Hitching my hook to a star and going Walkabouts.

[dotpoom]

As I've heard many times in my life, "On your deathbed, it's not what you did that you regret, it's what you DIDN'T do". Keep us posted with your adventures, Dotpoom.

When asked on the deathbed if one has any regrets....I doubt you'll hear the words...."I wish I spent more time in the office"

[Trentham]

I was raised in a little desert town in Australia and we lived in a dirt floored one room cabin. Father pissed off when I was 3. At 16 went to the city and began to make my first fortune. After ten years I lost it all. Moved on and made another. Sometimes I poked around in the back lanes looking for a lemonade bottle to sell so I could buy something to eat and I have now eaten in some of the great world restaurants. I was held up at the point of a machine gun in Mexico and had a hitchhiker pull a knife on me in Melbourne. I have filled my life with experience - good and bad - fun and horrifying. I have traveled heaps and met lots of people.

My motto - with thanks and respect for the writer/philosopher Herman Hesse is "Give me the highs and lows of life. Not for me the security of mediocrity."

So I say to everybody. just get out there and do it. Take chances, dare, meet people. Life doesn't come to you, you must go and find it.

So dotpoom go for it and have a great time. [Take a few chances too. You never know what will come of it.]

[BossBar]

Fantastic to see a post were most of us are in agreement. I would like to wish you both the very best of luck and happiness on your journey,take care and be good, if you can lol.

[seasia]

Great post

Wish you all the Best

I`ve a simlar plan, not quite ready yet.

Have fun.

[Fookhaht]

Owned 4 homes (successively) in the home country. When I came here, I decided to rent, just to leave me in a position to pull up stakes any old time I wanted, at a moment's notice. Love the freedom.

[shaurene]

My way of thinking, have done quite a bit of it, done it in Spain, loved it. Am 72 now and want to do it again but my Thai wife cannot leave her family and her little shop. We go to Pattaya for 7 days every couple months or some other place like Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia etc, she comes to New Zealand with me on my family visits.

I am a great believer you only get one chance on this earth so make the most of it.

Go for it Mate as long as your partner is game. Good luck.

Kiwi Kenny

[sunshine51]

Fair winds, following seas and not all puddles in the road are shallow!

“So many people live with unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are
conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality
nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living
spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater
joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each new day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out
of life you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear
crazy. But once you have become accustomed to such a life you will see it's full meaning and incredible beauty.” – Alexander
Supertramp, aka Chris McCandless

“It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.”
― Douglas Adams....The Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul

Go for it....enjoy!

Edited April 1, 2014 by sunshine51

[lovinglifeinthailand]

Great post good luck, and have fun.

[ggt]

Love the adventuresome spirit...maybe you should consider writing a book or doing a documentary of your adventures...

[dotpoom]

You people are the best..

[JSixpack]

I don't know what to say......I wish I could express in words how much all your well wishes mean to me. I will say this though...if the journey makes me feel half as good as your support has done .....then it will be a great success.

One thing you can always rely upon here as sure as sun rises and sets: the encouragement for other members to piss away their money/security/future.

You can't pay too much attn to it. Sounds good, though.

"JSixpack"....I had thought about renting the house out as you suggested but it has been my experience that left to their own devices, a lot of people simply don't take care of other people's property the way they would their own and I certainly don't want the worry of what's happening with the house while I'm on my travels.....

But you've been used to renting out a couple of condos and will be renting out one while you travel right? So I don't see the big difference. Moreover, you can pay a management company a commission to handle it for you or at least makes some checks.

Anyway, I really think I need the money to do what I plan to do and as " tsigane" says, can get another if it is required but honestly, I take life as it comes with making as few plans as possible. Once heard it said...."Man makes plans and God laughs"

But from your OP, that doesn't seem to have been your modus operandi in the past. You did quite a bit of planning and it paid off w/ security for you and her.

And since in recent decades you haven't spent more than 7 days on your explorations, your plan to voyage suddenly into the wild blue yonder indefinitely seems pretty half-baked, actually. A week is never long to be away. If I leave my beloved cesspool of Pattaya, it's gotta be for at least a couple weeks but more likely a month. If I'm going to a Western country, it's gotta be for at least 2 months. And then I'm always glad when I get back home.

