We went to Mexico thinking we would just pass through the vast country on our way to Central America, but we ended up staying two months—thanks to the wonderfully welcoming and hospitable Mexicans and expatriates residing there.

Hospitality exchange works like a dream in Mexico. It proved to be a complete opposite to the United States where we could not find a single host. Particularly big cities in Mexico have an active network of members who both host and organise various weekly activities. Finding hosts was easy, and we enjoyed every second of our stay with them.

Traveling from Tijuana to Chetumal

During the two months, we crossed the whole country from Tijuana to Chetumal stopping in San Carlos (Guaymas), Guadalajara, Mexico City, Cancun, and Chetumal. Our route was chosen according to the people we visited.

Of these five places, the north became our favourite. We loved the mountains and cactuses, the dry warm weather in September-October, clear blue skies, and the Pacific. Everyone was warning us that North Mexico is very dangerous, but the only scary thing we saw was a few small scorpions walking on the floor and they won't sting anyone if they are not disturbed.

Mexico City was also a nice surprise for such a huge city. Even though it's busy, full of cars, chaotic, and polluted, it also has nice green areas and parks and beautiful old buildings, and the public transportation is awesome. With only three pesos (one dime, 0.15 €), you can get anywhere in the city and if you avoid the rush hours, there is place to sit and enjoy the ride.

Yucatan, of course, is lovely with the Caribbean sea although our timing wasn't the best one. We got there in the beginning of November which is still rainy season and we surely got our share of it. Yucatan, as probably also the whole of Mexico, is seemingly suffering from a loss of tourism. Because of the financial crises in the US and Europe, less and less people are entering the country. For example the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancun is situated, is broke.

Foodwise, all parts of Mexico are great. There are plenty of fresh and inexpensive vegetables and fruits available. Rice, beans and various hot chili sauces also abound. We loved our Mexican diet, eating avocados, rice, and grapefruits daily.

Luxurious Bus Travel

The first legs we travelled by bus, which we soon found out was the most expensive option to travel in Mexico. Mexican long-distance buses are luxurious. They have big seats, lots of leg room, movie screens, and sometimes even bus attendants who serve tea and coffee for customers. Naturally, all this adds to the costs making Mexican buses much more expensive than buses in the US.

We heard that there are also some less expensive chicken buses, but for foreigners, these are not easy to find as their bus stops, routes and schedules are not fixed. The cheapest buses we used were minibuses that operate between Cancun and Chetumal. By using them instead of big luxury buses, we saved some 65%.

Despite the high cost of bus travel, it was worth it in the north where the scenery was fabulous, but the closer we got to Mexico City, the flatter and less interesting it got and so we decided to continue onwards by plane.

Flying is twice cheaper than travelling by bus thanks to good promotions. We found, for example, a flight from Mexico City to Cancun with 1400 pesos for two persons, while the bus trip would have cost us 1600 pesos per person. And in Mexico City, the airport is conveniently situated within one of the metro lines, which makes it a perfect option for travellers.

Tourist Cards and Border Scams

Mexico is notoriously corrupted and travellers are not saved from that. When entering the country by land, tourists need to buy a tourist card allowing them to travel in the country for six months. When arriving by plane, the price of the card is included in the flight ticket. The card costs 25 USD and it is not based on reciprocity. For example Mexicans travelling to the Schengen area do not need to pay for any visas or tourists cards.

The tourist card is commonly used in Mexico as a means of corruption. When we exited the country from Chetumal to Belize, the border guards tried to scam us first by claiming that there is a departure tax in Mexico and when we didn't buy it, they claimed that we had not paid for our tourist card. Both were mere scam attempts. There is no departure tax in Mexico, and tourists only get an entry stamp to their passport after they have paid for their tourist card.

When we questioned the scam, the officials blamed us on disrespect and threatened us with deportation and the police. We were pretty worked up by the scam at that point and said we wouldn't mind at all as we would not like to return to a country where we are forced to support corruption and get extorted. That seemed to convince the officials of the fact that we were not going to change our minds and support their private pension funds. After sitting, waiting, and negotiating, they gave up and put the stamps to our passports—without any cash.

