s one awesome world trip.

Quite wisely, Matthieu and Aurelien are not obsessed with biking every mile of their path. On select occasions, they have opted to throw their bikes on a bus and skip a boring stretch or two in order to spend more quality time in high-interest destinations.

Watching Matthieu and Aurelien really brought back the good old days of EXTREME budget travel when Thomas and I pinched every penny to survive. They work hard to make their budget last and they were preparing all their own meals in Ao Molae to stretch their dollars. They clearly know the local economy and have mastered the travel skills which have all but vanished in their age-group. (Good going guys, show them how it’s done.)

Early retirees Dave and Bill are the latest nomads we’ve encountered while staying in El Nido. The charismatic English/Scottish couple of 23 years has just recently left their home in cold and rainy Scotland in search of a quieter life abroad. The two are part of a wave of people we’ve been meeting all over Asia. These Contemporary Nomads choose to travel or live in countries much cheaper than their own where they can enjoy a higher standard of living for much less money.

But leaving their busy lives behind wasn’t a small step for the two Brits. Dave was a social worker, Bill owned two hair saloons, and together, they ran an organic farm on their 100 hectare property 20 minutes outside of Edinburgh. They were workaholics. After Dave’s near-death accident on their farm, however, they solidified their plans to retire early. They realized that having successful careers and running a farm was not their ultimate goal, but spending more time together and finding a small home in a warmer climate was.

Clearly, finding a house takes time. Bill and Dave are taking a year to travel through Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Australia and Southern Europe where they eventually want to settling down. Already, we are thinking of paying them a visit after having enjoyed their company in El Nido during our nightly dinners at Squidos. Dave turned out to be quite a storyteller, and Bill with his dry humor and strong Scottish accent constantly cracked us up. (Thanks, Bill, for distracting the drunk Fin who was terrorizing El Nido during our stay).

We are sad to say good-bye, but such is a nomad’s life. I know we’ll see them again, perhaps even along the way.

Yes, the Nomads of the world are uniting as ContemporaryNomad.com joins forces with NomadicNarrative.com to take on Southeast Asia. Our blogs, and Asia, may never be the same.

Michaela, Stephan and Tony on Rabbit Island

We used to have a big community while living in San Diego. There were “happy hours” with co-workers, dinners with friends, and Survivor and Amazing Race nights with our family. After moving to Berlin, we had to start over, and our community was reduced to a handful of new friends. Now that we have gone completely nomadic, building and maintaining a community has become one of our greatest challenges. But that’s where social media comes into play.

Facebook and Twitter are excellent tools for following other travelers and connecting with them along the way. Tony and I have made it a priority to stay in touch and meet up with people over and over again. There was French Thomas who we met in China and India. We met Jonathan and Rebecca in China, Tibet and Nepal. We encountered Richard and Emma, several times in India. Our latest rendezvous was with Michaela and Stephan, a German couple from my home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. We first met in India in 2008, saw them in Thailand in 2009, and met up again in 2010 for a few days of island hopping in Southern Cambodia. Speaking my native dialect reconnected me with my home (and drove Tony slightly insane). But it is important to reconnect with your own culture once in a while.

Online chat, Skype and email have all been great instruments to bring home a little closer. But sometimes it’s just not close enough. What do you do if you can’t go back as frequently as you would like to? You convince your friends to visit you on the road, like Lisa and Garrett from San Diego or Beverly, who’ll be traveling with us for a couple of months in Cambodia and Laos.

So to answer the question of whether our lives as nomads have been lonely – absolutely not. Sure, it takes time and effort to stay in touch, but social media has made this process a lot easier. Of course, I want to sit in a cafe with an old friend and laugh until I cry, but I can’t have it all. In the meantime, I satisfy myself with XOXOs, LYs and LOLs.