So if I were you I'd just take some longer trips first. A couple months in Bali would be first on the list. Another might be a month in the highlands of north Vietnam w/ motorbike trips out of a mountain town. Etc. etc.

You said you were going to travel in neighboring countries. Now cities are cities; as you've observed, the character is in the rural areas. And traveling in the rural areas is pretty cheap. You'd have rental income from your property, savings, and investments and SSA/pension income. So I don't see any financial crunch if you just rent out your house.

You may well find your old bones will get tired of being on the road a lot more quickly than you think. Perpetual traveling is more of young man's game. You might be very happy to come back to your house: there's a reason you sold that condo and moved there; that reason's still good & valid.

Sorry if I can't support your plan--I rain on parades--but I don't see that you have enough hard experience yet to ensure that in the end you'll really have a rational basis for thinking it was a good decision. Of course you'll always be free to imagine it was, no matter what. Me, I'd want to be a lot more certain before I sold that house at least. If you know you can make a nice profit on the house, now, that would be a sweetener. But from reading around here, seems you're more likely to sell at a loss, almost inevitably if you go for the quick sale.

Edited April 1, 2014 by JSixpack

[dotpoom]

JSixpack.......I am humbled by your concerns for me and if I have any need for more of your kind advice my trusty computer will be close at hand.

[wym]

I've always been more the grasshopper than the ant myself, but then I've had my share of long cold winters now and again too. . .

Go have fun man, but a reminder that you could well become disabled next year and then live for another thirty years is entirely appropriate. You make your bed and then you lie in it, as long as you do so with eyes wide open.

[Diddl]

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful! I wish you much happiness and adventure.

I travelled a lot on my own and people would say to me, “Wish I could do that”, and yet they had much more money than I did, I had to keep returning home to work to earn some more money. All I could see was wishful thinking on the part of these people, they only sat in front of the box and pretended to discover and live, but their heads were empty and they were only able to recite what the box had told them.

To dare to live life is a learning process and knowledge comes about this way. I wish you and your partner well with many great discoveries. Congratulations on being one of those that dares to live, to confront fear of losing or being without, and to be one of the few – it is good to hear that such a minority still exist..

[cornishcarlos]

I don't know what to say......I wish I could express in words how much all your well wishes mean to me. I will say this though...if the journey makes me feel half as good as your support has done .....then it will be a great success.

One thing you can always rely upon here as sure as sun rises and sets: the encouragement for other members to piss away their money/security/future.

You can't pay too much attn to it. Sounds good, though.

"JSixpack"....I had thought about renting the house out as you suggested but it has been my experience that left to their own devices, a lot of people simply don't take care of other people's property the way they would their own and I certainly don't want the worry of what's happening with the house while I'm on my travels.....

But you've been used to renting out a couple of condos and will be renting out one while you travel right? So I don't see the big difference. Moreover, you can pay a management company a commission to handle it for you or at least makes some checks.

Anyway, I really think I need the money to do what I plan to do and as " tsigane" says, can get another if it is required but honestly, I take life as it comes with making as few plans as possible. Once heard it said...."Man makes plans and God laughs"

But from your OP, that doesn't seem to have been your modus operandi in the past. You did quite a bit of planning and it paid off w/ security for you and her.

And since in recent decades you haven't spent more than 7 days on your explorations, your plan to voyage suddenly into the wild blue yonder indefinitely seems pretty half-baked, actually. A week is never long to be away. If I leave my beloved cesspool of Pattaya, it's gotta be for at least a couple weeks but more likely a month. If I'm going to a Western country, it's gotta be for at least 2 months. And then I'm always glad when I get back home.

So if I were you I'd just take some longer trips first. A couple months in Bali would be first on the list. Another might be a month in the highlands of north Vietnam w/ motorbike trips out of a mountain town. Etc. etc.