What we learned from this experience is that Mexicans, just like the Russians and the Chinese, have two faces. One is the official, rude and ruthless face, which you mostly see when dealing with government officials and people working in customer service, while the other, friendly face is reserved for personal contacts. Thanks to the hospitality exchange, the majority of Mexicans we met were extremely friendly, smiling and hospitable.

If you are interested in hospitality exchange, please visit www.bewelcome.org.

Being in Belize, for us, was like a short trip back to Jamaica. In both countries, English and patois are spoken, reggae is played everywhere, people are laid-back, many of them smoking marijuana, the Chinese run all the supermarkets, and the local street vendors have a hit-and-miss selection of fruits and vegetables.

We crossed almost the whole of Belize coming from Mexico and heading to Guatemala. Travelling was affordable using former US school buses, but slow. On our way from Mexican border to Placencia, the transmission broke down, and so we were waiting in the middle of nowhere for another bus to come for rescue. The whole trip, less than 300 km (200 miles), took over twelve hours.

Buses can be a hassle when travelling with big backpacks as one has to keep an eye on them. The bags are loaded either in a trunk or if there is none, at the back of the bus. The bus assistants offered our bag to one of the passengers who was hopping off but we noticed it and grabbed the bag. Whenever possible, it is a good idea to try and get a back seat to guard the luggage at all times but buses are often so full that this is not possible.

We stopped in Placencia which is a beautiful and peaceful beach village although very touristy with lots of guest houses and hotels, and in San Ignacio which is another peaceful village without beach, near the Guatemalan border.

What we enjoyed most, in addition to the chilled out atmosphere, was the fact that tap water is potable in cities. It was also nice to speak English, and unlike in Jamaica, all people speak English to foreigners instead of patois which is pretty incomprehensible.

Please note that while entering Belize doesn’t require buying a tourist card like in Mexico, there is an expensive departure tax of 20 USD/person when leaving the country. After having to pay that, it might be that the first visit will also be the last, unless you want to stay in the country for a long time. Visa extensions in Belize do not require exiting the country.

We had the pleasure to meet some of our old friends and make new ones on our way from Guatemala to Costa Rica by bus. Having now been in all Central American countries and in some of them a few times, we are ready to move on to explore some other continent.

Guatemala

Our Central-American leg began by visiting a dear old American friend and pet-sitting his cute little Pomeranian, Tongtong, in Guatemala City while he was having a holiday in the US. We had a great time with Tongtong, especially after she learned that going out means not only pissing right in front of the house but also actual walking in cool, crispy air (daytime 20 degrees Celsius, at night 13–15).

The house was in a gated community in a secure area where walking around was OK. The amount of guns visible in the streets, banks, and stores in the country reminded us of Kenya. It certainly didn’t give us a particularly relaxed image of the place, and one can only wonder what happens when an armed guard goes berserk and starts shooting randomly at other people.

Another conspicuous thing in Guatemala was that all supermarkets and stores gather detailed and personal information about every citizen's consumption. All Guatemalans are required to spend a certain amount of money monthly to support the local economy. This was the first time we stumbled upon such a system where people are not able to decide how to use their own money. Well, in some other countries they call it taxation.

Five countries in five days by bus

When leaving Guatemala, we travelled through El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and visited our friends in Masatepe on our way to Costa Rica. It was a pleasure to see how one of our pets, a kitten we looked after in Managua last spring, was doing. He had become a fine young tomcat who was seemingly enjoying life in the countryside catching various insects and animals and playing with dogs. We were proud of him and thankful for the new owners who had taken such a good care of him.

Crazy Border Crossing

Although the distances between Central-American countries are small, border crossings are time-consuming. On top of that, some of them also cost money. Honduras wants a couple of dollars from every foreign visitor, and Nicaragua asks for fifteen USD for entry plus one dollar for "communal tax," and when exiting, four + one dollars more.

At the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, we certainly picked up the wrong day for crossing. There were tens of thousands of Nicaraguan migrant workers returning to Costa Rica after holidays and the queues were a few kilometres long. We waited six hours under the scorching sun and that was not even the worst part of it. In the first attempt, Santeri got a brilliant idea: we decided to skip the useless Nicaraguan border formalities. However, the Costa Rican immigration made us go back to get the exit stamp and then re-queue back to Costa Rica. Obviously we were in need of some extra sun tan and exercise.

