Overland travel has become a staple of our trip. Having a lot of time but not a lot of money lends itself to cheap bus rides and long ferry rides rather than expensive, fast flights. I’m proud to say that Sharon and I have traveled overland from Hong Kong to Thailand and then from southern China to Japan. (We did cheat though and take a plane from Bangkok to Guangzhou, China.) In this post I’ll share why we prefer overland travel versus flying as well as some tips on killing time while on the road.

Why do we prefer traveling overland to flying?

• It’s better for the environment to take a bus or train rather than a plane (I think).
• Driving, rather than flying, allows you to see the countryside that you wouldn’t have otherwise seen
• Traveling like the locals makes you connect a little bit more with your destination.
• Finally, it’s usually cheaper.

The downside of traveling overland, however, is how long it takes. After doing it for a while I’m happy to say that I’ve become a lot better at making the time fly by while being productive (being constantly productive – a rather bittersweet obsession I have). My primary method of killing time is listening to podcasts.

Awesome Podcasts

A podcast is essentially a radio show downloaded from the Internet. Podcasts are great for buses and trains because you avoid the motion sickness often felt from reading and you’re able to enjoy the passing scenery. Here are a few of my favorite podcasts in no particular order:

Note: All links below should automatically subscribe you to the podcast via iTunes.

• The Economist: The Week Ahead – A short, weekly podcast where they discuss the upcoming major events of the world. It’s tough to stay on top of the news while on the road, and I find this to be a pretty good way to do so. I still, however, need to find a podcast that summarizes the previous week’s top newstories.
• TED Talks – TED is an awesome organization that asks extremely bright people to talk about the topics they’re most passionate about. The talks are usually less than 20 minutes.
• Stuff You Should Know – Excellent podcast that discuses very random but interesting subjects; things that you often think about on a whim but never look up. Each podcast is around a half-hour. Recent topics have included how hard is it to steal a work of art, what makes a genius and how hiccups work.
• Mixergy – Five times a week, Andrew Warner interviews successful entrepreneurs. The interviews are outstanding. He asks great questions and really tries to find out how they do what they do so others can learn the tricks of the trade and hopefully replicate their success. Interviews can be long, some going as long as 90 minutes, but are always worth it.
• WNYC’s Radiolab – Similar to “Stuff You Should Know”, in that they cover a wide variety of subjects. However, I find these podcasts to be more polished and much more in-depth. Their recent shows on the physical and mental limits of humans and Lucy the chimp were awesome.

The easiest way to subscribe to a podcast is via iTunes. Go into the store and subscribe. They’re free and will automatically download and transfer new episodes to your iPod/iPhone/iPad.

Other Offline Time-Killers

In addition to podcasts, there are many things to be accomplished on my laptop, despite being offline.

• Offline Gmail – Google has a great add-on to Gmail that allows you to download all of your email offline and then respond to emails. Everything is automatically synced the next time you connect. Go into “Settings” and then “Offline” to activate it.
• Organizing Photos – I have become a huge fan of Google’s Picasa software on this trip. Pictures are automatically tagged through facial recognition, uploading to any photo sharing site is as easy as pushing one button, and the pictures stay nice and organized.
• Offline Google Reader – Byline is an excellent iPhone/iPod Touch application that downloads all of the latest posts from the blogs you follow, allowing you to read them at your leisure with or without an Internet connection. The app is $3.99 however.
• Finally, I write – A recurring productivity tip is to shut off your email and Internet connection when you’re ready to get seroius about getting work done. I’ve been quite surprised with how much writing and/or studying I can accomplish when I don’t have access to the Internet.

Do you know of any great podcasts? Or do you have any tips for killing time while on the road? Let me know, leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

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2. To Do List Update #2
3. To Do List Update #1

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Note: This is unfortunately only applicable if you’re a United States resident and of course subject to become out of date as soon as this article is published. Thankfully, the US government keeps an excellent and hard to find website. Here’s an extremely useful link for figuring out Visa information for every country in the world: http://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html (Scroll half-way down and click “A-Z Country Index”)

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From time-to-time, Sharon and I will be sharing some of the travel tips we’ve learned. Our first “tips post” discusses the science of packing our backpack.

A concern we had about traveling for an extended period of time was becoming annoyed with “living out of our backpacks”. I’m happy to report back that with some extensive trial-and-error, this is no longer much of a nuisance.

The key to the way we pack is that everything goes in a bag before going into our backpack. Essentially, nothing in my backpack is just stuffed into the pack by itself. Stuffing individual items leads to disorganization, inefficient use of space, and takes much longer to pack and unpack.

The best packing accessory we purchased were ITW’s Space Compressible Travel Roll Bags. They’re essentially large see-through compression “Ziploc” bags. They’re cheap and awesome! All of my clothes now fit into one large and one small bag – pants, shirts and jacket in the big bag and underwear and socks in the small bag. To use them, you roll-up the bag and while you do so, air is released from the bag out of the bottom, creating an air-tight bundle of clothing – it saves a ton of space. It also makes unpacking all of my clothes easy; I simply pull out two bags.

Another great packing accessory purchase was the Eagle Creek Pack-It Stuffer set. The largest one is a perfect place to store laundry and the other two I use to store some random smaller things – locks for our laptops, my snorkel gear, etc.

Sharon’s favorite purchase was Eagle Creek’s Koala Hanging Toiletry Kit. I bought a small, basic toiletry bag which works just fine, but I must admit, I do get jealous when Sharon just hangs up her toiletry bag in the bathroom.  It’s pretty darn convenient.

Not all of my packing related purchases worked out well.  Here are a couple of items I regretted packing and ended up shipping back to the states:

• Eagle Creek Travel Gear Pack-It Folder – I think this would be a great accessory if you were traveling with a regular suitcase for a week of business meetings where you needed each shirt to be crisp. For backpacking though, it was bulky and frankly a burden to fold my t-shirts and 1 collared shirt each time.
• Eagle Creek 2-Sided Packing Cube – I had the great idea to use this to store my workout clothes, underwear and socks, which it did just fine. But similarly to the Pack-It folder, it’s pretty bulky and didn’t fit nicely into my pack. Space is at a premium and unfortunately I didn’t think the cube saved space. It does make organization easier though.

In all, including my toiletry bag, I have 10 bags which go into my backpack- three of which rarely leave my bag. So, packing and unpacking essentially involves 7 bags. When they’re out of my bag, they feel like drawers–I can open, close and put them away. Most of them are see-through or are a different color so it’s easy to tell what’s inside.

If you have any packing tips you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them. We’re constantly striving to make it an easier process.

Note: All links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you like something we mentioned, we’d appreciate your support of using these links to purchase–we’ll get a small cut. Every little bit helps us keep our travel dreams going! Thanks

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3. Killing Time on Buses & A List of Great Podcasts

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