You said you were going to travel in neighboring countries. Now cities are cities; as you've observed, the character is in the rural areas. And traveling in the rural areas is pretty cheap. You'd have rental income from your property, savings, and investments and SSA/pension income. So I don't see any financial crunch if you just rent out your house.

You may well find your old bones will get tired of being on the road a lot more quickly than you think. Perpetual traveling is more of young man's game. You might be very happy to come back to your house: there's a reason you sold that condo and moved there; that reason's still good & valid.

Sorry if I can't support your plan--I rain on parades--but I don't see that you have enough hard experience yet to ensure that in the end you'll really have a rational basis for thinking it was a good decision. Of course you'll always be free to imagine it was, no matter what. Me, I'd want to be a lot more certain before I sold that house at least. If you know you can make a nice profit on the house, now, that would be a sweetener. But from reading around here, seems you're more likely to sell at a loss, almost inevitably if you go for the quick sale.

That is why I love travelling off the beaten track. I get to avoid people like you, that are still planning and making preparations to see the places I've already left

Let the OP worry about his future, just be thankful you have a cesspool to get back to..!!

[JLCrab]

Some friends of mine after selling the company the built over 20 years went on this trip -- one way to get it out of your system:

Circle the globe with top National Geographic experts on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Traveling in the comfort of a private jet, encounter legendary places from Machu Picchu and Tibet to Easter Island and the Taj Mahal. Experience natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Plain, and the island paradise of Samoa.

(25 days at about $70,000 per person)

[cornishcarlos]

Some friends of mine after selling the company the built over 20 years went on this trip -- one way to get it out of your system:

Circle the globe with top National Geographic experts on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Traveling in the comfort of a private jet, encounter legendary places from Machu Picchu and Tibet to Easter Island and the Taj Mahal. Experience natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Plain, and the island paradise of Samoa.

(25 days at about $70,000 per person)

Getting it out of your system is not what it's about....

Some people will never understand that !!

[benalibina]

Read your wonderful OP and all posts on this very positive thread. Only 2/3 silly posts on it. 2/3 out of 44....not many threads get such a good response.

Am myself at a point in life where i feel that i need to let go, the thing is....i cant....its blocking me....so a month ago i came up with a, silly, idea to go walk to Thailand from Western Europe. When that thought kept coming back i started to check the route i would have to walk, through which countries. Checked where i would need visas to enter a country. Thought about how to do it walking, time and distancewise. Thinking about it made me aware of 1 thing.....freedom, adventure, dealing with unforeseen circumstances and testing myself. Thinking later about the reality of life....i had to pass. Reading this thread though...instantly the above came back.

Unlike you i have nothing to fall back on. Only myself......so go for it....u only live once....during ur travels u will find out the reason of doing it.

Enjoy the ride.

[JLCrab]

Some friends of mine after selling the company the built over 20 years went on this trip -- one way to get it out of your system:

Circle the globe with top National Geographic experts on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Traveling in the comfort of a private jet, encounter legendary places from Machu Picchu and Tibet to Easter Island and the Taj Mahal. Experience natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Plain, and the island paradise of Samoa.

(25 days at about $70,000 per person)

Getting it out of your system is not what it's about....

Some people will never understand that !!

Well I have about a half million actual air-miles (I know -- some have much more) and if I next-to-never see another airport again it will be fine with me. When I was in China early 90's I sat next to a US Defense Intelligence Agency (branch of CIA) guy on the trip home and he said that I had been to parts in China that they have never been able to get anyone.

So getting the wanderlust out of one's system may be something others do not understand.

[Kitsune]

I still don't understand why you are posting.

You made a decision, you are happy about it, why do you need us?

Also sharing the experiences the way you did, is not going to makes any of us pack our stuffs and go travelling.

Sorry, I'm not trying to challenge you, but I don't see the point.

[JLCrab]

Paul Wertico was for almost 20 years the drummer for the Pat Metheny Group. He said in an interview that he remembered when he ran in to tell his wife: "Pat just called -- we're going to Rome!!!"

He then said that he knew it was time to quit the band when he went in to tell his wife: "Pat just called -- we have to go to Rome again."

[Trentham]

I still don't understand why you are posting.