Finally, all the required stamps in our passports, we bought tickets to Deldu bus, which has the monopoly on the route between Penas Blancas (border) and San José. We were told that buses come and go as soon as they are full, but what they failed to mention was that there were one thousand other persons before us queueing to the same bus. Fortunately, after some complaining, we got our money back and we hopped on another bus going first to Liberia and changing buses there for San José.

Now we are enjoying the beautiful scenery and warm weather in Costa Rica. We also had the pleasure to host our hitch-hiker friend Tomi on his way to the football world cup in Brazil. It was awesome to finally meet him in flesh after so many years of exchanging emails.

The moral of this story: Never ever travel by land just before, during, and just after a holiday season. And even if you do, don’t listen to Santeri and his crazy ideas.

We returned to Costa Rica for yet another stint of work exchange in National Park Backpackers hostel.

Flying is not the only economic option for intercontinental travel. One can hitch-hike or volunteer to work on sail boats crossing the ocean, or take a cruise like we did when leaving from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Barcelona, Spain.

The total cost is higher than the list price

We are not sure if cruising is more ecological than flying, but at least repositioning cruises cost only a little bit more than flying and you get to spend two weeks in a luxurious stateroom and eat in buffets or à la carte restaurants instead of stuffing yourself to a cramped airplane seat for eight hours. The list price for a repositioning cruise is around US $400-600/person for the cheapest staterooms with the minimum of two persons in the room.

The rationale behind repositioning cruises is that ships circle the Caribbean during the winter and the Mediterranean during the summer. When the season changes, the ships need to be relocated and that's when the bargain list prices kick in. On top of the purchase price you have to pay about $75 of taxes. These are the obligatory costs. On top of that, the cruise company will require you to make about $1000 deposit either in cash or by registering your credit card in order to cover the services and other consumables with an extra charge. This deposit was returned to us after the cruise for we didn't use any paid services.

Cruise line will charge about $15 tips per person per day unless you adjust this automatic service charge when entering the ship. You can simply go to the front desk and tell the amount you are ready to pay, and sign a form. On top of that, drinking alcohol, or using spa, internet, and other paid services are likely to cost you an arm and a leg. In restaurants, $4-5 wine bottles can cost over $50, and a half an hour in a steam sauna $200.

All American dream food

The menu is designed to satisfy Americans. There is a lot of fat, sugar and meat available. Food is served four times a day: breakfast at 6:30-10am, lunch at 11:30-2pm, dinner a 5:30-8pm, and late night snack around 11pm. Ice cream and some grill foods are available all day long in the pool bar. In our ship, there was one buffet and one à la carte restaurant included in the price, and two other restaurants with an extra fee. All the menus looked pretty identical giving no reason for paying extra except for maybe showing off. The à la carte restaurant has both casual and formal dress code nights.

Finding foods that were not soiled with cream, butter and flesh was sometimes a bit challenging. We ended up eating mostly raw fruits and vegetables, toast or rolls, french fries, and beans. There were some pleasant surprises, too. Occasionally we found sun-dried tomatoes, hummus, raw mushrooms, artichokes, sorbet, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, raisins, dried apricots, plums, dates, figs, Italian cheeses, and very rarely some nuts.

You will not starve during the cruise if you are willing the take the few extra kilos for eating unhealthy, sugary and salty food. Following any strict diet makes eating a bit monotonous.

Entertaining yourself on the high seas

Experiencing the great seas for two weeks can be a relaxing or a boring experience. All you see is waves. If you get lucky, you can spot a whale coming up to breathe. We saw a killer whale and another whale we could not recognise. Other than that, the journey is about eating, socialising and having a good time. There are free DVD films for watching and also some onboard entertainment, but the latter mainly seems to appeal to the elderly passengers — e.g. bingo, card playing, guest lectures and cooking lessons. For staying fit and burning some calories, there is a gym, small swimming pools and a walking or jogging track. The ship offered internet connection via satellite for $50/hour temporarily curing our internet addiction. Telephone calls cost around $10 per minute.

We got a flu during the first days of our cruise and some co-passengers were suffering from sea sickness, but fortunately there was no diarrhea epidemic. There are hand sanitisers available everywhere in the ship and the personnel reminds people of hygiene.

