You Go Home, Make More Money and Come Back is a non-fiction book that takes you to six continents and many diverse places and cultures. It covers a 35 year period from 1969 to 2004. It is about a man who develops an interest in geography in college. He lives a conventional life while having a dream of seeing the world. He travels by working and saving his money for vacation trips of a few days to a month long over a lifetime. The book tells of adventure on the Yangze River, an African photo safari, the outback of Australia, seeing the pyramids of Egypt, traveling solo by train through Europe, train travel in the USA and Canada, and more. It takes you around the world traveling alone with few advance reservations as well as going on organized group tours.

You Go Home Make More Money And Come Back

Whirlwind Trips 1969-2004By EDWIN M. WOODS

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2008 Edwin M. Woods
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-595-52765-6

Contents

Europe By Train.............................................1Pacific Rim.................................................19Around The World............................................35South America...............................................77Kenya.......................................................105Australia...................................................121China.......................................................131Central America.............................................157Jalisco.....................................................175Colonial Cities Of Mexico...................................181The Bahamas and Southern Florida............................209Alaska by Land..............................................215Alaska by Air...............................................223Alaska by Sea...............................................229USA Railpass................................................239North America Railpass (USA and Canada).....................271

Chapter One

Europe By Train

This was my first trip overseas. The year was 1969 and I was living and working in California. I had been experiencing indecision and was pondering whether or not I should continue with my stressful job. Ever since college, I had been dreaming of seeing the places that I had learned about; but I never had the opportunity to travel. I went to a travel agent and found that I could do Europe by train and we worked out some ideas about solo travel. I checked with my boss about the possibility of taking some leave time and he agreed. I had surgery on my left ear in March. In April I took vacation for a month long whirlwind trip in Europe and east coast USA.

April 15. I arrived on pins and needles at JFK airport in New York with minutes to spare to board the plane to Iceland. I had left Stockton three hours late, because the plane wouldn't start; and had to rearrange the five hour flight to New York from San Francisco on United Airlines. Now, I needed to find a bus at JFK to the overseas terminal. Icelandic Airlines' turbo-prop was scheduled to leave at 9:30 pm. I made it with only 15 minutes to spare, and then sat on the plane for another 1 1/2 hours while they worked on a problem. The plane is smaller, less roomy than a jet, and tends to vibrate a lot in the air. The food was good and they served cognac with it. The flight was eight hours to Keflavik, Iceland.

April 16. I arrived at 12:30 pm local time (8 hours ahead of Pacific) and after going through customs, took the 23 mile bus trip to Rekjavik where I checked into the Loftleidir Hotel. I thought I had made reservations but they had no record.

I took a sightseeing trip around Reykjavik. The city has one hundred thousand people, about half of the population of the country, and is the capitol. Most of the people seem to have blond hair and blue eyes and are racially the same. Generally, the buildings are two and three stories high but there are also several taller apartment and downtown buildings. Many of the structures are concrete construction and have corrugated galvanized metal roofs. The city is heated solely by steam from nearby geysers and underground hot springs. The steam is mixed with cooler water and pumped into the buildings. The island nation is 40,000 square miles in area, created by volcanism. Most of it is relatively barren, rocky ground with low-level growing plants and some mountain ranges. The warming effects of the Gulf Stream, coming from Florida and circling the Atlantic, reaches Iceland and they don't get a lot of snow. I stayed here 24 hours.

April 17. My trip continued with departure from the Keflavik airport at 11:00 am and the five hour flight over the Atlantic and northern tip of Scotland to Luxembourg. We had a rough landing due to a cross wind at the Luxembourg airport. The plane bounced three times on the tarmac, and when the captain saw he couldn't make it, he gunned the engines and took the plane up, and circled for a second try. It was successful and the passengers applauded.

It was six o'clock in the evening when we got into Luxembourg City. I had met a Japanese doctor on the plane at Iceland who was on his way to Bern, Switzerland, for a year-long research project. We had walked around for a couple of hours together in Rekjavik and now killed some time in Luxembourg City before going on to Basel on the 1:00 am train. Since I had no particular schedule to meet, I tagged along with him for a while; he seemed to know what he was doing and had given me some valuable tips to get me started. I had my 21 day 'Eurail Pass' validated at the Luxembourg railway station and had to be back here in three weeks to meet my return airplane. The pass allowed me to travel first class (or lower class) for 21 days of unlimited travel without having to make reservations, as long as room was available. The Eurail pass had to be purchased outside Europe.

April 18. The night train to Switzerland went, first, through the northeastern French towns of Metz, Strasbourg, Colmar, and Mulhouse before reaching Basel at 6:00 am. The Swiss town was already awake and we took the trolley to the Rhine River, which flows through the middle of town, and then walked back to the railway station.

At that point, the doctor went off to Bern and I took the train to Zurich. On that train, I met a young British man, about my age, who was in despair about continuing to live in Britain, and was contemplating a move to Switzerland. I don't know what the problem was exactly, other than he didn't like the 'class system' in England, and that good jobs were tough to get.

At Zurich, I was completely alone. This is the German speaking part of the country and I don't speak the language. Fortunately, I found that many Europeans speak English; if not, someone would point out another person who did. I walked around Zurich streets for a while until I became lost in the winding maze; then began to slowly work my way back to the central station on Hauptbahnhofstrasse. The tourist hotel reservation booth at the train station got me a room and I walked through an older section of town until I found it. I had slept pretty well that night since I had had only one night's rest out of three.

April 19. It was chilly and an inch of snow had fallen overnight. I departed from Zurich on the train to Innsbruck, Austria, via the scenic route around Lake Constance and through the Alps. Several skiers got off at a village in Austria, and headed for the slopes. I only stayed about three hours at Innsbruck. I walked a couple of blocks but I wasn't dressed for the cold weather. I had intended to head south into Italy from here, but I heard the Italian trains were on strike, so I caught the next train, north, to Munich, in Germany.

Traveling through part of the Austrian and German Alps, I arrived in Munich at 8:30 pm, so I had to find a hotel and something to eat. I had trouble with German menus all the way through. The long words in German, that they use to describe something, had me fooled for a while. I would point to the menu thinking I was getting a big meal and would find that I had ordered a wiener and French fries or turkey noodle soup.

April 20. I left Munich in the morning, heading for Cologne. I had to figure out how to pronounce the German name 'Koln' to get directions to the train car. From Cologne...