You made a decision, you are happy about it, why do you need us?

Also sharing the experiences the way you did, is not going to makes any of us pack our stuffs and go travelling.

Sorry, I'm not trying to challenge you, but I don't see the point.

And I don't understand why you are replying thus. Sorry but what is your point also?

dotpoom has stirred up feelings in lots of us, brought back memories and created desires in us for change and adventure. Read back through the responses - almost all of which have been very positive.

It is you who has no point in replying as you have.

[JSixpack]

That is why I love travelling off the beaten track. I get to avoid people like you, that are still planning and making preparations to see the places I've already left

Let the OP worry about his future, just be thankful you have a cesspool to get back to..!!

Nope, I've traveled a good bit off the beaten track myself and recommend the OP do so. I've also noticed, BTW, that the mere fact of being off the beaten track doesn't necessarily mean a place is worth visiting.

[14] My vicinity affords many good walks, and though I have walked almost every day for so many years, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them. An absoutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farm-house which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the king of Dahomey.(11) There is in fact a sort of harmony discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle of ten miles radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the three-score-years and ten of human life. It will never become quite familiar to you.

--Thoreau, Walking

OP shared his plan for public comment. He's looking for agreement (basically; he won't debate) that because he's made some 7 day trips that weren't long enough for him to miss the comfortable home he's nicely renovated for himself and his wife, it's therefore a wise and enviable decision, at 65, to sell up (at a loss) and wander around indefinitely.

How logical. My point, which I stand by, is that it doesn't make much sense, esp at his age; and a sophomoric romantic portrayal doesn't make it so. (In fact I even wonder if there's some other motive unstated.) It might make some sense after he confirms his wanderlust (or second childhood) and stamina by taking a series of much longer trips, so I suggested he try that first.

In the end I think that's the best advice he'll have received in this thread among the inevitable chorus of "Wow, man, go for it!" huzzahs from the barstools and council estates.

Edited April 2, 2014 by JSixpack

[BossBar]

Some friends of mine after selling the company the built over 20 years went on this trip -- one way to get it out of your system:

Circle the globe with top National Geographic experts on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Traveling in the comfort of a private jet, encounter legendary places from Machu Picchu and Tibet to Easter Island and the Taj Mahal. Experience natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Plain, and the island paradise of Samoa.

(25 days at about $70,000 per person)

Getting it out of your system is not what it's about....

Some people will never understand that !!

Well I have about a half million actual air-miles (I know -- some have much more) and if I next-to-never see another airport again it will be fine with me. When I was in China early 90's I sat next to a US Defense Intelligence Agency (branch of CIA) guy on the trip home and he said that I had been to parts in China that they have never been able to get anyone.

So getting the wanderlust out of one's system may be something others do not understand.

If you don't want to see another airport can you transfer your air miles to me plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ?

[JLCrab]

My last 2 trips BKK > USA > BKK on award travel have worn that account down to the nub -- back to cash for a while.

[tim armstrong]

Bon voyage dotpoom. Best of luck wherever you go and congrats. for having the courage to do it.

[sunshine51]

Some friends of mine after selling the company the built over 20 years went on this trip -- one way to get it out of your system:

Circle the globe with top National Geographic experts on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Traveling in the comfort of a private jet, encounter legendary places from Machu Picchu and Tibet to Easter Island and the Taj Mahal. Experience natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Plain, and the island paradise of Samoa.

(25 days at about $70,000 per person)

Getting it out of your system is not what it's about....

Some people will never understand that !!

Well I have about a half million actual air-miles (I know -- some have much more) and if I next-to-never see another airport again it will be fine with me. When I was in China early 90's I sat next to a US Defense Intelligence Agency (branch of CIA) guy on the trip home and he said that I had been to parts in China that they have never been able to get anyone.

So getting the wanderlust out of one's system may be something others do not understand.

OK..."Getting it out of your system is not what it's about...Some people will never understand that !!"

