From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, for my annual vacations, I went, at least once a year, on what were known as “18 to 30 holidays”. These were, and probably still are, holidays where fifteen or so complete strangers in their late teens and twenties pile into a mini-bus driven by an experienced employee of whatever travel company has organized the trip, to travel together around, usually, Europe.
Fourteen days later, after crossing back across the channel at, usually, Dover, the fifteen co-passengers disperse either the best of friends or worst of enemies. I usually remained friends with most of my fellow travelers. I stayed long-term friends with several of them and at least one of the drivers.
My first trip, which I took during the summer after my first year working in Glasgow, went down through France and Spain before crossing to Morocco, where we visited Marrakesh and Rabat. We returned through Gibraltar, Spain, and France. Every night, we slept in tents erected on camping grounds with eating and drinking facilities, emphasizing the latter.
I quickly learned that it was important for me to get quickly accepted by the group so that my disabilities would be ignored. To achieve that, I adopted the following two main strategies from my very first trip to the last:
- When loading the mini-bus roof rack in the morning or unloading it in the evening, I made sure that I was the one who climbed, albeit with some difficulty, onto the roof to receive and store the cases and rolled-up tents. I was too small to be able to hand items up to somebody else on the roof, and so to be seen to be a “useful” member of the “team”, I made sure that I was where I could contribute the most.
- There was always a joint cash float to pay campground fees and the occasional toll fee etc. Remember that I went on these trips before the advent of the Euro, so the common float had to be continually changed from currency to currency. Quoting my accounting background, I would always volunteer to be in charge of this float. Therefore, I gained a lot of respect when everybody realized I could perform this daunting task effectively.
I can’t remember all the details of all my trips over that period of ten-plus years, but I will set out the highlights below:
- My second trip to Morocco was over the Christmas and New Year period, after the first term of my university year. It was memorable for two distinct reasons. While in Marrakesh, my passport was stolen from my jacket pocket, which taught me a lesson I never forgot. I had to leave the group and go alone by train to Rabat, where the British Embassy was. There, I got special papers allowing me to return home. After getting the necessary papers, I spent a couple of days on my own before I met up with the rest of the group after they arrived by road.
Coincidentally, I rejoined the group on the 30th of December. It was a very cosmopolitan group. There were members from all over the world. From New Zealand to California. To celebrate the New Year, I calculated what time everybody’s New Year was back home. We had New Year drinks starting late in the morning of the 31st to celebrate the New Year in New Zealand, and a few of us were still up mid-morning on the 1st of January to celebrate when the New Year arrived in California. Returning to my lost passport, it arrived in an envelope without a stamp at the embassy in Rabat two years later. It had never been used. It was eventually returned to me, although, by then, it had expired.
- On two occasions, I went down probably the most dangerous road in Europe, the road that was/is the road down what used to be Yugoslavia en route to Greece. I was very interested in the Acropolis and, on several occasions, I clambered over the remains on each visit. On the first trip, we carried on through Turkey to Istanbul. On the second trip, my fellow travelers and I took to sea. We spent a week boating around the Greek islands, an extremely relaxing experience. On both trips, on the return journey, we took the ferry across to Southern Italy and visited Rome, Florence, and Venice on the way back to Britain.
- On another trip, I circumnavigated the Baltic by going up through the Scandinavian countries before crossing from Finland into Russia. It was the time of the Cold War, and border crossings into and out of Russia were tense. We visited Leningrad before traveling on to Moscow. On one occasion between Leningrad and Moscow, the driver accidentally went the wrong way. Before we had traveled half a mile down the wrong road, we were stopped by a police car who pointed out our error and escorted us onto the right road. So, we were being watched wherever we went. In Moscow, we saw Lenin’s body lying in state, which was weird. After about five days, it was with a huge sigh of relief that we crossed the border into Poland. Of all the borders I have ever crossed, the atmospheric difference between Russia and Poland was the most distinct I have ever experienced.
