Every time I get ready to congratulate myself on the cool things I’m doing, I look over and there’s someone else doing something much, much cooler.
That’s one of the humbling things about travel, I guess. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gone, or how adventurous you’ve been; there will always be another traveller, doing something that will make you stand back and say, “whoa…now that, right there…that is awesome!”
Consider, for example, the Trans Canada cyclist. You see them regularly through the summer months, zipping along the Trans Canada Highway. They’re the ones with about five water bottles positioned strategically around their bikes and packs of equipment hanging down either side of their back wheel.
I feel tired every time I see them, but how adventurous! To see the second largest country in the world, from coast to coast, under your own power, is an incredible goal.
The entire Trans Canada journey can be completed in 73 days, averaging 126 km/day for 60 days. That leaves 13 days for rest and ferry travel to and from Newfoundland. Anybody who completes it has bragging rights for a lifetime.
The Newfoundland ferries play an integral role in a lot of fantastic voyages. The Marine Atlantic ferry crosses between Port aux Basques, Newfoundland and Labrador and North Sydney, Nova Scotia.
A couple of weeks ago, my family was camping at the KOA just outside North Sydney, and let me tell you, minutes after the ferry arrives at the terminal, that KOA is awash with new arrivals.
It’s a sort of hub that brings people together from all sorts of places, everyone on a unique journey.
One night, around 11:00 o’clock, a pop-up trailer rolled in, one of many, and set up on the site behind ours. As they set up camp in the dark, without an irritated word passing between them I might add, we learned that they were a young couple who had come all the way from the North West Territories – and with an eight-month-old baby no less! I was impressed. It’s difficult to camp with an infant, but over the course of such a mammoth trip – that takes a special kind of patience.
But, impressive as they were, even they were out-done when we stumbled across a motor home from Germany. A world map decal on the back window boasted that this couple had already toured a big chunk of Asia, part of Africa and had completed a Pan-American leg wherein they covered 30,000 kms through 16 countries in 180 days. We spotted them in Peggys Cove, N.S., but who knows where they’ll find themselves next.
The logistics of traveling all over the world, with your own vehicle, seems daunting enough to me. But that pales in comparison to the journey the Davis family has embarked on. Many of us are already following them on their one-year, round the world family adventure at globetrottingmama.com
This Toronto couple is giving their boys, Ethan 9 and Cameron 6, the adventure of a lifetime (or at least their childhood). What an incredible experience! They have already seen Western Canada, parts of the North West U.S., Argentina, Galapagos, and now they’re in China. And they just got started!
It’s so inspiring to see people challenge themselves to trips like these. They’re not just geographic journeys; they’re spiritual, intellectual and emotional, as well. Undertaking travels like these means not passively visiting, but fully engaging in the experience. They are educating themselves, broadening their horizons and testing their limits…and having kids hasn’t stopped many of them at all.
Here’s to the awesome people, taking awesome journeys all over the world. May the rest of us join them soon. – Jen R, Staff Writer