This is true...once the travel/adventure bug stings you...you never recover from said sting. There's

no jab or pill one can take, there's no qualified doctor who can treat the affliction, it is not a disease

as much as it is a lifelong condition. The urge to see, hear, smell, feel and experience other places

can be quite severe in some people while others are comfortable to stay at home & get their

experiences from the boob tube or via Google. And it doesn't matter how you travel either; whether

you do it in an aluminum cylinder at 35K+ feet, in a bus, in a clapped out old truck/car, motorbike,

bicycle, your own two feet or complimentary to ones own two feet...with ones thumb stuck out.

As Gandhi once said..."the important thing is, that you do it." Of course Gandhi was in reference

to a menial job he was doing, however to a traveler...the part I just quoted is very important.

Wanderlust....it's in all of us whether we will freely admit to it or not and it fits into travel quite nicely.

How one wanders is their own affair...a personal thing. Robin Leach once had a TV show named

Lifestyles Of The Rich & Famous...to me it was a crap show....how about a TV show named The

Lifestyles Of The Broke & Unknown instead. However...the point was to let the viewer see that

the rich & famous always carried many tons of luggage, stayed in overblown flop houses, had

numerous handservants to cater to their every tantrum and that they could charter the Concorde

to rapidly transport all the tacky things they bought on holiday back home. For the rest of us in

the world...a post office in Ouaggadoogoo with an old cardboard box that had seen better days

was the usual way to send tacky souvies home via parcel post...and the box usually arrived.

Travel isn't just about logging air miles...it's about logging sensory perceptions which last a

lifetime...long after the slides & photos fade away and todays digital imaging & audio

recordings can no longer be viewed or heard because some new fangled format just blew

all the old formats away. The experiences...both good & bad...have a tendency to remain

in ones mind forever. I know mine do and at the same age as the OP, 65, I still travel and

will always travel until I stop breathing air. I may travel a bit slower these days than I did

when I was in my youth...but I still travel. And to me...that is important.

And BTW...I was, at one time in my younger life...seconded from the Army to the DIA

for 4 years...the DIA is not nor ever has been a "branch of the CIA". Nowadays all USG

intel agencies come under the DNI (director of national intelligence). All the intel agencies

are now known as the IC...Intelligence Community. The CIA is an independent agency

within the IC-DNI while the DIA, NSA, NRO and others come under USDOD...also within

the IC-DNI....just FYI that.

“Can you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here,” asked Alice.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the cat.

Lewis Carroll

[JLCrab]

This is true...once the travel/adventure bug stings you...you never recover from said sting. Horsesh-t Non-stop travel can also be a fine alleviation of boredom.

... and you sound bored.

Edited April 2, 2014 by JLCrab

[marko kok prong]

your lucky your wife agreed,i recently took my missus and the step kids up north to chiang mai,pai etc,i had told her a week after four days she missed her house so we came back,i understand now that holiday to a thai person means a different thing than to a falang,i used to go away for months on end in Australia,but here,the driving is too stressfull, but best of luck with your trip.

[JSixpack]

Now I think I don't really believe this whole story. Too many things don't quite add up.

• Lived in Thailand 12 years; been taking 7-day trips every 6 weeks for the last 7 years--and now the fascination is overwhelming
• After all these 7-day trips for 7 years, then decides to sell his comfortable, renovated house and vagabond; cant just make longer trips
• Can't rent out his house, worried about the care--but rents out 2 condos
• Not a planner, but planned well enough to leave his home country early, with considerable savings, and acquire and manage 2 properties to finance residence here
• Not a planner, but renovated his house nicely--a true carpe diem sort, like a Thai, would just let it go to hell
• Says he must sell house 'cause needs the money--but will be just traveling cheaply in rural areas in neighboring countries
• Wants to bring "light into darkness"--really now? That's just awfully sweet. Locals mostly want money in their pockets (your money)
• If the house is for sale, where's the classified ad? With what realtor? What's the location?
• Neighboring countries? Let's see the tentative itinerary.

Yeah, let's have more logical reasons and facts to go with the all the moonlight & magnolias before we buy into this. Now, the house probably represents his money tied up in his wife's name. Hmmmm.

Edited April 2, 2014 by JSixpack