Parting is such sweet sorrow...

D-day dawns but only half the navy puts to sea: due to family commitments we have to make a staggered start and I'm staying behind in Blighty for another week. Therefore today I saw the lovely Lara off at St Pancras station, hanky in hand.

The size of her pack was only matched by the size of my hangover from the Camden EPICs awards ceremony the night before.

Anyway, have fun across Europe, Lara. See you in Finland!
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Oh, so slow...

‘Oh you’re going travelling are you?’, a friend enquired, ‘Haven’t you grown out of that?’

‘Travelling’, I’m a little uncomfortable with the word – as if it’s shorthand for going on a long holiday, perhaps with the odd stint of earnest volunteering thrown in for good measure, the preserve of the fresh-faced teen or the work-shy college dropout.

Dr Livingstone I presume? Dr Alban morelike.

Who would want to spend their precious two-week holiday doing this, when they could hop in a plane and get there to the beaches and vineyards in a couple of hours?

A friend suggested that you go on holiday to get away from things, whilst you go travelling to get to things.

They had a point, but there is a third consideration here: how you get there. Travel gives you a chance to indulge in our natural urge to wander. A to B, via C,D and E.

We rarely get the chance to do this in our daily lives but, when circumstances force this upon me I’m often delighted by this unexpected opportunity. You learn the layout of the place, how it pieces together. You find a new pub or a tucked-away park, colouring in the big white spaces in your mental map of a place.

Extended to the world, perhaps then by travelling slowly, approaching the castle on a donkey rather than a rocket, you get the chance to adjust and appreciate the finer differences between places.

Whilst bringing the world closer to us air travel has obliterated this, creating a disjunction between travelling somewhere physically and arriving there mentally. You can get move between two very different places, such as London and Beijing, in a matter of hours, yet it takes day to get there in your mind. It’s as if someone has cut the power at the cinema and, when the wheel starts to whir again, Bambi has been replaced by Reservoir Dogs (or vice versa).

Travelling slowly allows our senses to appreciate these differences as a one region elides into another. We hope to recognise the gradual differences in the local accent or cooking and appreciate spotting the first snows or smelling the first spices.

So perhaps our plan, heading east slowly and incrementally, is the antidote to culture shock?
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How to...get a US visa

Believe it or not, if you travel by cargo ship to the US you need to get a visa before you travel. Unlike Brits who fly or even come by scheduled cruise ship you don’t qualify for the usual visa-waiver scheme. That means dollars – lots of ‘em – and allowing plenty of time to be processed through the system.

So force a grin, remind yourself that you’re travelling in a far more interesting (and environmentally-responsible) fashion and take it on the stiff-upper lip.

You will need to apply for an non-immigrant visa – that means scrubbing yourself up and going for an interview at the US embassy in Grosvenor Square (if you happen to live near London, of course).

In order to book your appointment you must first dial up the premium-rate phone number 09042-450100 (£1.20/minute - a typical call lasts 10 minutes). Try and book your interview appointment for as early as possible in order to minimise your wait in line.

In exchange for the fee ($131 at the time of our applying) you are sent an interview confirmation letter. You are also directed to DS-156 form, which you must complete online. Chaps aged 16-49 are also required to fill in one extra form, in order to assure the authorities of their good intentions.

On the day of your interview, book the morning off work and take a brolly (you are made to wait outside), along with the heap of documents required to prove that you a fine upstanding subject of her Britannic majesty. Mobiles, backberries, peapods and other fruitily-titled or otherwise electronic equipment are not welcome so take a good book.

Be prepared for a long wait, but a relatively short ‘interview’. You will go to two separate counters – one to hand in your documents and the other, for your ‘interview’ – more a quick chat. Our interviewer was a nice, friendly fellow who had no hesitation in granting us the standard ten year visa.

Then comes the sting in the tail – arranging the return of the passport you have so willingly just handed over the counter. You have no choice but to use the couriers, standing like vultures, at the exit. Laughingly-entitled ‘Secure mail Services’, I found them without question the most useless postal company I have ever encountered (and that is against some pretty stiff opposition).

I’ll spare you the details but take care to be very specific about how, where and when you’d would like your passport returned before parting with (up to) twenty notes. You must sign in person for the delivery when it finally comes.


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The what a to-do list

As of 12th April our to-do list read:

1) Book ship from Hong Kong to Los Angeles
2) Book Eurostar tickets
3) Book Trans-Siberian express tickets
4) Book US visa appointment (09042-450-100; £1.20/minute!!)
5) Get Russian visa
6) Look what other visas we need and book appointments:
- Mongolia
- China
- Vietnam
7) Book insurance
8) Get jabs
9) Organise WWOOF Japan placement(s)
10) Book Japan Rail Pass

It took us months to even work out what we needed to do. There’s not a book on the shelf about how to travel without flying. Hurrah for the Man in Seat in 61 and Google without which we would probably still be working out how to get to Finland (major stop #1 on The Trip).

With 26 days to go, all of this list – bar (2) booking the Eurostar and (4) getting a U.S. Visa – remains outstanding. So if anyone else is planning to do a similar trip, you should find this blog useful. It could save you a lot of time...

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