I've been putting off writing this post, and now I figure I'm ready to do it. My trip is over. I arrived home on Saturday night after a day of hiking in Banff with a girl I met in Hawaii, who lives in Calgary. We had beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and a great end to my trip. Prior to that I had been hanging with my good friend Dustin in Revelstoke for a week, hanging out with him and his family, and helping him out a little with his auto detailing business. I learned a little about auto detailing from him, and might even try to do it on the side next summer.
I made the right choice going back to Alaska and finishing my trip. Driving in a car solo is much different than backpacking; I definitely met a lot fewer people. The first week up to the Yukon was pretty lonely, I never really ran into people my age, mostly retired RV people. It was great to reconnect with my friends, Terry and Jessica, in Whitehorse, and definitely made some new friends there. The drive up to the Arctic Ocean, hiking in Denali, and the boat tour in Seward were the highlights for me, and I have some amazing pictures from all of them. The amount of wildlife I saw blew my mind! Grizzly bears, black bears, moose, a wolf, bald eagles, humpback whales, orcas, dall porpoises, dall sheep, stellar sea lions, and harbour seals made this trip the most animal plentiful trip I've ever taken. I apologize if my writing has been mediocre on this one, it was really hard to make it interesting when I'm really doing the same thing over and over. I can describe to you how the mountains look or what animals I saw, but what I was mostly doing was repetitive: camping in the mountains. This trip also gave me exactly what I needed after Australia: my mountain fix.
The number one question I get about my trip is what country was my favourite? My answer is always between three: Nepal, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. All were amazing for different reasons. Nepal had the diverse scenery, jungle lowlands to the nearly nine thousand foot peaks of the Himalayas. The country is literally crumbling, but the people are so friendly and the culture so strong. Never have I been anywhere as interesting as Nepal. The Philippines was a true backpacker country, like something you hear the old hippies talk about the way it was in their day. You can easily get off the beaten track and to amazing beaches, and the people there are some of the friendliest and most hospitable I have ever met. Papua New Guinea was pure adventure; any adventurous traveller should make a pilgrimage there. The country is completely untouched: the reefs are pristine, the jungle unmolested, and the culture unlike anywhere I have seen. The people there can be some of the friendliest people around, but can also be incredibly violent and should not be crossed.
After nearly two years away from home, I'm ready to be back, and feeling good about it. I'm looking forward to expanding my career path and hopefully learning a new skill. I also have plans to develop my photography hobby and hopefully make some money off all these pictures I've snapped on my trip. Also, I was ecstatic to discover the pictures I took from New Britain and New Ireland in PNG are backed up on cd's here, so I'll be working hard to edit and upload those with the thousands of others I still have to go through.
So for the next year I'll be in travel limbo, and you'll be going through Kyle withdrawls. I doubt I'll make it on a trip between now and next summer, but if I do, be sure I'll make a post. The idea is to apply for a scholarship to Indonesia next summer, where I'll get paid to study and live in a tropical paradise, one that I really wanted to visit but wasn't able to. I'll keep posting the odd post on travel tips and whatnot, but the bread and butter of this blog is on hold for now. Thanks for following me on my adventures, and I look forward to entertaining you all next year!
Kyle Werstiuk
I made the right choice going back to Alaska and finishing my trip. Driving in a car solo is much different than backpacking; I definitely met a lot fewer people. The first week up to the Yukon was pretty lonely, I never really ran into people my age, mostly retired RV people. It was great to reconnect with my friends, Terry and Jessica, in Whitehorse, and definitely made some new friends there. The drive up to the Arctic Ocean, hiking in Denali, and the boat tour in Seward were the highlights for me, and I have some amazing pictures from all of them. The amount of wildlife I saw blew my mind! Grizzly bears, black bears, moose, a wolf, bald eagles, humpback whales, orcas, dall porpoises, dall sheep, stellar sea lions, and harbour seals made this trip the most animal plentiful trip I've ever taken. I apologize if my writing has been mediocre on this one, it was really hard to make it interesting when I'm really doing the same thing over and over. I can describe to you how the mountains look or what animals I saw, but what I was mostly doing was repetitive: camping in the mountains. This trip also gave me exactly what I needed after Australia: my mountain fix.
The number one question I get about my trip is what country was my favourite? My answer is always between three: Nepal, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. All were amazing for different reasons. Nepal had the diverse scenery, jungle lowlands to the nearly nine thousand foot peaks of the Himalayas. The country is literally crumbling, but the people are so friendly and the culture so strong. Never have I been anywhere as interesting as Nepal. The Philippines was a true backpacker country, like something you hear the old hippies talk about the way it was in their day. You can easily get off the beaten track and to amazing beaches, and the people there are some of the friendliest and most hospitable I have ever met. Papua New Guinea was pure adventure; any adventurous traveller should make a pilgrimage there. The country is completely untouched: the reefs are pristine, the jungle unmolested, and the culture unlike anywhere I have seen. The people there can be some of the friendliest people around, but can also be incredibly violent and should not be crossed.
After nearly two years away from home, I'm ready to be back, and feeling good about it. I'm looking forward to expanding my career path and hopefully learning a new skill. I also have plans to develop my photography hobby and hopefully make some money off all these pictures I've snapped on my trip. Also, I was ecstatic to discover the pictures I took from New Britain and New Ireland in PNG are backed up on cd's here, so I'll be working hard to edit and upload those with the thousands of others I still have to go through.
So for the next year I'll be in travel limbo, and you'll be going through Kyle withdrawls. I doubt I'll make it on a trip between now and next summer, but if I do, be sure I'll make a post. The idea is to apply for a scholarship to Indonesia next summer, where I'll get paid to study and live in a tropical paradise, one that I really wanted to visit but wasn't able to. I'll keep posting the odd post on travel tips and whatnot, but the bread and butter of this blog is on hold for now. Thanks for following me on my adventures, and I look forward to entertaining you all next year!
Kyle Werstiuk
THANK YOU for the incredible journey that you shared over the past 2 years. I have learned a lot, laughed a lot, and even cried a few times. I am so proud to call you family and wish you all the best in your career choices and further adventures. I will truly miss this blog but know it is only temporarily out of service as I trust you will be back on the road before long. Looking forward to viewing those thousands of pictures and hearing all your stories that go with them.
ReplyDeleteWELCOME HOME KYLE