Many of us daydream about taking that brave step out of our daily work to sail around the world, or drive around the world, or who knows, maybe even compete in a cross-country classic car race. Pat & Ali don't just dream, they do all these things...and share their adventures online.
The native Minnesotans spent nearly four years sailing around the world, then tried their skill at The Great American Race this past summer, and then on September 21, 2007, Pat & Ali departed the Land of 10,000 Lakes in a 1958 VW Bus to drive around the world.Â
How do they do it? What insight can they share with armchair travelers?
Pat & Ali joined MPR, Gather, and their own fans here Tuesday October 9, 2007 at 8 pm ET / 7 pm CT / 5 pm PT for an online Q&A. They agreed to check back in on this discussion before Tuesday October 16, so it isn't too late to post a question!
Resources:
- Pat & Ali's homepage, bumfuzzle.com
- Who are Pat & Ali, anyway? Learn more about them.
_______________________
Julia Schrenkler
Minnesota Public Radio Interactive Producer
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- Visit these participating groups on Gather: Gather Essentials:Travel and Minnesota Life.
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Comments: 104
Thank you for bringing us such a great series Julia, and welcome to Gather Pat & Ali!
Do you think you will ever live aboard a sailboat again, or do you feel you've "been there, done that?" If you can't get anyone to pay what you think Bum is worth, will you just keep the boat, restore her to a seaworthy condition and perhaps keep her in, say, the Bahamas for future use?
Thanks for kicking off the discussion with an advance question, Caryn! Obviously, you're first up. *grin*
Susan *, hope you can join us, I think it is going to be very fun & interesting...
Welcome to Gather, Christina N.. We here in Minnesota watch their adventures pretty closely too.
Glad you could drop in a question, Kathryn. See you here tonight?
Kevin, just plain "Thanks." Pat & Ali are joining Gather under the bumfuzzle name, so we can't miss them!
Welcome to Gather, Jack J., and you know we'll get to your question!
Michael! What a sweet question. I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say about that...
Welcome to the discussion, Carl. Very insightful question - we'll see how revealing it is.
James In San Jose here.
Looking back is there anything you can say to summarize you circumnavigation adventure? How did the sailing trip around the world change you? What surprized you the most?
James
"Is there one thing you miss most about "home" while traveling? And is there one thing you try to seek out as you're traveling -- best onion rings, funniest locals, coolest ice cream parlor?"
Caryn,
Actually, over time, "home" has sort of become wherever we happen to be at the time. We always call Minnesota home, but also don't really have a problem calling "home" a boat or a bus either.
And yes, we always keep our eyes peeled for pizza when on the road. It's a must. And surprisingly it's everywhere!
RR
To answer the question about money. I was a commodities trader in Chicago. So while Ali paid the bills I went to work and risked it all. Fortunately it all worked out well for us.
We're not retired though and will have to go back to work someday. We don't worry about it though. We feel like we could live on a lot less these days. Our lives have simplified a bit.
RR
"What are [you] using for a carnet de passage en douane? For all
of these countries?"
*A Carnet de Passage en Douane is a kind of "temporary customs pass" for a vehicle.
You'd think there would be a lot more difficulties in sailing around the world, but they really seemed few and far between. We had some problems with the boat that ended up costing us a lot of money that was unexpected, but we were able to get past that. As for weather, we really didn't run in to any big storms. If you follow the seasons and keep an eye on the forecasts the water out there tends to be flat more often than it is scary.
We've sort of learned that more often than not a friendly smile and patience can get us through most border crossings no problem. We've decided to just wing it like that in the bus as well. If we absolutely can't get in to a country, we'll just turn around and go to the next one.
Just how much envy do you experience? How do people react when they found out you were going to travel the world...again?
I was wondering about your latest adventure, and your 'new' transportation. Is there a story behind this van, or perhaps how you arrived at this choice? ...and how much effort did it take to prepare it for your travels? Thanks!
Been following your site for close to two years now, I was wondering how long your planning on taking to drive around the world?
Daniel
I think what we've found is that people tend not to do these things because they think they can't afford it. But in reality if you are willing to downsize things, sell off a lot of "possessions", and just go for it, that it can be done. Maybe not for years and years, but a few months of travel is certainly possible if you really want it.
Speaking of possessions...Where do you draw the line between being prepared and transporting too much stuff while on the water or on the road?
