One day, not very long ago, I noticed I'd never been to the Pyramids. So I quit my job, left my apartment, and made a list of places I'd always wanted to go. And here's the proof.

The Trip

"Stap Vinnig Oor" -- it's Afrikaans for "walk quickly across," and it was the written message that came from my near-death experience with a brakeless VW Bug in South Africa. It seemed a divine title for my wanderings through the world, as I collected experiences and friends--and defied all kinds of exotic deaths.

The Trip began in mid-April 1998, when I had my last day at Entertainment Weekly and made the rounds among my family to bid them aideu.  By 30 April, I was in the air over the Atlantic, and I touched down in London on 1 May 1998.  The final intinerary, which stretched 453 days and over 16 months, took me to 39 countries, including 15 states of my own country, and 2 provinces of Canada. (For more fun numbers and unsolicited opinions, see my final dispatch.)

After those, I've begun adding dispatches I have written during my trips as a Real Live Travel Writer for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine.

·   The Acropolis and Me  


 

 
 

The Dispatches

Every few weeks,I sent a dispatch to my friends and family. They range from basic primers to cranky diatribes with under-researched facts.

REMEMBER! I wrote them all in two hours or less at noisy internet cafes, with no attention paid to tempering foul moods, and never a second draft.

They're becoming curios, so I've left them as I first wrote them. I read them now and I'm amazed at what I was able to accomplish for you, the poor saps at home, with such scant resources.

If you're a lit agent (or you know one who could reward someone with such a speed quirk), please click here and let me know.

·  The first few dispatches are sketchy. (Hey--radically alter your own life and see how you acclimate.) They're highlight reels instead of actual travelogues and they can be succinct or painfully windy, depending on my mood. But people seem to like them:

    1. "Dispatch from the Front"(18 May 1998) London, Paris, Barcelona, Sevilla
    2. "Lymph Grist"(31 May 1998) Portugal, Morocco
    3. "I'm Not in Germany"(6 June 1998) Madrid, Nice, Florence
    4. "Captain of the Village People" (17 June 1998) Athens, Serifos, Paros, Mykonos
    5. "Pyramid Schemers"(21 June 1998) Arrival in Cairo
    6. "Eight Moments"(28 June 1998) Luxor, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem
    7. "Rock and Riot"(2 July 1998) Masada, Jericho, Petra, Wadi Mousa
    8. "Letter of Letters"(10 July 1998) Oludeniz, Olympos, Antalya, Goreme
    9. "Turkey Lurkey Time"(24 July 1998) Istanbul, Black Sea coast
    10. "The Truth and Other Lies" (2 August 1998) London
    11. "Plaid to the Bone"(22 August 1998) Inverness, Drumnadrochit, Fort William, the Edinburgh festivals
    12. "Woody Allen's Hayseed Circus" (29 August 1998) The relations visit London and Paris
    13. "Cape Flats & Black Cats" (8 September 1998) London, Cape Town
    14. "Stap Vinnig Oor"(5 October 1998) Cape Town (the Crash)
    15. "Breaching"(24 October 1998) Cape Town
    16. "Six Months Now"(7 November 1998) Cape Town
    17. "The Hungry Gypsy Dog Tour" (6 December 1998) Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe
    18. "You'll Get Syphilis (& 3 Other Rules)" (20 January 1999) Cape Town, New York City, Key West, Fort Lauderdale
    19. "Escape Velocity" (14 February 1999) South African coast, Johannesburg, Mauritius
    20. "Masala" (28 February 1999) Bombay, Udaipur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jaipur, Agra, etc.
    21. "Dawn at the Taj" (4 March 1999) More India
    22. "The View from the Middle, Bottom & Top" (9 March 1999) New Delhi, Varanasi, Kathmandu
    23. "All About Everest " (26 March 1999) Trekking in the Nepali Himalaya
    24. "Cow, Opium, Genocide" (19 April 1999) Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia
    25. "The Mouth of Truth" (7 May 1999) Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia (Perhentians, rainforest, KL), Singapore
    26. "Hip as Heck" (26 May 1999) Hong Kong, Macau, Brisbane, Sydney
    27. "Blotto the Wonder Slut" (14 June 1999) Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Ayers Rock
    28. "Counting Days" (4 July 1999) Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, New Zealand, skydiving
    29. "On the Earth's Anus" (18 July 1999) Fiji, Cook Islands, Los Angeles
    30. "Exhibits" (16 September 1999) My World Tour: by the numbers and in lists


At this point, I was hired by Arthur Frommer.  These were written during trips I took for stories:
 

    1. "Tortoise Soup" (12 July 2000) Quito, Ecuador, and the Galápagos Islands
    2. "Sam Donaldson and the Horsey Heart" (5 August 2001) Australia: Sydney, Canberra, Darwin, the Stuart Highway
    3. "The Last Bit of Trust" (14 August 2001) Australia: Perth, Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road, Sydney
    4. "Ago" (18 September 2001) New York City, September 11, 2001


  May 23, 2003: Coming soon!  Stuff that appeared on Budget Travel at MSNBC.com, including dispatches from South Africa, Australia, and Croatia!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

    1. The Photos

A selection of prime shots from over 1,500 photographs have been scanned in for your amusement. Click on over to see thumbnails, which lead to larger descriptions. I'll have them arranged better as more are scanned in; I'm still waiting to upload Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. 

It's a camel! And me!

Other Links

This site is listed with other ongoing round-the-world travelogues on the spectacular rec.travel.library, which links to sites so smashing, you wonder when they had time to actually sightsee. Mine compares badly, which hopefully makes you think I have a life.

If this site turns you on, check out my personal hero, the mentorish Sean Connolly, whose The Great Out There was a great inspiration.
 

Contact Me!

I'm wired, baby, depending on where I am. E-mail me.

 E-mail: I used to have my address up here before spamming became a sport. Let's just say that you can figure it out from the URL.

 

All this stuff, and all the stuff on this web site, are property and © 1996,1997,1998,1999 P. Jason Cochran. All rights reserved. This work may not be sold for profit (not even a teeny one), nor may it be incorporated into any work without prior written permission from the author, P. Jason Cochran. Any unauthorized reproduction or dissemination is highly illegal and not very nice, and (on top of bad karma) is subject to a US$50,000 fee per item plus legal expenses. Don't say you weren't warned. The use and/or copying of this work (electronic or otherwise) or the preparation of derivative works based upon this work (and any work on this site) may be permitted, AS LONG AS AND ONLY IF the author is contacted for permission before using the material. You'll know that you have authorization because your name will be on it, and it will be signed by Jason, who, when it comes to theft, is short on a sense of humor but long on legal representation. Okay, tough talk's over. I love you.

You're one in a million, baby. (Since 12 January 2000)