Walt Foster

Round-the-World Traveler

1. When do you leave?
   January 2004

2. How long do you plan to be away?
   6-12 Months

3. How much have you saved?
   Enough

4. How old are you?
   59

5. Nationality
   USA

6. Where do you live now?
   Kansas City, KS, USA

7. Occupation
   Ecologist

8. Is this job one that you actually like, or
   are you only doing it to pay for the trip?
   It’s my career

9. Have you traveled around the world
   before?
   No

10. What is the route you plan to take/places
    you plan to visit?
    3-4 Months in southern Africa – S Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia
    6 Months in Australia
    1 Month in Fiji

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 travelled quite a lot – 45 states and 22 countries – spent 6 years
    working in Eastern Europe. Just decided that I’d take a sabbatical and
    see several places I always wanted to see but never had the opportunity
    to visit.

12. What is your biggest fear about this
    trip?
    That I’ll like it so much I won’t come home.

13. Are your family, friends, co-workers, etc.,
    supportive of you? What is their opinion of your going around the
    world?
    Generally – aside from normal worries

14. How much planning and preparing have you
    done?
    Just Enough

15. What are you packing? What do you consider
    your most indispensable item(s)?
    Light – I’ve travelled enough to know that less is better – my camera is
    the most indespensible item.

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?
    The years I spent living and working in rural Eastern Europe changed me
    immensely and I’m sure this will only enhance that.

17. If you had to sum up your thoughts/feelings
    about your round-the-world trip in one sentence, what would it
    be?
    I want to go NOW – not wait til January

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?
    Tourists don’t see or learn anything – you have to live with people to
    even begin to understand them – and you have to spend time away from home
    to understand that the developed world is but a small part of the earth
    as a whole – and a tremendously wasteful part at that.

19. What is the biggest myth that people have
    about round-the-world traveling?
    I don’t know

20. Why do you like to travel?
    I always want to see what’s over the next hill – and, as an ecologist, I
    love to see all the variety that nature has to offer.

21. What is your advice for people planning
    their own RTW trip?
    Stretch your boundaries – do it – whatever you run into – good or bad -
    you’ll never regret it.

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