In November 2008, we met German tourists Michaela and Stephan on vacation in Southern India. A few weeks ago in Bangkok, we reunited with Michaela and Stephan, now travelers and novice nomads traveling around Asia on a shoestring. Their short trip to India sparked their interest in doing the travel circuit full-time. So, taking a year off to explore the world, they said good-bye to Deutschland.

Just 2 weeks into their travels, we got together over green Thai curry and Shanga beer in Bangkok’s tourist hub Banglamphu. Still shell-shocked from the huge transition into a nomadic lifestyle, they were trying to cope with all the changes: plenty of free time, living out of a backpack and having had to say good-bye to the people they were close to. “It’s difficult to leave your family behind,” Stephan told me, “but, somehow, our departure drew our attention to how important our family and friends are to us.”

After visiting Hindu India last year, Michaela and Stephan came to Southeast Asia to experience the Buddhist culture, the unique landscape, and the gentle people in this region. Starting in Thailand, they’ll work their way to Laos, possibly Vietnam and Cambodia and then continue their trip to Northern India, one of our favorite Buddhist territories. Once they get to Leh in Ladakh, their focus will shift from traveling to volunteering. Yes, these two are thinking ahead in times of economic crisis. Both of them quit their jobs as social workers / care givers, but they will use their time volunteering with Ladakh-Hilfe to bolster their resumes. They’ll be visiting different areas in Ladakh helping people with physical and mental handicaps. Luckily, it shouldn’t all be work. It sounds like a wonderful way of getting to know locals on a very different level.

Michaela and Stephan at Ellora Caves in India, 2008

After listening to them, I wonder if they are Buddhists in the making. During our conversations, Michaela and Stephan mentioned how good it felt to leave most of their worldly possessions behind and that this should be a lesson for their future life. I think there is a little Buddha in all of us nomads.

If you can read German, you can follow the two on their travel blog SchwabenNomaden.

Our Swedish friends Emelie and Carl, who we met while traveling in India, had the brilliant idea to buy Indian textile items that would appeal to Westerners and then sell them in Sweden. During a recent trip to Calcutta, their entrepreneurial side quickly took over and they went shopping on a big scale. Scarfs, bedspreads, handbags, shawls, and other decorative items. I would have had a lot of fun with that.

But then came the shipping. Sending stuff from India and having to deal with the post office can be quite intimidating but once you get the hang of it, it’s not as scary as it looks. Just make sure every package is sewn into white linen – that’s a good start. And then pray to Hanuman that your shipment will make it.

I just recently contacted the two Swedes, and they sent me the latest update on their successful sales business. The pictures show Emelie and Carl shopping and shipping the goods in India, and then reselling them on the island province of Gotland, a popular holiday destination in Sweden. Good choice, people in vacation mode are much quicker to spend their money. This is important, especially if you want to finance your next trip and continue your nomadic lifestyle.

Importing products from India is a great idea because goods there are comparatively cheap. Having said that, many other third-world countries offer similar opportunities. Be it baskets from Ethiopia, silver jewelry from Morocco or weavings from Guatemala, there’s a definite market for ethnic art in the West. You just need to know what your potential customers are looking for.

But before you go out and spend your last cent on exotic knickknacks, make sure you’ve thoroughly investigated your country’s policies on importing merchandise. Even for a small number of items, you may have to pay import duty, sales tax, and, in the end, income tax.

Well, you don’t want to run into trouble with the law, or, instead of doing souvenir runs, you might find yourself on the run.

Neil Island is absolutely peaceful and quiet but not in a boring way. As soon as we stepped off the ferry, we were part of a great community of non-party, nature-loving travelers. And Marie-Christine is one of them. We were immediately spellbound by this contemporary semi-nomadic French woman whose radiating smile is not her only asset. Marie-Christine has a gift.

I don’t know how she does it but she puts a huge smile on everyone around her. Her positivity is infectious. So, of course, we’ve been spending a lot of time with her adding noticeable depth to our crow’s feet. It’s funny the bits and pieces you find out about people when you spend enough time with them. I’ve been like “Wow, you have a house in Brittany?” and “What do you mean, you had your own public relations company?” Yes, Marie-Christine is a woman of many talents.

