My Mother’s Adventures Continues………

This is the continuous story of my mother’s travel adventures back in the late 70′s. As you can now see, this is where I got my travel bug from.

…..I left off at the excitement of the Egypt trip after Greece and Russia. My working visa for England and ran out by the June of 1980 so I bought a airline Apex ticket which was only applicable for student travelers and the destinations were varied but multiple. I decided to cross over eastbound back to Canada through the Middle East, Asia, and then the Western States up to Chicago then Toronto. The ticket would last one year, so each destination or country chosen on the airline ticket could be a long or short stay as long I was able to get back to Canada on the year of the purchased original date. I landed at first in Beirut, but only stayed to fill up since young white females were under different obligations as far as the male-dominated Islamic world was concerned. I then got to Hong Kong and decided to stay there for a week not realizing that I needed a travel visa to get into Korea, then in order to land to Japan, Taipei then Hawaii. I met up with English acquiesces in the Southern part of China, (I took an old bus up to the mainland of China,) but mainly explored the Islands in Hong Kong. I was invited to stay with a family in Japan, outside Osaka but I chickened out because I was scared about the money I smuggled out of the UK. No traveler’s cheques, just 15,000 dollars cash Canadian money since I worked triple shifts in England and spent virtually no money on rent and food. Just saving….also I made more cash on tips compared to my English waitress co-workers partly because I was extroverted and friendly …like the American Service industry culture.

I landed in South Korea instead of Japan, since Japan during the 1980′s was at their sparklingly economical heightened ways. Once I landed in Hawaii, I stayed there for a week to visit Pearl Harbor and the other side of the island. After Hawaii, was a long flight back over the Pacific and I arrived to Los Angeles. From there, I phoned a long lost cousin and ended up by bus to San Francisco which I loved amongst the other cities too. I eventually knew I had to get back to Toronto since the sudden crisis occurred with the Ronald Reagan administration. The air traffic controllers went on strike that summer of 1980, so the President fired all flight staffing. I ended up having to pay an extra two hundred dollars to get a ticket on a bus and ride on this bus for six solid days and nights. Baby food was my diet that week since there was no movement and financially, I needed to save extra pennies since I needed the cash to establish myself once I got back to Toronto.

After a few years, I only traveled back to England several times with my newly wedded husband from England, and then honeymooned to the Caribbean, Barbados. For years, once children arrived in our lives, we didn’t travel at all until the children were no longer babies.

Now the children are adults living in different cities, working, my partner and I hit the South Asian countries in 2006. We also got to Mexico, more Caribbean islands, Southern States then Europe. Portugal was first, 2004, Italy in 2008, 2010 April was Prague, Germany and Austria, and this October 2010 we will flying off to Africa, Tanzania and Kilimanjaro.

I thought this was a story to tell, because every backpacker gets the travel bug from something or someone. As for me, I got it from my mom.