During that first version of the website, there were a few pages that no longer appear in our re-vamped website (launched in March 2009). However, there were also comments from friends, family members, and other travelers on those now-deleted pages. Not wanting to lose those comments, we've compiled all of them here.

Among the reasons that Jessica and I so wanted to attend the inauguration was to be able to soak up the feel of the crowd, the general atmosphere of it all. And it's just incredible. The crowd is so enthusiastically upbeat, everyone feels so united in common purpose, that you really do start to feel like you're in the company of friends.

Backpacking is addictive. The more places you see, the more you realize that you haven't seen anything yet. The more countries you visit, the more places you learn about that you want to hit next. We got back from our trip firmly hooked on that Traveling Bug, and we promised ourselves that we'd keep traveling.

In Thailand, expressing negative emotions (such as anger, frustration, or as in our case, panic) is simply not done. No matter how bad a situation is, you have to smile sweetly and stay calm at all costs. Getting visibly upset would be as offensive as if you had started spitting and cursing. Fortunately, we’d spent enough time in Thailand that it was instinctive for us. We stayed calm, and we smiled.

Many travelers are able to keep a quick pace. Two new countries each month for twelve months, to many fellow travelers reading this entry, will sound laughably easy. But Tim and I soon discovered that keeping pace didn't suit us. We wanted to stop and absorb, we needed to. Stopping, for us, was the only way to see.