Gerry Fuller - Round the World Traveler

1. When did you go on your RTW trip?
   September 1997-June 1998

2. How old were you when you took this trip?
   45

3. Including your air ticket and other expenses (from accommodation to souvenir-buying), about how much did your trip cost?
   6500

4. Nationality
   USA

5. Where do you live now?
   USA

6. Occupation
   
   Before your trip: RN
   
   Now: home restoration
   

7. How did your travels affect your career when you got back?
   Improved it, by learning to take risks. I learned that a person can live in so many different ways.

8. What is the route you took/places you visited?
   Not quite a round the world trip. But leaving the Midwest for 9 months was an adventure. We drove to El PAso, left our car, and then travelled by bus throughout Mexico into Guatemala. Only time we flew was from Guatemala City to Tikal. We only stayed a week or 2 most places except for Xela, Guatemala to study Spanish for 2 months.

9. Why did you decide to take this trip? What got you into this type of travel, and/or influenced you to go?
   I wanted to be immersed in a different world. And to learn Spanish well.

10. Out of all your experiences traveling around the world, what was the:
    
    • Best Moment
      Suddenly speaking Spanish verbs easily.

    • Worst Moment
      Dysentary in Monterico, Guatemala.

    • Biggest Hurdle, Obstacle or Difficulty?
      Missing home

    • Biggest surprise?
      How much it did change me

11. Who is the most memorable person you met on your trip and why?
    My Spanish teachers, especially in Guatemala, had been through so much. A lot of them were lawyers and drs. and had had such hard lives between poverty and living with war for so many years. Yet they were so hopeful.

12. How much planning and preparing did you do?
    Winged it a lot

13. What was your favorite piece of gear?
    Really good luggage on wheels that we could take on any kind of rough road, dragging it for miles. Carrying it on my back would have killed me.

14. What did you bring, that in hindsight you could've left at home?
    Too many clothes. We only brought one bag, but still, too many clothes.

15. How did your round-the-world trip change your life? How did it affect and change you as a person?
    It made me realize you can live many different ways. And that the US government is not to be trusted. I had never really believed prior to this trip how much the US had intervened in other countries in a bad, bad way.

16. If you had to sum up your round-the-world trip in one sentence, what would it be?
    vale la pena.

17. Are you planning more trips and travels for the future? Are you planning another round-the-world trip?
    WE travel a lot, but more in 4 to 8 week increments. Italy and Bolivia this winter.

18. Why do you think people should go on round-the-world trips? Why not just take a regular old one- or two-week vacation instead?
    one or 2 weeks is not enough to even relax or know where you are.

19. What is the most valuable thing you learned?
    Just the experience of the trip. Seeing so many places and different cultures.

20. What is the biggest myth that people have about round-the-world traveling?
    

21. Why do you like to travel?
    

22. What is your advice for people planning their own RTW trip?