Walt Foster

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.