She sold her successful company 10 years ago to pursue something she thought more worthy: silent meditation. And she made that into a living too. “Well, silent meditation, that’s nice,” we said with big question marks all over us. “Isn’t meditation always silent?” I asked a little confused. “It’s different. It is a love meeting with yourself,” she explained. “Alrighty then – sounds kind of kinky,” Tony replied. “No, no, no,” Marie-Christine started laughing, “It’s a way of finding your inner silence, a way to love yourself – and not in that way.” Hey, we are not the only ones with a dirty mind.

Every time she gives a silent meditation workshop in her house in the French countryside (which can last several days), her suspicious neighbors keep borrowing salt, milk, and flower. Anything to catch a glimpse of the sinful ongoings inside. Clearly, all the excitement makes them hungry for baguette.

Her house not being the most ideal place to work though, Marie-Christine travels around to find other places that speak to her. Of all places, India seems to be talking the most, and, time after time, she’s been coming back to the country that is the complete opposite of silence. But, apparently, that’s not the point. What most people consider silence, the absence of noise or speaking, is different for Marie-Christine.

“You talk a lot, how can you do SILENT meditation?” a German lady asked her in the restaurant. Marie-Christine must hear that a lot as she just smiled and replied, “Even while I’m talking, I can be silent. In fact, I’m silent right now.” With that said, her eyes sparkling, she put a hand on her chest and declared, “You see, I’m in peace with myself.”

Don’t you just love her…?!

Yes, his Dudeness loves to travel. So much so that he is literally using his body to finance his wanderlust.

When Ralf finally admitted to himself that civil engineering wasn’t his thing, he quit university and became a full-time traveler embracing his nomadic heritage (in younger years, his dad’s job required the family to move around and live in different parts of the world).

After an initial stint through South America, he started to combine work and travel spending time in Australia, New Zealand and Canada on work/holiday visas doing seasonal jobs to support his addiction. But when he returned to Europe, where he worked in the London Underground for 5 months, he got involved in a totally different, much more lucrative, line of work – drugs.

Ok, this may not be much of a stretch for a Dutch person – drugs like marijuana are legal in the Netherlands, but we’re talking serious drugs. Medication for heart disease, high cholesterol or blood pressure – you name it. And he’s not selling them, he’s taking them.

For the last three years, Ralf has been participating in medical trials. Call him a guinea pig, or lab rat, but the drug research companies pay him anywhere from 120 – 160 British pounds a day. That means, for a 3-week in-clinic trial, during which time he probably spends a lot of his day in bed flirting with the nurses, he gets close to 3,000 British pounds. Quite a chunk of money, and certainly enough for him to backpack for the better part of the year. He’s actually gone from Holland to India overland hitting some exciting countries, including: Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, where we met him.

Being a human lab rat is not for everyone, definitely not for a hypochondriac like myself. I’d probably be a very bad patient having all the side effects and complaining a lot. But Ralf has been fine, no problems so far, just a whole lot of cash at the end of a trial. One hell of a move to support your nomadic lifestyle!

Check out his great travel blog.

You may have noticed in Quest for the Perfect Beach that we have been enjoying our time in Goa with Superheroes Emma and Richard, who we introduced to you in Leh.

Well, they’re back after summiting one of our favorite mountains, Ama Dablam. Check out some of their amazing photos below:

Cat and Bella are the first mother/daughter team we’ve met traveling long-term. When we first started talking outside Thiksey monastery in Ladakh, we thought we were chatting with two sisters. But soon we discovered that Bella, the short spunky lady, was only 11 years old (with the attitude of a 25-year old). We immediately hit it off and arranged to hire a jeep together for the next three days to visit Nubra Valley.