The boat stopped a few times on the way for one day and they offered shore excursions costing $70-180. We took a walk ashore for free and looked for a free wifi to check our email. When purchasing alcohol from ashore, there are extra fees and all your belongings are scanned. Bringing, for example, a wine bottle to the ship was subject to $18 corkage fee. Another option is to let them confiscate the bottle and return it to you in the final destination.

Book a cruise?

A transatlantic cruise might be an option for you if you are not in a hurry, you are not an alcoholic or a gambling or internet addict, and you don't get easily bored. It costs a couple of hundred of dollars more than a flight, but provides an alternative means to trans-continental travel without jetlag and ridiculous luggage size and weight limitations.

There are various agents selling cruises and one website for competing prices. Agents might be useful if you want to have some free onboard credits to spend. Otherwise buying the cruise directly from the cruise line can be the safest and easiest option because everyone has about the same price and they have adequate online purchase systems whereas some agents require you to email them insecurely your credit card details. As a rule of thumb, the longer you wait, the better price you will get.

We stopped by to see friends and family in Finland in May-June. This was our third and also the longest visit (1,5 months) since our journey began in 2004. We had more time to observe and reflect changes that had taken place in the country.

The most glaring change in the last ten years was that Helsinki had become more international. We saw a bigger range of ethnicities than ever before which felt nice in the otherwise remote and isolated European capital. Prices had naturally risen a lot, as always, although there were some pleasant surprises as well. Lidl, and the increased competition between grocery chains, had brought some food prices down, and if you book train tickets months in advance, you can get decent promotions. The trains are super: brand new with WiFi. There are also some new affordable bus lines which we tried when crisscrossing the country from east to west and from south to (halfway) north.

The absolute highlight of our visit was, naturally, meeting our friends and family, some of whom we hadn’t seen for eight years or more. Thank you all, we will miss you! We also did some promotion for our newest nonfiction book Vapaana elämisen taito (The Art of Living Free, in Finnish only) for radio, TV and magazines. Some of the stories have already come out and the rest will be published by mid-September.

Our visit was far from boring, including the weather. We arrived before the first of May expecting +18 degrees Celcius (64F) but it was -2C (28F)and snowing! When walking from the airport to the railway station in Lappeenranta, we caught a cold. Not a big surprise really, coming from +37C (99F) in Costa Rica. Fortunately there were a few nice days with +27C (81F), but in Finland you never know about the weather. One day you’re fine with a T-shirt, but the next day you might have to wear a winter jacket and gloves. We had also forgotten that we are allergic to Northern vegetation so we had to rush to a pharmacy. The pharmacist was delighted when telling us that the pollen count was the worst for decades and it was very profitable time for them. The demand of antihistamines had skyrocketed.

Hope the rest of the “summer” will be nicer and warmer (or at least less snowy) dear Finnish friends. Thank you so much and see you!

In 2010, Päivi interviewed thirty global nomads, location-independent travellers who are wandering the world without a home, permanent job and the proximity of their friends and family. The project resulted in two nonfiction books (one in English and the other in Finnish), and a thesis on travelling lifestyle that Päivi defended in mid-June.

Päivi conducted the research in Tilburg University, Netherlands under the supervision of Prof. Greg Richards and Dr. ir Bertine Bargeman. The cooperation started when Päivi sent an email to Greg in 2011, and a couple of years later she met Greg and Bertine in Tilburg. The opportunity to work as an external PhD researcher was fantastic allowing us to continue our nomadic ramblings, both experiencing and analysing the phenomenon.

The research was formed around the question: ‘What are the factors that facilitate and constrain location-independence in the contemporary world?’ Although mobilities are encouraged in contemporary societies, the nomadic lifestyle is in many ways challenged. Global nomads question many of the norms and values of sedentary societies such as the security afforded by regular income and the safety nets of the welfare society. Global nomads also present societies with a set of new problems. By frequently crossing borders, they question important legal bases of nation-states such as citizenship, human rights and freedom of movement. Because of their alternative practices, global nomads offered the research a unique alternative environment. Through global nomads, Päivi was able to sketch what life could be like if it were less tied to particular territories, emotional and financial attachments.

