Copenhagen - Denmark
Jacob works as a Business Area Manager at KILROY. In common tounge this means that Jacob is responsible for developing the ISIC- and the Wunder Card brands in the Nordics.
Jacob travelled to Thailand and Australia in 1991. Back then Jacob worked part time at McDonald's and one of his colleagues had just returned from a trip to Thailand. Jacob and a friend decided to go for it and a couple of months later they were headed east.
There was no internet in 1991 so Jacob found a cheap ticket by monitoring the travel ads in the sunday newspapers. When he saw a good price he had to be fast. This meant waiting on the phone (back then you could wait for 2-3 hours) or going down to the travel agency early Monday morning to wait in line.
No internet also meant that it was hard to plan where to stay when you arrived in a new city. Jacob's friend from McDonalds gave him a business card and told him about Kao San Road in Bangkok and this was where he stayed the first nights. Later he followed advice from fellow travelers or let himself be shanghaied by locals when he arrived in a new city. Nothing was booked ahead.
Jacob really hated the first week in Bangkok. He thought the city was too big, dirty, polluted and it was terribly hot. After getting out of Bangkok and away from the crowds he started to enjoy travelling. When Jacob arrived in Australia he had already gotten used to the backpacking way of life and found Australia to be a great country.
In 1991 travellers wrote letters. Calling home was way to expensive for a traveler on a budget. Jacob says he wrote 2 or maximum 3 letters to his parents during his 4 months of backpacking. Friends and relatives could reach him using Poste Restante.
Poste Restante is a mail service that allows you to send mail to a person without an address. You send the mail to the main post office in a city together with the name of the person you are writing to. You can still use the poste restante system to send mail.
"In Australia I met a Finnish couple that was going to sail a catamaran back home to Finland. They needed an extra crew member and I decided to join.
Unfortunately the chemistry between me and the couple didn't work out and I had to leave the boat 3 weeks after I joined them. This is one of my best travel experiences because I was just going for it - not knowing what to expect. At the same time it was a downer to take the consequence of the bad chemistry between me and the couple.
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Estonia, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Turkey, Belgium, The Netherlands, England, Scotland, Italy, Spain, France, Thailand, Singapore, China, Mongolia, Australia, USA, Venezuela and the Caribbean.
"Bring as little as possible. I had a backpack AND two sports bags full of stuff. I remember that I ironed 4-5 shirts before I left. When I arrived in Sydney I decided to leave most of my stuff at a hostel. I never used my ironed shirts."