Envy. I don't know exactly. Generally people seem happy just to share in our adventures. I think most people were genuinely excited to hear that we were going to continue on our adventures as they didn't want the story to end.
Is there anything we bring with us to remind us of home? No, there really isn't. Yikes, we are really unsentimental. In fact just recently we started selling wedding china! Hope none of our family sees any of it on ebay.
Do you rely on guidebooks or local sources when traveling? Can you share?
[I believe she's asking for recommendations or advice]
Will we live aboard again? No, we really don't think so. We gave sailing a chance, but it never really grew on us. We loved the adventure of it, but sailing around the world was a goal we set for ourselves, it was never meant to be a lifestyle for us.
We nearly always purchase a Lonely Planet guidebook before we visit a country. It gives us a good idea of what we'd like to make sure we don't miss. But we also really try to get away from it and do our own thing as well.
Pat & Ali, I don't believe there can be "one" standout experience, but can you tell us about a situation where you felt uncomfortable (or even at risk) and how you managed to resolve the situation?
Daniel
I gotta do this.You have a custom set—up but can you list some of your mods
RR
In Haiti, we found ourselves surrounded by humanity. It was just shoulder to shoulder mayhem as far as we could tell. When we first arrived we found a "bus" to where we were going and really got hassled by the driver. We eventually got where we were going, but for the first time we really had to think about if we should be there. Yet, we ventured out the next day, climbed to a mountaintop fortress, talked with the locals, and by the last day we had no problem in arguing with a taxi driver over a two dollar cab fare in front of hundreds of people at a bus station.
How many friends from your website will you visit on the trip?
I do the driving of the Bus, while Ali handles the driving of the Porsche. By the time she's done with the race she just wants to sit in the van and enjoy the scenery again.
RR
Daniel
They've agreed to revisit the discussion for last-minute questions.
-Julia
Hey Susan, I'm sorry you missed it too. How long were your neighbors gone?
Thought you might be, Greg. Glad you swung by.
Dreaming might be how it starts, Nan!
The French neighbors came over so that the husband could teach mathematics at the University and their two young boys (matched in age to my boys) could attend school here.
Ali and I had never sailed, so we had no bias one way or the other on the monohull vs catamaran debate. As soon as we started researching the trip we read a book about a couple our age who sailed around the world on a 33 foot catamaran and they really seemed happy about the boat choice. It sounded comfortable, which is something we thought was really important when you plan to live on a boat for 4 years. Turns out we were right. We love the catamaran. The extra space, the two engines, the ease of sailing it and even handling it in tight spaces, all were big bonuses on our trip.
There are so many sailing books out there, most of which we think are rubbish. Too many of them seem to focus on fear mongering. It seems to me that if you want to insure that you'll never go sailing you should read a bunch of books about it. :) There is one book however that is basically the world cruisers bible. It's called World Cruising Routes by Jimmy Cornell and it is a sort of text book outlining the different routes around the world, what conditions you can expect, and the best time of year to make each crossing. It's a fun book for the planner/ dreamer to sit at the kitchen table with alongside a world map.
Pirates! Seriously?!! Just kidding. Of course we heard about pirates. Sailors heading for the Red Sea don't talk about anything but. I'm a statistics guy though and figured that we had a roughly .5% chance of a pirate attack. In real life if I had a 99.5% chance of doing something successfully I wouldn't hesitate to bet the farm, and didn't see why this should be any different. So while all the other boats were sailing along scared to death in big groups and talking to each other constantly on the radio, we just cruised along like there was nothing to worry about. We then had some boats come racing up to us off the coast of Yemen. The men pulled alongside our boat and made the universal signal indicating they wanted a cigarette. We had brought along cigarettes for trading, but didn't just give them away, so we told them that we didn't have any. They then waved and flew off. We called them "cigarette pirates". We think those are probably the sorts of incidents that people get all worked up about.
People don't seem to believe us, but we really never encountered any real big seas. In fact I'd guess that the biggest seas we had were only 15 feet. And since everybody drastically exaggerates this number it is probably closer to 10 feet.
And of course our highest wind speed came when we were just ten miles from Miami, after sailing 33,000+ miles. We got hit by a storm out of nowhere that had winds of 50 knots. Nothing too dramatic.
your buddy fatty L.