Ladakh was Cat and Bella’s first introduction to India. The perfect place to ease in and minimize the culture shock coming from Europe, where they spent several months traveling after leaving their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico this summer. They’ll be gone for one school year, but that doesn’t mean vacation pure for Bella – or for Cat as a matter of fact.

Homeschooling, or rather hotelschooling, is part of their daily routine. From art education (Bella’s favorite is drawing Japanese-style cartoons, which comes quite easily with her mom being an art teacher), to spelling, to calculating the circumference of a circle. Cat teaches her everything a 6th grader should know. Even in Nubra Valley, Bella had to do her writing exercises and ponder math problems.

But honestly, who cares about math when the world is your classroom. What better way to prepare for Real World 101 and Intro to Humanity than traveling around the globe. That’s the stuff Bella can’t pick up from books, and it makes Cat an excellent teacher for realizing it.

I really admire Cat. She’s a single mother with a mortgage to pay but she’s still living her dream. For everyone who thinks traveling with a child might be impossible or even scary, it can also be a lot of fun – just look at Bella.

If Superman and Wonder Woman got together, they wouldn’t be as cool a couple as Richard and Emma.

These Contemporary Nomads are witty, intelligent, successful and adventurous while somehow remaining incredibly modest and down to earth. (Am I gushing?) And luckily for me, they’re well prepared and generous as well. During our Stok Kangri episode, Emma lent me her spare pair of gators, which allowed me to hike back down the snowy mountain trails in relative comfort.

But being well prepared for a climb should come as no surprise as these two Brits are nomads with a twist. Emma and Richard are circling the globe for a year climbing spectacular peaks. Ricocheting around the world from South America to New Zealand to Central Asia to the Subcontinent taking on some of the world’s most spectacular peaks from Aconcagua, South America’s highest peak, to the phenomenal Khan Tengri in Kyrgyzstan to Stok Kangri here in Ladakh. Richard even climbed Lhotse, which means he completed 80% of the Everest climb!!! (The two peaks sprout out of the same massive.) And now, heading back to Nepal once again, Emma and Richard are going to attempt Ama Dablam for the second time this year. (Their first attempt wasn’t successful due to a major avalanche.)

Their advice and encouragement to climb have truly had an impact on us – we’ll conquer a 20,000+ peak someday.

Since Richard and Emma don’t currently have a webpage documenting their climbs (which is a sin), Emma gave us permission to post a few of their photos to tantalize potential mountain climbers everywhere. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes …

View climbing Khan Tengri in Kyrgyzstan

Emma and Richard on Aconcagua

Climbing Hochstetter Dome in New Zealand

Climbing Tasman Ice Fall in, of course, Tasmania, Australia

Guess who we ran into in Leh. You might remember French Thomas, who we met last year in Sichuan. (I’m probably Thomas allemand in his world.) In the spirit of recalling good times, these pictures are from last year and show him at the Hadi nunnery, a 3-hour walk from Dargye Gompa, one of our favorite places in China.

The Buddhist nuns at Hadi Gompa were obsessed with French Thomas. Being jewelery-starved women, nuns or not, they all wanted his silver rings. That day, he almost lost a finger when the nuns hunted him down and wrestled him to the ground. After they got hold of a ring, it took about an hour of pleading before they came to their Buddhist senses and returned the ring sulking.

When he left China last year, Thomas returned to Paris to continue working on his Ph.D. in Tibetan. Since June, he’s been on the road again traveling in the Tibetan cultural areas of northern India while, at the same time, translating a series of Tibetan texts, which can also be done on the road – and he’s covered a lot of road. For the last couple of months, he has been a couple of steps ahead of us traveling through Kinnaur, Spiti, Manali, Ladakh, Zanskar, and Kashmir. We have seriously benefitted from the info he has been emailing us. Thanks French Thomas

Where did you go on your honeymoon? When Jeff and Jennifer are asked that question in the future, they are going to have one hell of an impressive answer. “Oh, we went to Fiji… and New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Bhutan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nepal, India, Austria, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina.