- When I was a little older, towards my upper twenties, I flew to California and had probably the most active day in my life in San Francisco, where I visited Alcatraz and many other tourist sites, The following day I flew to Los Angeles after paying more for the taxi to the airport than I did for the flight. I met up with a new group, and over the next four weeks, we drove across the States to New York. We visited far too many places to list here. The highlights were L.A. itself, Disneyland, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, San Antonio, Texas, a three-hour excursion into Mexico, where I beat a Mexican at pool in a grubby bar, New Orleans, Washington D.C., and New York. When in New York, I stood on the roof of one of the World Trade Center towers, never dreaming that I was standing where the history of the world would be changed some 30 years later. I also climbed the Statue of Liberty, attended a Yankees baseball game, and sat at the back of Madison Square Gardens to watch Mohammad Ali’s fifth last fight. He struggled to beat Earnie Shavers on points. Before the fight, I bought a program for $2, and 30 years later, I sold it on Ebay for $350.
- My last trip before I started to travel seriously for work was not with a holiday company but with fellow members of a post-graduate club in London. A group of us got together and organized a joint trip. The trip was to Afghanistan, India, and Nepal. The number one highlight was visiting The Taj Mahal, which must be the most remarkable man-made sight in the world, on a par with The Great Wall Of China, and The Grand Palace in Bangkok, but seeing millions of people “cleansing” themselves in the filthy Ganges river, together with experiencing the magical city of Kathmandu were also major highlights.
So, how can I relate my traveling adventures as a young, slightly disabled adult, to the adventures of a budding affiliate marketer? The answer that I have come up with is the determination and self-confidence I had to rely on to overcome several unexpected serious situations that I was faced with while traveling, compared to the similar qualities that budding marketers must show to be able to overcome all of the unexpected serious situations which they will undoubtedly encounter on the road to owning a profitable internet business.
Okay, what situations when traveling am I talking about?
- I have previously mentioned that I had my passport stolen in Morocco which meant that I had to leave the group for a few days during which I had to travel by train, find a hotel, find the Embassy, and generally survive on my own in a country where I didn’t speak the language. During those few days. There were times that I was panicky and very nervous, but I never gave up, and finally, I rejoined my fellow travelers with the necessary paperwork to get home.
- While I was in Moscow, the group traveled to a tourist attraction by underground. The leader/driver of the group had been there before and knew where to get off the underground train. When he announced that we had arrived and he got up to go to the door, the rest of us followed. I, as usual, was at the back of the group. Without notice, the doors closed with a bang just before I was going to dismount. I can remember the horror on the faces of my fellow travelers as they turned to see me still on the train. As the train left the station, the name of which was written on the tunnel wall in Russian letters, which are similar to, but different from English characters. I managed to count the number of letters in the name, and I noticed that the first letter resembled an “O” with several other squiggles. I got off the train at the next station, left the platform, and found a diagram, obviously directions from the station I was now at. It was clear that several lines crossed at that station, but by counting the letters in all the neighboring stations and looking for an initial letter that resembled an “O”, I was able to work out which platform I needed to get back to the station I should have been at. I can’t remember exactly how I managed to find the correct platform, but ten minutes later, I was safely back with the rest of the group who had waited at the original station, hoping that I would be able to find my way back.
- On the Indian trip, we were booked to fly from Delhi to Agra where the Taj Mahal is situated. When our group of ten travelers got to the domestic airport in Delhi, we discovered that, for some reason, there were only nine empty seats. I put my hand up to be the one to struggle through the Delhi traffic by taxi to the station and attempt to catch a train to Agra. Everything ended up okay. I even met a doctor on the train who gave me a tablet that cured a dose of “Delhi Belly” I was suffering from.
As they were happening, the three situations explained above were frightening. However, I gritted my teeth at the time, persevered, used my brain to the maximum extent, and survived by not panicking. Somewhat similarly, budding Internet Marketers, including me, can (the correct word is “will”) face many situations which, when they happen, you will describe as “disastrous”, if not “frightening”. Whether it be having your autoresponder service canceled, having your social media advertising campaigns stopped, having your web site hacked, or one of a million and one other things that can go wrong. Do as I did then, don’t panic. Use all the help that is available to you. Use your mentor, Google, help desks, YouTube, A.I., and, if all else fails, your ingenuity. Imagine what a predicament I would have been in if I hadn’t had the ingenuity to count the letters in the name of that Moscow underground station. If you don’t panic, you will survive all the problems Internet Marketing will throw at you.
Things will be easier though, if you can turn to a mentor for help in an emergency. If you don’t already have one, or are unhappy with your current mentor, click the following link to watch an interesting video.
Cheers
Phil