The official release Päivi’s e-thesis is available at https://pure.uvt.nl/, and as a PDF with hyperlinks or mobi for ebook readers.

Santeri made the attached video of the defense, which was slightly more formal than Päivi’s earlier defense in Finland. There was a beadle, a master of ceremonies, who led the event, and the dean, opponents and supervisors were wearing festive gowns and hats. The defense was also shorter. In Finland, Päivi had two opponents and the questioning took four hours, while in the Netherlands there were four opponents and the event took precisely 45 minutes. When the beadle came in and stated: ‘Hora est’, the PhD committee withdrew from the big auditorium to make their assessment, and ten minutes later they returned with Päivi’s certificate.

In the Dutch defense, the PhD candidate may have two assistants (called paranymphs) but Päivi had none. The paranymphs are mainly for moral support as they are not familiar with the subject and therefore cannot help in answering questions. What was also interesting was that the dean, according to tradition, reminds the ‘young Doctor’ of her future responsibilities such as the requirement to be of service for society, which is, in fact, pretty exactly the opposite of the aim of the nomadic lifestyle.

Päivi is now preparing a postdoc study on location-independent lifestyles, this time through the perspective of work. The aim is to study emerging forms of telework and its implications for example for knowledge transfer and social inclusion.

Speech

Ladies and gentlemen,

the dissertation I’m defending today is about modern-day mobilities, viewed through the lens of location-independent travellers, the so called global nomads.

Mobilities have increased in recent years. International tourist arrivals reached a record high last year, over one billion. This makes travel and tourism an important industry, larger than, for instance, automotive manufacturing. Business travel creates new jobs and represents twenty per cent of the growth in global employment.

Mobilities are one the key dynamics of global change and they shape both societies and individuals. The more people migrate, travel and stay in other countries, the more old-fashioned such concepts as nation-state and citizenship become. Increased mobilities show that people do not naturally belong in one place only. Several places and cultures shape their lives, or—movement itself—as in the case of global nomads.

Global Nomads

Who are these global nomads I’ve been investigating? They have been wandering the world without a home, job and proximity of their friends and family for years. They are homeless, or—depending on your point of view—at home wherever they are.

Global nomads have made unusual choices in their lives. They have given up the safety nets of societies such as public health care, social security and insurance. Their lifestyle is a statement. They consciously try to detach themselves from their home countries and the constraints of societies in order to be freer. While societies are built with the intent of making things permanent and continuous, global nomads’ lives change as easily as the wind. By choosing to be homeless, they experiment with different forms of dwelling and being at home, and by rejecting regular income and work ethic based on the moral virtues of toil and diligence, they search for alternative ways of supporting themselves. They might use work exchange and hospitality exchange where no money changes hands.

The tensions between global nomads and societies become prominent in the ‘global nomad’ concept I chose for this research. The definition derives from cultural theorist Caren Kaplan (Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement, 1996) who says: ‘[a] nomad is a person who has the ability to track a path through a seemingly illogical space, without succumbing to nation-state and/or bourgeois organisation and mastery’. In other words, nomads are free agents who dodge familiar structures trying to find their own way through the labyrinths of societies. In this process, they not only participate in defining and redefining mobilities but also societies because these two are intertwined.

Trends

Although global nomads are marginal in terms of number, the trends their lifestyle represents are not. These trends include individualisation of cultures, the rise of diverse lifestyles, and increased mobilities.

In the contemporary society, people’s lives are not so much defined by social hierarchies and traditional authorities. Instead, we all face a diversity of lifestyles and we need to maintain a sense of continuity in terms of who we are and how we should live. Many people value more and more this independence which is also wise as the European welfare states seem to be collapsing under too many demands and obligations, and the lack of resources.

More and more people also want a healthier work-life balance doing voluntarily part-time work and downshifting rather than committing themselves to long working hours or mortgages that tie them down for decades. All these changes in the general mentality influence work ethics and consumption habits, and they become apparent in people’s growing interest in alternative lifestyles and the search for the meaning of life.

As global nomad represent these trends in an extreme form, they offer an interesting object for research. Thus, through global nomads, we can sketch what life could be like if we were less tied to particular territories, financial and emotional attachments, and what are the current obstacles to a freer existence, if this is attainable.