Yep, that’s right, a 13-month, 26 country extravaganza to celebrate their nuptials. Yikes, that puts pretty much everyone to shame! They have so many stops on their around the world ticket, they couldn’t use an e-ticket because the computer program can’t handle that many destinations for the same trip! Their paper ticket looks like a small phone book!

When we met them half way through their adventure, they were planning a mid-summer trek in the Annapurnas. Not your typical Honeymoon activity, but very cool and challenging with the monsoons.

Of course, I asked them about their decision to pack 26 countries into a 13-month period. They responded that they wanted to start a family when they get back to their home city of San Francisco, so it’s pretty much now or never. They sat down and created the ultimate what-I-want-to-see list and went for it.

Clearly, the marriage is destined for success. When asked about the highlights of the trip, they both immediately thought of Inlay Lake in Myanmar. Interestingly, they visited Myanmar a mere three weeks after the cyclone that devastated the Irrawaddy delta (another wow-inspiring piece of honeymoon trivia.) The cyclone had little effect on traveling in the country, but they clearly couldn’t visit the delta.

Around the world in 13 months – now that’s the way to celebrate a marriage. (And if you make it through 13 months in the same hotel room, you can make it through anything.) Good luck you guys, keep in touch and let us know how the wedding adventure turns out.

To find out more about Jennifer and Jeff, visit their travel blog.

She’s cute, she’s all smiles, and she’s named after a flower, but make no mistake about it, Daisy is a true adventuress in the making. While many other Brits are content to spend the gap-year on a safer, pre-packaged outing, Daisy would have none of that.

At the incredible age of 19, Daisy is challenging herself with an exciting overland Eurasian Odyssey taking her from Moscow to India via the trans-Mongolian railway. Shunning convention, Daisy crossed Siberia and Mongolia mid-winter seriously adding to the adventure. (How many of you out there have camped in a Mongolian ger in February? Yikes!!!)

Initially intending to take the overland route across Tibet to Nepal as we did, Daisy had the dubious distinction of attempting to enter Tibet just as the riots broke out in March. Caught in China during a period of extreme censorship, Daisy told us that it was quite difficult for her to determine what was going on from within the country. All news sites reporting on Tibet were blocked, and even personal Internet usage was being seriously monitored.

Daisy described trying to update her Facebook account with a message including the word “Lhasa”. Detecting the forbidden term, the message was blocked and Daisy was locked out from accessing Facebookat all – she was no longer even able to view her own account, let alone make a posting. Not only was the web being censored, suddenly Skype calls out of China were blocked as well.

After finally learning about the riots through landline telephone calls to her mother, Daisy made the decision to leave China and reroute her adventure through Southeast Asia. This wasn’t an easy decision for her. Not only is Daisy anti-flying environmentalist at heart, she also loves trains, and her goal of traveling to India overland was difficult to abandon.

The decision to head south had the unexpected consequence of taking Daisy to Vietnam, which ended up being her favorite country. She spent a month traveling across the country before flying to Nepal via Bangladesh. From Nepal she traveled overland to India, where we met her in Rishikesh.

Daisy is one of the most sensible, clear-thinking travelers I’ve met. She speaks with the confidence and perspective of someone who has been traveling for decades dealing with cultural issues with ease. Beyond that she faced the difficulty of traveling as a single female head on while embracing the resulting challenges. (All at the amazing age of 19!)

Don’t think Daisy a reckless fool in search of danger, she could teach classes on defensive traveling having mastered the difficult balance between protecting herself while being receptive enough to allow for positive exchanges with the hospitable people she has met along the way. Her bit of advice is to protect yourself first and go with your instincts on people. Her instincts seemed to be serving her quite well.

On her next adventure, Daisy intends to buy a one-way ticket to some exotic location and travel completely spontaneously from there with no set schedule. Good luck Daisy, I’m sure we’ll cross paths again at some point.