Interview With Sean Lynch of Wandering Why
•Sean and Dawn, please tell my readers about yourselves. What made you want to start wanderingwhy.com?
We are a thirty-something married couple who tend to be dreamers. We can also be a bit obsessive with our crazy ideas which is how a dream of traveling Europe for a summer turned into quitting our jobs, selling most of our things, and taking off to see the world with no return ticket home. We started the website really just as a postcard home for family and friends in 2007 and found many other people were interested in what we were doing.
•In all of your travels, in your opinion what country has the best food? and the worst food?
Best food... that's a tough question for a foodie like me (Sean) For street food, probably Thailand. For restaurant meals... Argentina--best steak and wine feasts for so little money compared to home.
•When you both first started traveling, did your families support your decision?
Yes and no. Most were excited for us and those that weren't tended to project their fears onto us with questions such as "What about work?" We didn't have an answer but the bigger question loomed large in our heads and pushed us to go do it: "What about life?"
We are happy to say that one question does not have to be at the expense of the other. We traveled for 18 months and came home to an economy in shambles, yet we were still fortunate enough to find work.
•If you both had to choose one favorite destination, which one would you chose?
Just one? sigh... Thailand, Japan, Cambodia, Bali.
•What has been the least exciting destination you've both traveled to?
Singapore. After spending 6 months in Southeast Asia, Singapore was very nice but we also felt it was kind of sterile and boring.
•Did you both always have a love of travel or did you develop your passion for traveling as you got older?
As children a trip to Florida was exciting so yes, I'd guess there was an early love of travel. We are finding that the older we get the more intense our passion for travel becomes.
•What impact has wanderingwhy.com had on your lives?
We've met internet friends who we still keep in touch with today. We've met other travelers on the road through our site. Perhaps most touching are the messages we get from other people who tell us our trip has inspired them to take one of their own.
•What has been the most surprising destination you've been to? Meaning, you had a specific mindset about a certain destination but it was totally a differnet experience than you had imagined.
Cambodia. I guess we expected a bit of a depressed society just shaking itself of the last of the Khmer Rouge. Instead we were greeted by some of the nicest most positive locals anywhere. No doubt the scars can be still seen in the children missing limbs from landmines selling books and trinkets at the tourist sites. Even with such harsh realities and a horribly dark past but it seems most people are very positive about the future. The county really stole our hearts.
•If you had to decide which destination has been the most influential in your lives, which destination would you chose?
I can't say any one country or culture was an over-riding influence. The old saying "Every place has something to offer" is true if you stop looking at the brochure or seeking out "the real travel experience" and just look around you.
Along the way I learned in Brazil that good health and just going for your dreams is always worth pursuing, that giving your absolute best to every task no matter how small adds up to a wonderful place like Japan, that we are squandering opportunities everyday that some people in places like India may never see, and that real hospitality is opening your beautiful home on the coast of Spain to wandering strangers--making them realize how paranoid and lacking in hospitality they were back home. All lessons we hope to have learned from and added to our own lives in some way.
•What advice would you give to a newbie traveler?
Take a headlamp, patience and sensitivity, and a sense of adventure.
Thanks Sean for the interview. Please visit Sean's blog @ Wandering Why