Namibia is absolutely on my list of places I want to visit.
Anton somewhere takes the almost perfect road trip through the country. During his travels, he stops by Etosha National Park and goes animal spotting by visiting several of the numerous watering holes.
You can get a similar experience by watching the 24 hour live webcam of a watering hole from Gondwana Namib Park. There really is quite an amazing amount of animals that come to the water. It’s especially interesting in mornings/evening to see the different kinds of animals that show up at different parts of the day.
First, at around 4am, they’d start fires to get breakfast going: bacon, johny cakes, and coffee. They often would milk the cows that they brought along, put the milk in a pale under the wagon, and the jostling would churn it into butter.
They had all kinds of other foods for their meals, including camas root and other items they found along the way.
I wasn’t alive in 1968 when this accident happened, but I do remember visiting the base during a summer open house when I was quite young (likely around 5-7). I remember seeing all the fighter and bomber planes – even waiting in line to take a ride on one of the planes (but the wait was so long we ended up not doing it).
If this broken arrow accident had resulted in a nuclear detonation, I likely wouldn’t be here today since my parents lived so close.
This gentleman in the village of Pyramiden was caught by surprise by a polar bear. He fired off a round from his rifle at the bear, but it still charged him. The man fled on foot until he got onto a snowmobile and just barely escaped (no pun intended).
It was a bold strategy since polar bear can run up to 25 MPH.
There are two ways to do this. One is to take many different boats during the year. The other is to buy a full-time residence.
The cheaper option is to hop between the cheapest cruise lines. In his video, he finds several people using several different methods.
Mario sticks to the cheap Caribbean cruises for 80% of the year and does not spending extra for port fees, excursions, drinks/food packages, etc. He targets about $200/day for cabin costs. With extras, Mario lives very frugally for a full year on the cruise ships on about $72,000-$100,000/year. Mama Lee also does this at about $175,000 for her more upscale life. Beatrice Meuler lived in an interior cabin on the QE2 for about $80,000. These match his investigation of a 9 month Royal Caribbean cruise that would cost about $112,000 for a balcony cabin with drinks, wifi, laundry, and a few excursions – but requires to be paid PER PERSON for a double occupancy.
Permanent residence on a single boat costs much more. Cabins on The World residences cost millions to buy, and annual fees often run around $113,000 (studio) to $1M (3 bedroom)/year depending on size of residence you buy. Storylines has studios start at $350,000 with $55,000/year maintenance costs – up to millions for the penthouses (along with up to a million a year in maintenance fees!)
Even if the costs work for you, there’s still other considerations.
Crew and ships are not set up for aging customers. They expect passengers to be in shape/able-bodied. They aren’t set up like a retirement care facility if you’re not able bodied. This is not a retirement community.
Medical facilities are not set up for dealing with serious or ongoing medical conditions. There is NO dental care. No medicine/pharmacy – that must all be done at ports. Getting medical coverage that covers all the places you are going is expensive.
You still need to claim and have a home country/residency for banking, retirement accounts, taxes, etc.
Surprisingly, loneliness and boredom are quite common. Many long-time residents stop going into the port cities because they’ve been there so many times. The same entertainment shows are done day after day – often for years. The constant changing passengers and so few people living long-term on ships means building any longer-term/meaningful relationships is very hard.
You’ll still need to leave the ships and stay mobile. Ships go into drydock, covid shut cruising down for YEARS, and other situations mean you have to leave the ship for short and extended periods of time.
Unless you buy a residence, you have to be booking dozens of cruises per year and working out all the details/fees. Economic conditions can change quickly (like COVID) and completely ruin plans/budgets.
While it’s not really my thing, TipsForTravellers has a youtube channel about taking cruises – from classic Caribbean cruises to those European riverboard cruises.
I did find this video on Antarctica cruises to be interesting and they shared a lot of information I had never heard:
The cruise line practically never does the itinerary stated. It’s a suggestion and depends on weather and sea conditions. You may start from different ports, skip whole sections, etc. It can sometimes open surprise bonus locations, but if weather is bad on a location landing day you won’t get to land.
You need to check the month you’re going if you want to see certain things. Snow is only early in the season. Animals migrate different months.
If a crew member or passenger gets injured or seriously ill, the ship will immediately return to port. No refunds.
Mandatory regulations can stop visits. If there is a illness breakout at an animal colony you may not be able to land. During covid, you couldn’t visit research stations. There are lots of mandatory briefings you must attend and you must do lots of bio-risk screens on all your equipment.
The expedition leader calls the shots with captain. Experienced leaders get you better experiences.
Size matters. Many places limit the number of visitors per day. Don’t pick a ship with more than 200 people since many places won’t allow bigger ships to land. Bigger ships of like 400 only do scenic cruising and don’t come ashore.
Nonbiri walker has a number of amazing videos walking around different places in Japan. Here’s one of Takayama. I stayed here in a traditional Ryokan in the early spring one year. It looks much more amazing in winter.
I have started watching more and more of these kinds of quiet virtual visits to many places around the world during covid when travel was pretty much off the table. I especially love these ones without influencer chatter. You experience it just as if you were there yourself…
In real life, the scariest things are not ghosts or ghouls – it’s running into other people alone and in a place where there is no help or law. The most horrible things can happen.
This urban explorer runs across a homeless guy in the depths of an abandoned factory at 22:00. To say he is extraordinarily lucky nothing happened is an understatement. When working with homeless, it is vitally important to understand that many suffer from serious mental health issues, could be on reality distorting drugs, and are so often assaulted that many have learned to aggressively defend themselves/attack others if someone approaches them at night. In this case, he simply backs off and leaves without incident.
Even more frightening is what he didn’t see at the time. Homeless often spend nights in groups as a safety measure. If you encounter one person, you may have just walked into a group of folks in the area. As it turns out, later in the video after he did analysis, at least one other person is seen behind a pillar he didn’t even notice and walked within 10 feet of them.
He could have very easily been robbed, assaulted, or killed. It’s a reminder that the dangers of an abandoned location are not just the mold, asbestos, toxic chemicals, and structural hazards – people can be some of the worst dangers.
Norwegian Xplorer has some great videos of driving around the extreme portions of Norway in winter. In this video, he travels through a polar vortex storm as he drives between Vadso and the extreme northeastern city of Vardø. He braves closed roads along the artic ocean. It’s pretty amazing.