About
FILIPE MORATO GOMES
“One day I'll quit my job and I'll travel around the world”, I said countless times to my beloved partner. I'm not sure when the idea of travelling for such a long time first came to my mind. It probably happened during a not very rewarding professional experience working as a multimedia software developer in a Portuguese company. But I can't be sure.
Mike Pugh (the vagabonding.com guy) said once: “I view travelling as life's great educator. I totally agree with him. I love to travel, to learn about other cultures, to meet different people. But the more I travel the better I know that I don't know anything about the world. I need to travel more. On the other hand, I never needed expensive clothes, expensive cars or expensive dinners. I was used to spend the money I could save travelling. So I decided to save more and more. One day I was ready to go. Did I mention that I love to travel?
It's hard to define myself. I'm a thirty-something Portuguese guy, that's for sure. But I'm not a professional journalist, although I love travel writing and journalism in general, and had published several articles before. I'm not a professional photographer either, although I also love photography and have pretty good professional equipment. I'm not a multimedia software developer, although most of my income until today came by working as one. And I'm not a designer, although I love design, advertising and everything related to visual communication. Yeah, I think I'm a bit of everything and nothing at the same time. Communication is my world. Generally speaking. That's for sure as well.
THE TRIP
I left Portugal on July 2004 and got back home on September 2005. 14 months on the road. I travelled through some Asian giant countries like Russia and China. Some mysterious ones like Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma). The newest country on the planet, East-Timor. The unforgettable Vietnam, the political and social instable Bolivia. First-world countries like Australia or Chile. Some postcard-perfect places like a couple of thai islands or some other islands on the Malaysian part of Borneo. The happy Brazil. The mystic Bali. And several other places.
Meanwhile, by the end of 2004, something changed my trip. The tsunami happened and I was sent to Phuket and Kao Lak, Thailand, and then to Sri Lanka, to work as a photographer for a Portuguese newspaper. I'm not able to tell by words what I felt there. It was the most difficult experience of all my trip. Of my entire life, I must admit.
THIS WEBSITE
During my round the world trip (from July 2004 to September 2005), I wrote a weekly travel article to get published in the Saturday travel supplement of a major daily Portuguese newspaper called Público. Every week I sent a text (around 800-900 words) and several pictures to the editors. I also set up a nice website in Portuguese called Alma de Viajante (one could translate it to something like Traveller's Soul) where I published all the articles and hundreds of photos while on the road.
Once in a while, other travellers I met asked me: “Why don't you set up an English version of the website so we can read it?”. That was something too hard to build from the road but when I got back home I decided to do it. That's round-the-world-trip.com, launched on December 21st, 2005.
Apart from lots of photos and chronicles written while travelling, I created two important sections that will be updated on a regular basis with new articles: a travel advice section with specific advice for round the world travellers, and another one I called great places - something like a simple travel guide about great places to visit worldwide.
You can find several interesting sections here:
The Trip
» TRAVELOGUE, travel stories I wrote during my 14 months round the world trip.
» RTW ITINERARY, a map of my round the world itinerary.
» TRAVEL GEAR, a list of the travel gear and accessories I took with me for the trip.
» FAQ, frequently asked questions people ask me about my around the world trip or about long time travelling in general.
» PHOTOGRAPHY, some of the best photos I took while on the road.
Travel Guide
» GREAT PLACES, a kind of a worldwide travel guide, with articles I'll keep writing about specific places I've been to, including recommended guesthouses, restaurants or travel agencies, things to do, outdoor activities, etc. I decided to keep this section open to external contributors so other travellers are welcome to send me texts and photos to get published here.
» TRAVEL ADVICE, texts I'll keep writing about specific issues relevant to independent travellers, like whether or not to buy a round the world ticket, travel writing, travel gear, malaria, travel insurance, home exchanges, etc.
Resources
» BOOKSTORE, a selection of the latest travel books available at Amazon, including first-time travellers guidebooks and country specific travel guides.
» LINKS, with dozens of interesting links in areas like around the world tickets and airfares, low cost airlines, rail travel, bus travel, around the world travelogues, travel forums, travel gear, money, visas and embassies, travel insurance, hospitality and home exchange, youth hostels, volunteering, malaria, scuba diving, festivals and events, travel directories, singles travel and gay and lesbian travel.
» WALLPAPERS, pictures taken during my trip you can use as your desktop wallpaper.
Site
» SITE SEARCH, powered by Google, it's the place to search whatever you might be looking for in the contents of this website (or the web).
» ABOUT, yeah, you're reading it...
» CONTACTS, my personal contacts in case you'd like to make a suggestion, criticize anything you don't like here or ask me some question about my trip.
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On the front page it is shown a random on the road travel article, and the last published great place and travel advice articles.
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The contextual ads you see in this website are provided by Google AdSense technology.
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English is not my first language. So I'd really appreciate if you kindly report language errors in case you find them, or if there is a more correct way of say something I wrote. I'll learn with your corrections and, with your help, this website will become a better place to help other travellers to fulfil their own dreams about travelling around the world. Thanks in advance.
The published on the road travel stories were kindly translated from the Portuguese original versions by Domingos Morato.
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One last important thing, in case you didn't notice it yet. The design of round-the-world-trip.com was inspired by the Lonely Planet's previous website design. It has a similar layout structure and a similar color palette to the one used by LP before.
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