The Research

To date, location-independence remains under-explored. Studies have concentrated on more purposeful travels that have a clear beginning and an end. The nomadic travel style, aimless wandering, is not always approved or encouraged in societies. As global nomads do not necessarily return back, their travels do not result in a direct financial contribution to the home country in the form of increased talent or income.

To understand what global nomads’ travels are about, we need to delve into issues of power. Alternative life choices are never unproblematic from the point of view of the individuals themselves, people around them, or the wider society. They involve a strong agency that goes against dominant models of thinking. From this perspective, it is relevant to understand how other people and societies use power over global nomads and how global nomads themselves facilitate power.

In this thesis, I study questions of power with the theories of French philosopher Michel Foucault who has inspired critical theorists across disciplines. In this context, power is a positive and productive network that pervades the whole of society. It is not possessed by an elite but it fluctuates in all social relationships. Power is, therefore, highly mobile as is becoming for the theme of this research.

The questions that I seek to answer include ‘What is about the nomadic travel style that so captivates and disturbs the more sedentary people?’ and ‘What are the factors that facilitate and challenge location-independence in the contemporary world?’ My research material consists of interviews with thirty global nomads, who were scattered around the world from Alaska to Fiji at the time, enriched with limited participant observation and virtual ethnography.

The research results show that there are more constraints to mobilities than societies are perhaps willing to admit. We continue to live in the world of nation-states and citizenships in which many people’s identities are in contradiction with the societies they live in. The good news is, however, that when these constraints are acknowledged and there is enough political will, they can be removed.

I hope that my work sheds light on the status of mobilities, the emerging field of extreme mobilities, and hopefully inspires further studies. Thank you.

We hadn’t visited the tiny Central European countries of Luxembourg and Liechtenstein before. This time they were on our way from Brussels to Bavaria, Germany, so we ticked them off on our country list.

Luxembourg and Liechtenstein were both a pleasant surprise, and rather secluded either by geography (Liechtenstein which is surrounded by the Alps), or by their own language and culture (Luxembourg). The locals we met seemed content to spend the rest of their lives in the same place, and in Liechtenstein even moving from one village to another seemed to pose mental obstacles for many — after all, five kilometers is a drastic change. The people in the next village might speak a different dialect and have strange habits.

In Luxembourg, banking is the largest business. Those who are not employed by a bank are likely to work in the public sector. Wages are high but so are the living costs. Although Luxembourg is near to big agricultural producers like the Netherlands, food is expensive. Tomatoes, for instance, cost four Euro a kilo even though it was the season. Luxembourgians (why not Luxemburgers?) explained us that locals get suspicious if something is inexpensive; there has to be something wrong with it.

Luxembourgians are multilingual. They speak Luxembourgian which for us sounded very much like German. It is a spoken language only, and schools teach in German and in French. In Liechtenstein people speak their own German dialect which is close to Swiss German. Swiss francs are used as currency, and Liechtenstein is not even part of the European Union. Compared to Luxembourg with half a million inhabitants, Liechtenstein is a dwarf: only 36 000 inhabitants. When walking around, it is easy to spot which company brings most of the money in: Hilti. They make products for the construction, building maintenance, tools, and mining industries. If Luxembourg felt expensive to us, prices in Liechtenstein were outrageous. Our tomato index reached a record high, five Euro a kilo. Still it was nice to visit, and also a pleasure to leave for Germany.

We had earlier passed by Germany several times but never stopped. Somehow the country hadn't attracted us so much because we thought it would be pretty much like Finland. But we had heard many good things about the southern part of the country, Bavaria, and when we were offered a cat-sit there, we thought why not.

The cat, a 16-year-old grand old lady called Germaine, was a personality. Whenever she was not sleeping, she wanted a lot of attention and petting. If she didn't get enough, she revenged by shitting behind the couch or under the kitchen table. For some reason, she had never learned to cover her droppings. Instead, after peeing or pooping, she ran around like crazy letting us know that it was time to flush her toilet. We soon found a mutual understanding of our duties, and got along just fine.

