Nearly seven years ago we were on a flight to Shanghai.

Seated next to a courtly Chinese gentleman, alarm bells began to ring when he looked visibly concerned when we blithely told him we didn’t speak Chinese, and no, we hadn’t purchased a phrase book.

Our first Chinese experience involved shouting taxi drivers, and being shoved into a taxi on a dark Shanghai night. Coupled with luggage lost, we sat with tears in our eyes in our hotel room and agreed that we could always go home if things got worse!
Thankfully, we didn’t go home and since then have travelled extensively in China. We have also enjoyed stays in Russia, Mongolia and the Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. Laos, Vietnam, India and Myanmar (Burma) have been on the itinerary while South America has occupied the last two years or so.

We held the mythical “backpacker” as our ideal for several trips. You know – the person that always takes the bus, stays in the cheapest place possible (with rats and roaches) and cooks for themselves or eats in local dives where they re-use plates without even washing them.  They are the little bit eccentric individuals with the smallest, most faded backpacks, who have been everywhere, done the most adventurous things – and lived to tell the tale. But as alluring as the smell of an unwashed shirt (they would never pay anyone to do their laundry!), and as fascinating as they might be, we realised of late that the “mythical backpacker” doesn’t exist!

Not withstanding short breaks for family, Judy Svenson, now sixty, has been on and off the road since she was eighteen. Her passion for travel and keen interest in the world passed onto her children, Ariana and Bo, who had been around the world five times by the time they were entering their teens.

A photojournalist, Ariana writes while her mother negotiates with the locals as the two have made their way through a number of different countries.
  
Bo travelled with Judy & Arie in Colombia in ’04. He has done both East and West Trans Africa trips as the driver – and worked nearly a total of 4 years in the African continent.   As he said, “my family wouldn’t come to me… so I went to them in South America.” He is currently working for Budget Expeditions (a sister company to Toucan Travel) on a 4-month trip from Ecuador to Patagonia and back to Rio in time for Carnaval.

He is planning a trans Africa in December 2007 - a fantastic adventure. Check out his website here Safari Salama

“Home” is the pristine south coast of Western Australia near Walpole where the environment and supportive community make it an ideal place to recharge the batteries. To see photos of this region, check out this page Our Home or have a look at www.walpole.org

For further information our travel philosophies, please see our associated website

Ethics in tourism

Impacts of tourism

Responsible tourism

THE PARADOX OF OUR AGE

"We have bigger houses but smaller families;
more conveniences but less time;
We have more degrees, but less sense;
more knowledge, but less judgement;
more experts, but more problems;
more medicines, but less healthiness;
We've been all the way to the moon and back,
but we have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour.
We built more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever.
but have less communication.
We have become long on quantity, but short of quality.
These are times of fast foods, but slow digestion.
Tall man but short character.
Steep profits, but shallow relationships.
It's a time when there is much in the window, but nothing in the room."
-His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

Judy trekking in Kyrgyzstan Below: Arie and Judy in their finest clothes for a visit to the "TAJ"

Arie at Ngapali Beach, Myanmar.

Copyright Ariana Svenson, 2005 - Comments and enquiries, please email us.