A Fabulous Lecture for Traveling Design Students

A transcript with notes of our RISD lecture on May 02, 2007 at 6:00PM in the Mason Building. Download our Power Point presentation.

Prep - Goal
-To research international sustainable design, different ways of living, and different ways of making.
-Motivation before and during
A goal keeps you going through the whole trip. It takes a lot of planing to do this, and your goal will keep you focused on getting throught the nitty gritty. Also while you're away you may feel lost or aimless at somepoint, this is a great time to review your goal and clear out any doubts or depresssion you may be facing.

Prep - Contacts
-Talk to people who have been there
-Make connections with people who are there
-Talk to professors
-Contact people in advance
When you first arrive in a new country it's great to know where you're going to be staying, especially if you know people in the area, so if you have any contacts try to plan around them if you can.

Prep - Support
-Plan in advance
-Get a grant writer
-Study part time, work part time
-Go either way
Ask organizations for support
If you decide to write a grant proposal your self, utilize the writing center during the entire process, not just for the final draft. There are people there that are more expereinced with grant proposals and will help you develope the porposal appropratly.
http://intranet.risd.edu/departments/default.asp?department=Writing_Center

Prep - Tickets
-Shop around
-Round the World
-We do not recommend STA
-Leave wiggle room
-Get travel insurance
-Get an international student discount card
While we never needed out insurance, some countries like India won't officially let you in without it. Our student discount card paid for itself in transportation costs alone, the admissions discounts were like a bonus. But remember if you;re going to a country like India you're not going to get a discount on anything. Try to get tickets that our refundable, when you're planing flights so far in advance it is probable that you'll change your mind or the world will intervene somehow before your travels are over.

Prep - Health
-Bring prescriptions and over the counter medicine with you
-Antibiotics, Nausea, Diarrhea, Fever, Malaria
-Get all vaccinations before
Medicines that we recommend: Antibiotics(more than 3 days supply), Imodium, Nausea, Fever, and Electrolyte mixture (the home brew is a teaspoon of lemon or lime juice, a pinch of salt and 2 teaspoons of sugar to a liter of water. The mixture should taste slightly salty, sweet and sour. Only sip the mixture.)
Make sure the doctor explains when to take what.
ASK QUESTIONS!!
For Example: How long do I take the Anibiotics for? What should I do if I get sick again? In what situation do I take each medicine? When do I call the doctor or go to the hospital?
http://www.passporthealthusa.com/

Prep - Moral Support
-Bring a friend
-Ignore those who doubt you
-Get a guide book
-Watch some local films
-Make it a big deal
While it is quite possible to travel alone having a friend makes all the logistics easier. It also saves a lot of money to travel with someone; double rooms are only marginally more than singles. Having a friend can make you less likely to talk to locals though and rely on strangers less, so know your style. And seriously ignore people who say you can't do this, what they are really saying is they cant do it.

During - Keeping in touch
-Keep a blog
-Keep a journal
-Email
-Post Restaunte
-No cell phone
Keeping a blog is a great way for people to keep up with what your doing, and if you're emailing you'll need to find computers anyway. Be warned, however, writing a good entry can take an hour, and putting photos can be challenging in some places. Many big cities have Post Restaunte facilities at their GPO, so if you need anything mailed to you, check it out.

During - Make friends
-Work exchange
-Culture exchange
-Volunteering
-Take breaks
http://www.helpx.net/index.asp
http://www.wwoof.com.au/
If you're traveling at all you've got to get to know the locals, so it really helps to spend some time in each place you visit, at least a week. Volunteering or doing a work exchange / homestay is a great way to get to know people and give you some insights to the local culture, but don't string all these experiences back to back. Give yourself a weekend here or there to relax.

During - Transportation
-Book in advance
-Ask locals
-Don’t stress out
-Expensive
-Consider getting a vehicle
Tickets, be it plane, bus, or subway, were by far our greatest expense. Buying early certainly saves money and peace of mind, but is not always possible. If you're going to be in one place for a long time consider getting a car, motorbike or bicycle, in the long run these can save you heaps on public transit. Having a vehicle is also nice if you're doing work exchange so you can get away during your off time.

After
-Have something lined up
-Summer job
-Residency
-A place to think
It's quite overwhelming to come back from a trip like this, so having something lined up when you return is very calming, and searching for work / whatever right away is the last thing you want to do.

Reasons for Traveling
-You’re not tied down
-Experience other cultures
-Experience other ways of life
-See variations on what you do
-Don’t get stuck
Getting stuck is tricky. You don't want to get stuck permanently in one of the countries you visit, we almost got stuck in Japan. But you also don't want to get stuck your home country either. Keep traveling!

Traveling Resources

Visa
http://projectvisa.com/

Australia
Art/Design
http://www.windgrove.com/ee/index.php
http://www.marcustatton.com/

Environment/sustainability
http://www.wildmountains.org/
http://www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au

Japan
Art/Design
http://www.kohseki.com/
http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/eng/index.html (RISD has an exchange program with this Art school)
http://www.takumijuku.com/english/index.htm (Traditional Japanese woodworking school)
http://w3.kcua.ac.jp/ (Art/design school)

Cultural Exchange/volunteering
http://www.kcif.or.jp/en/benri/01_01.html (Kyoto, Japan)

Language exchange/volunteering
http://www.klexon.net/

Japanese Language study
AJALT Japanese for busy People
Pimsleur Language Tapes
Rosetta Stone Language Software

India
Volunteering
http://sambhali-trust.org/ (Jodhpur, India)

Art/Design
http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/LeCorbusierChandigarh.htm (Chandigarh, India)

Meditation Retreat
http://www.tushita.info/
http://www.dhamma.org/

Sites related to Bhuddism
http://www.buddhanet.net/
http://www.dalailama.com/
http://www.fpmt.org/

To print, click the "Traveling Resources" title, which will open this post by itself, and then select print from your file menu.