The place where we were staying was at the foot of the Alps, just a few kilometres from the Austrian border. The village was small and beautiful, with picturesque houses and a lot of cows wearing cowbells. The Alps were awesome to look at and hike, but they made the local climate chilly and rainy. 95 % of the time it was grey, damp, and cold. We even made a fire a couple of times to keep us warm, in the middle of July! According to weather statistics, this was not an exceptional year. To give an idea of the amount of precipitation, it rained 50% less than in Costa Rica during the rainy season, but the showers were lighter and lasted much longer so that in the end it felt rainier than it actually was, but the perception is reality.

Groceries in Germany are very affordable, and there is a good variety of products. All the services usually work as expected, which is one of the upsides of being in North Europe. On the other hand, Germans tend to be very uptight, at least in the Catholic south. They love to remind each other, friends and strangers, about all kinds of rules and regulations. We were not an exception to the rule. Here are the most important words we learned pretty quickly: "Verboten" (forbidden), "Ausländer" (foreigner), "Nicht" (don't). Germans seemed to be happy with Santeri's reply: "Entschuldigung, ich bin dummkopf ausländer" (I'm not from Germany). In case you want to look and act like a local, pretend that you have eaten some shit for breakfast. That will guarantee the right facial posture and attitude. The German word best describing this sentiment is "angst".

Travelling in Germany by train is affordable using the so called "quer-durchs-land ticket" with which you can travel for one day beginning from 9 am with 44€ (+8€ for any additional passengers in your group) in all local trains in Germany. You can easily cross the country during that time, choosing any route you want. There are also regional tickets working in the same way. If you take a budget flight, avoid Dortmund airport. It is jam-packed and the guards are grumpy. We were not even allowed to sleep there because it looked like were "camping". Gute reise!

We crossed again the big pond by ship, this time from London, UK to Boston, US. Our ports of call included France, Ireland, Faroe Islands, and Iceland. They were a welcome change for Spanish cities which are usually the main stopping points on Transatlantic routes.

The landscape in Faroe Islands was just as barren as we had imagined but in a beautiful way. We were lucky with the weather as the sun was shining all day unlike in Reykjavik where our two days at shore were chilly and rainy. We were lazy and spent most of the time onboard enjoying the peace and quiet. There was plenty of space in spas and saunas as most of the cruisers were busy exploring the city.

We enjoyed being without internet for two weeks. although Santeri started to get some withdrawal symptoms at the end of the journey. Although internet is in many ways useful and entertaining, it is a also an intrusion.

Travelling by ship slows down everyday life as there is not much to do. The scenery doesn't change a lot, and there are limited activities available onboard, although this time we were travelling on a bigger ship and some of the entertainment—singers, magicians, comedians and dance groups—were actually pretty good. Päivi was busy visiting the gym, and we enjoyed the sumptuous meals although they were pretty challenging for vegans. Most of the diet on ships is based on meat, fat, and sugar and poisoned with salt.

Our previous cruise was with Holland America, and this time we tried out Royal Caribbean. Although most of the cruise lines and ships are pretty similar, we found some differences, mainly in the menu and the quality of the entertainment programme. The bigger the ship, the more variety and entertainment there is, but on the other hand, service is usually more personal and attentive in small ships. In most of the cases, you can't really go wrong whatever you choose. Happy cruising!

This short video shows how to prepare your backpack for a flight so that it doesn't get damaged. Flights are one of the most common reasons why backpacks break. We have been travelling 10 years in 80 countries, and this is how we have made our backpacks last the ordeal.

If you are looking for a durable backpack for world travel, we recommend checking out http://finn-savotta.fi/en/ first.

Here are some photos of our tenth wedding anniversary celebrations in Costa Rica. This year we were accompanied by a monkey, iguana lizard, butterfly, and a horse.

Win a luxury weekend in El Faro Beach Hotel in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. Participate in the link contest now!

Gane un lujoso fin de semana en El Faro Beach Hotel El Faro Beach Hotel en Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. ¡Participe en el concurso de links ahora!

The leakage appears to relate to the strict control of sexual behaviour in Malaysia. Oral and anal sex, for example, are forbidden according to the Malaysian penal code. They may result in a 20-year sentence of imprisonment and whipping:

377A. Carnal intercourse is against the order of nature — Any person who has a sexual connection with another person by the introduction of the penis into the anus or mouth of the other person is said to commit carnal intercourse against the order of nature.

