Brendan Zecevic - Round-the-World Traveler

1. When do you leave?
   January 2007

2. How long do you plan to be away?
   1-2 Years

3. How much have you saved?
   £4000

4. How old are you?
   26

5. Nationality
   Ireland

6. Where do you live now?
   Edinburgh, Scotland

7. Occupation
   Journalist

8. Is this job one that you actually like, or are you only doing it to pay for the trip?
   One more paycheck and I'm gone

9. Have you traveled around the world before?
   No

10. What is the route you plan to take/places you plan to visit?
    India landing in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) travelling 1000 odd miles overland to Delhi, fly to Sri Lanka, then to Bankok spending a few months travelling around S/E Asia before flying out of Singapore to Australia.

11. Why did you decide to take this trip? What got you into this type of travel, and/or influenced you to go?
    I've wanted to do this for years and have certainly wanted to visit Australia since childhood. I had friends who did a similar trip and if they could do it so can I.

12. What is your biggest fear about this trip?
    India. It's meant to be one of the toughest places to travel through and it's the first destination on my trip. I figure once I've survive India, South East Asia and Australia will be easy.

13. Are your family, friends, co-workers, etc., supportive of you? What is their opinion of your going around the world?
    They're mostly jealous.

14. How much planning and preparing have you done?
    To the Nth Degree

15. What are you packing? What do you consider your most indispensable item(s)?
    Trying to keep it light.
    But I'm agonising whether or not to get a good camera that's somewhere between a compact and an SLR.
    Then there's an an i-pod which I think would be a life saver on long waits in bewteen destinations.
    Then there's the wire mesh net to secure my rucksack while on trains etc.
    These are the only things I'm planning on bringing outside of the reccommended bare minimum.

16. How do you think your round-the-world trip will change your life? How do you think it will affect and change you as a person?
    I'm hoping that I'll be more confident, worldly wise, wind swept and interesting.
    Though secretly I know I'll just end up being one of those people everyone hates, who will, at every given opportunity, bore others with his stories of "this one time I was in Cambodia..."

17. If you had to sum up your thoughts/feelings about your round-the-world trip in one sentence, what would it be?
    I'll either get the wanderlust out of my system, or gather a momentum that'll see me bumming around the world forever.

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?
    To see, to explore, to open your eyes and offer yourself a new perspective.
    Jacques Lacan said that we identify who we are by our comparison to others.
    How can we know who we are, individually and collectively, if we have such a narrow scope of other people and peoples?
    Travelling offers a better insight. That's travelling and not a fortnight at a beach resort.

19. What is the biggest myth that people have about round-the-world traveling?
    That somehow, by travelling RTW it makes someone special and unique.
    "Unlike the thousands of other people who do it" says I.

20. Why do you like to travel?
    To satisfy a curiosity and to be happy ticking off as many boxes on the "before I die" list.
    Unless I die in a plane crash.

21. What is your advice for people planning their own RTW trip?
    When I get there I'll let you know.