Traveling with a cellphone

Overall I am not sure having an international cellphone is worth it. It is very expensive, and can create more headaches than it fixes, but that could be related to the places I've traveled to. The big up front cost is the unlocked quadband GSM phone, and no matter how tricked out it is, it still won't work in Japan. Then to use the phone you need a sim card. I got a mix of international and local sim cards. The first two I got were Mobal International and Australia Telecom Revolution Prepaid, and later purchased an Indian Airtel Prepaid one in coutry as they are not sold overseas due to the lengthily forms involved.

The Mobal card, which is based in Britain, worked fine in New Zealand, but is very expensive, usually $4/min for international calls and $2/min for local calls. It's redeeming quality is that it works in over 140 countries, so this was my emergency back up card. Unfortunately my service cut out somewhere between Australia and Japan, so when I got to India and tried to call home to say I arrived safely I got no dice. So much for emergencies - I do not recommend Mobal in anyway.

Our Ausi card worked great in the cities but was also expensive. Though not nearly as much as Mobal, we still managed to blow over $100 on minutes. The biggest problem was that we were only in cities for two weeks of the three months we spent in Australia, place a day here and there between wwoof hosts. Most of the time we were so far out in the bush you needed some other kind of non-gsm phone to get reception - to bad for us. So I'd only recommend this if you were planning on staying in town.

The Airtel card is very complicated, but the rates are ok and receiving international calls is free. You need copies of your passport, visa, proof of address, local address, and passport photo just to buy the thing. Then you have to pray the person you bought the sim card from gets all the papers to Airtel's HQ. I'm afraid I wasn't praying enough and after a week of use my service cut out and I got a sms saying I needed to send in my visa form. I couldn't even use the phone to call customer support, and when I called from a payphone they didn't speak English. I went to an Airtel office and they gave me all the forms to fill out again, which I did, only I didn't have another passport photo. I tried to explain that I already filled out the forms in Jaipur but again a lack of English interfered. I couldn't even get them to tell me where I could get a passport photo taken, so I left. If you need an Indian Sim card try Reliance or Hutch, but god help you if you try Airtel.

I remind the traveler now that payphones still exist for local calls everywhere, and it is much less expensive to email home and friends than call. If you getting the phone just for emergencies don't be surprised if when the emergency comes your phone doesn't work. The best options maybe to ask you current cellphone provider if they have international options so you don't need to get a new phone and sim card, or go for a satellite phone.

STA Travel, in review

It is hard for me to review STA as it is the only travel agency we have used for this whole trip, and I is difficult for me to find good things to say about them. While they claim to be an international company, this is only partially true. There are STA's all over the world, but the offices do not cross international borders, so STA Japan has little to do with STA USA other than sharing a name and catering to students. This creates problems when you're trying to check flight prices and make bookings, as the STA Japan will have very different results from the STA USA for the same search. Also, if you have credit from, say refunding a ticket, at a STA USA, you can not use said credit for purchases made through STA Australia. Speaking of refunds, they really fall short here. As part of their insurance policy you can refund tickets for a $100 fee and they will either credit your account or write you a check. When we refunded our Thailand ticket we opted for checks (since we were leaving the states and couldn't use our USA credit in Australia.) They say it takes 4 weeks to process, numerous emails and 12 weeks later there was still nothing. Now, when we first bought our tickets in providence they gave us an 800 number, an international number, and said if we were in trouble we could call them collect anytime. That, we discovered, was a flat out lie. You can't call them collect at all and you can expect to be on hold for 30 minutes if you make a pay call. This can be quite costly when you're overseas, so we had to have some one in the states make calls for us to finally get out checks. For the most part the staff we have talked to in person try to be as helpful as they can, however, I can not recommend the STA LA branch at all. The woman there was rude, unhelpful, and refused to sell us a ticket to Japan, so we had to go to STA UCLA where they would sell us the same ticket. I still don't really understand what happened. A problem we've recently encountered is changing the dates of our flights. As a rule, STA will change dates given at least two weeks before scheduled flight for $25.00 plus and difference in airfare. Fine. We've recently tried to bump up our return tickets and they told us continental has their own flight change fee in Rupees, which makes the total cost of changing the tickets more expensive than living in India for the ten days we were trying to miss. It is upsetting they never mentioned the airline's fees from the beginning and makes me wonder why go through the travel agency at all when it may be less expensive to speak directly with the airline? The one useful thing we've gotten out of STA so far has been the international student discount card, and while it is not accepted everywhere that offers student discounts, it has more than paid for itself on savings in transportation alone, not to mention admission fees. However, I think you can these cards at many travel agencies, and not just STAs.

I hope this information is helpful to anyone who may be trying to plan a trip of their own for the first time. Like I said, I don't have anything to compare STA with, but I would not recomend them, and do not plan to go through them again in the future.

The Travel Insider

I was back on this site today trying to check if our camera—ipod plan was better than the laptop plan when I realized the site would be a great resource to anyone else planning on a little travel. Earlier in planning this trip I found the articles on international cell phones, though dated at this point, very helpful, especially the what-option-is-best-for-you calculator.