377B. Committing carnal intercourse against the order of nature — Whoever voluntarily commits carnal intercourse against the order of nature shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to twenty years, and shall also be liable to whipping.

There are security cameras supervising these laws in most hotel rooms and even in many private homes producing a huge amount of surveillance footage including intimate sexual encounters.

Now some of these amateur internet porn films have leaked onto a commercial porn website. As an introductory offer they allow watching the first 10 video clips free of charge: http://tinyurl.com/best-malaysia-xxx-porn-videos.

The same principles apply to all freemium games. Instructions are based on experiences gathered during three years of intensive online gaming.

How to win more and gain admiration in the World of Tanks?

You need a thick wallet. There are others competing against you spending thousands of dollars every month, so make sure you are prepared and can afford to win.

• Have all of your crews 100% trained and use GOLD (see the explanations for game terms below) to achieve that
• Stock tanks are only good for losing and as cannon fodder. Fully upgrade your tanks before playing with them. You can gain experience easily by buying a premium tank and converting the experience it produces to free experience using GOLD.
• Don't play premium tanks for anything else but for creating free experience. They lose more than fully upgraded non-premium tanks with good crews.
• Play only tanks that can use GOLD ammunition and use only gold ammunition, it has better penetration and gives you better RNG.
• Buy a premium account and you will win significantly bigger portion of your games, in this case about 15%. Premium account offers you better MM and more favourable RNG.
• If any of your tanks get NERFed, quit playing them immediately. Nerf does not only change capabilities of a tank, but also hinders MM and RNG. You will get bad teams and will not hit anything causing you to lose more battles.
• Buy a permanent CAMO with GOLD to every tank you play. This should not have such a big effect, but it has.

These instructions do not include the idea of how to save money with freemium games as it is against the principles of freemium. If you want to save money, don't play. Freemium games are not for poor people unless they are masochistic and enjoy losing a lot. You are not a customer but the product until you start paying for the game.

RNG: Random Number Generator is used for calculating random numbers and it is supposed to be random, but in freemium games it is heavily biased in favour of those spending more money.

MM: Match Making selects your teams and influences what kind of games you will get. The principle is the same as in RNG: pay more to get a better match making.

GOLD: Players use real money to purchase GOLD which can only be used in the game for winning more.

NERF: Weakening some qualities of a tank in an update of the game.

CAMO: Camouflage is used for decreasing the tanks' visibility to enemies.

More about the Freemium Principle

South Park has an illustrative episode S18E06 Freemium Isn't Free about freemium gaming, which gives you an idea what this is all about. You can download it using bittorrent or watch an abridged clip from YouTube.

Disclaimer

There has been discussion about the pay to win nature of the World of Tanks suggesting that the game is more pay to save time than pay to win. That is not entirely true especially in the end game. By grinding everything from the scratch without using any money a player ends up having worse win rate leading to being accepted to an inferior clan that is losing more clan war battles than better clans.

We did not use any money for the games, and the instructions about the effects of paid services are based on experiences gained from using GOLD won in tournaments and receiving mission reward freebies. The instructions and other specifics apply only to the World of Tanks versions until 0.9.6. Anything can happen and everything can be changed in the future, if it makes the game maker more money.

In March we read that Indonesia will be offering a visa-free entry starting from April 1st. The new offer covered the following passports: China, Japan, South Korea, United States, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, Russia, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and South Africa. We took the bait.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya was hoping that visa-free travel would lure this year over a million tourists more to Indonesia. We are pretty convinced that many of those newly acquired tourists are not very likely to return to Indonesia after they learn — despite the promised visa-free entry — that they will be forced to pay 35 US dollars for a visa on arrival just like we had to do yesterday. In the immigration, we were told that the government has decided visa-free entry, but because immigration does not agree, everyone must pay for their visa-free entry.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Good luck Mr. Yahya and Indonesia.

We visited friends in Jakarta and had a crash course in Indonesian culture including traditional Indonesian dance, family life, traffic, and delicacies — basically everything you need to know about Indonesia. Jakarta had no tourist hassle like Bali, Gili Air and Lombok in 2005 except the good old Indonesian visa corruption. See below some photos and a film from the government's dance school where the pupils had their annual exams.