I Have Been Traveling Around The World

Not only am I traveling around the world, but I’ve been able to accomplish it for less than $50 per month. I bet that got your attention! So I guess you’re wondering how I have accomplished such a an extravagant feat on such a small amount of money.

Let me start with something I don’t think I’ve mentioned before on my blog or maybe I have and just don’t remember. If so, bear with me because I won’t be too long-winded. I am one of those people who suffer with motion sickness. It’s really important that we establish this fact thoroughly and you understand exactly to what extent I am afflicted.

“Motion sickness (or seasickness) is a general sense of not feeling well (malaise), nausea, vomiting, headache, and sweating that occur with movement. It develops when the inner ear, the eyes, and other areas of the body that detect motion send conflicting messages to the brain.

“Motion sickness occurs when one part of the balance-sensing system (inner ear, joints and muscles, or vision) may indicate that the body is moving, while the other parts do not sense motion. For example, when a person is in the cabin of a moving ship, the inner ear may sense the motion of big waves, but the eyes don’t see any movement. This leads to a conflict between the senses and results in motion sickness.”

Poinier MD, Anne C. and O’Brien MD, Brian D. (2011, March 24). Motion Sickness. webmd.com. Retrieved May 19, 2013, from http://www.webmd.com.

There are many things you can do to help with motion sickness, but none of them work for me. You’re just going to have to believe this fact and I will tell you everything I’ve done to combat motion sickness in another post. I get very motion sick when I’m on an airplane, ship, automobile (as a passenger), subway, tram or train. After flying on a plane, it usually takes me about eight hours to get my stomach to stop flip flopping and then I’m fine again.

That brings me to how I have traveled around the world while suffering with extreme motion sickness and on under $50.

Holden Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina

On Thursday I tweeted this on Twitter:

Do you know what I look at everyday? The #ocean. Do you know how? #Beach in #NC always live and beautiful http://www.earthcam.com/usa/northcarolina/supply/holden/

I love the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the beach. So I found a webcam located at Holden Beach in the great state of North Carolina. This webcam lets me see and listen to the ocean waves any time of the day. Of course, when it’s nighttime I don’t see anything because it is pitch black out there, but I can still hear the waves and they actually lull me into a very peaceful place.

Well, the EarthCam site isn’t just for one beach in North Carolina. Nope! There are webcams all over the world and I can view all of them for FREE. The only cost I incur is my monthly Internet service which is under $50 per month and something I would have even if I wasn’t traveling around the world via EarthCam webcams.

These webcams are video cameras that are connected to the Internet via a computer and they broadcast the view within it’s lens LIVE. This means you can see exactly what is happening in that part of the world instantaneously.

So today I traveled all over the world without leaving my desk chair which was more like Captain Kirk’s chair on Star Trek. I bet you hear me now…

“Beam me around the world. Make it so Albert.”

I traveled to Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Spain, England, Aruba, Austrailia, Canada, Chili, a bunch of states in the United States and many more countries. I did find something that most places had in common today, so I took some pictures on my arm chair travels.

Greece In Darkness

Many of the countries that I visited were in darkness because they are on the other side of the world and in a totally different time zone! Some of the webcams were completely black while others looked like the one I found in Greece.

Poipu Beach, Kauai, Hawaii

Hawaii was beautiful just as I suspected it would be because it is Hawaii!! Duh!

Seattle, Washington

I always hear about Washington state having so much rain, but today they had a beautiful blue sky, big puffy white clouds and bright sunshine. No rain was in sight.

Aliso Beach, Laguna Beach, California

The name of this beach is very close to my daughter’s name, so it instantly grabbed my attention. Gorgeous water at Aliso Beach today.

Niagara Falls

I’ve been to many beautiful places in real life, but I still haven’t seen Niagara Falls live and in person. I keep telling my daughter, Alyssa, that we really need to go to Niagara Falls and also visit Hershey, Pennsylvania, to take the Hershey Chocolate tour. Hopefully we will get there because we’ve been saying it for ten years and thus far, we still haven’t seen either place!

New York City Skyline, New York

It is always hard for me to fathom the number of people that live in New York City, both those who live in homes and the many who are homeless. Why are so many people homeless in the “land of milk and honey?” It is baffling and makes me so sad.

Hampton Beach, New Hampshire

Hampton Beach is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous! Can you imagine living in the houses that sit right there at the water’s edge? They can go to sleep each night listening to the waves crashing on the shore. Magnificent!

Boston, Massachusetts

Every now and then a boat would zoom across the screen, but other than that, the only thing moving in the Boston webcam were the cars on the bridge.

Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

I probably wouldn’t recognize a movie star if I ran smack dab into them, so I didn’t see any loitering on their star on Hollywood Boulevard today. It was fun watching people stop to read the stars.

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California

The Golden Gate Bridge area in San Francisco, California, looked gorgeous today. The water and sky were blue, the grass bright green and the roof on the house matched the red in the bridge. The webcam is sitting in a perfect location!

Hot Springs, Arkansas

Hmmmm…Hot Springs, Arkansas, wasn’t a very pretty sight today. It was a very gray day and one without much activity going on with the boats.

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

I watched the sun set on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, today. I watched it for so long that I felt like I had been standing in France. It was really cool watching the lights get brighter and brighter against the darkening sky. This webcam offers quite a pretty view.

Did you see a commonality between most of the webcam views today? No? That’s okay because I’m going to tell you. It was cloudy in most places around the world today. Everyone within the view of the webcams poked along and acted kind of gray like the sky. There was a location, however, that was very different than everywhere else in the world.

Dublin Pub, Dublin, Ireland

I guess it didn’t matter to anyone outside or inside the Dublin Pub, in Dublin, Ireland, that the sky was cloudy and gray. I say that because as I watched the webcam view, people left the Dublin Pub singing loudly. The people on the street were laughing and carrying on loudly too. Everyone was quite animated. Of course, I lingered on this webcam looking at the people wondering if I was distantly related to any of them. Obviously, Dubliner’s were the happiest people I saw on the webcams!

Today the world seemed much smaller than I had ever perceived it before and the people seemed to be very similar to each other in many aspects. Not only did I get to see places I’ve never seen before, but I “people watched” all over the world. That really beats the heck out of watching people in the mall shopping center! I mean, think about it, how can you compare “the shopping mall” to watching a couple eat French pastries in a restaurant in Paris, France, with flowers hanging all over the place on the outside patio?!

There’s just no comparison!

Obviously, I had a great time today and didn’t have a lick of motion sickness. Will I ever go to Germany or Spain? Probably not, but Holden Beach, North Carolina, is definitely on my list of places I’d like to visit. If for no other reason, I want to see myself on the webcam! It will be my five minutes of stardom! LOL