Six Weeks, Six Tales of Catching the Travel Bug

For six weeks, Gadling bloggers have been sharing their tales of getting sick on the road, prevailing and loving travel throughout for our mini-series, Catching the Travel Bug. Share your own experiences with the travel bug in the comments section and we’ll publish our favorite few in a future post.

Read the complete mini-series below.

Week 1
Grant Martin on the dangers of Korean barbecue in Egypt

Writhing in pain on the sea wall and looking at the sky, I didn’t notice the middle aged Egyptian gentleman approach me and curiously look down. I waved him off — no, I don’t want any, I’m OK thanks. But he wasn’t selling anything…

Week 2
Jamie Rhein on her own primary health education in the Gambia

I buried thoughts of being stuck in an African village, the only westerner for miles. The only taxi that left the village in the morning had already gone. Because there weren’t phone lines, I didn’t have a phone. Crap. Yep, I was pretty much stuck. I lay shivering, sweating and wondering what I could have possibly caught…

Week 3
Pilot Kent Wien on a hauntingly bad breakfast at 15,000 feet

And then it hit me. I was going to eject one breakfast bar and a cup of yogurt in the next ten seconds. The only question was, where? I frantically looked around the cockpit. There was no plastic bag, only a duffel bag and my suitcase. I had no choice…

Week 4
Josh Lew on SARS fears in Vietnam

I wrote my illness off as a regular flu bug I’d picked up from being in a classroom teaching eight-year-old Vietnamese kids how to speak English. When my chest started to tighten and my cough to turn into a wheeze, I started to worry a bit more…

Week 5
Jerry Guo on leeches, cobras and killer mosquitoes in Borneo

But for now, I’m too busy worrying about myself. Asides from the immediate danger of disappearing into the quicksand-like mud and trying to balance on a crude plank trail that’s submerged in water, I’m being absolutely devoured by mosquitoes…

Week 6
Jeff White on I.V. drips and the kindness of strangers in Kosovo

“You need hospital?” the woman said. She looked small in the wedge of hallway light after I cracked open the door. The evening before I had asked her colleague for the nearest one. “A doctor. I need medicine,” I said…