Anna Mir is a fashion designer and had been working at Inditex for eight years. Roc Boronat is a computer engineer, creator of the QuitNow App to quit smoking. They are a couple and they were clear that, before buying a flat and having children, they wanted to travel. And not to any destination: they wanted to go around the world. They dropped everything and packed their bags. On January 1, 2018, with the new year, they changed their lives and headed for Africa, without a return date or much planning.
In 19 months they visited the 5 continents, 30 countries. Thinking about the money that this adventure can cost makes anyone dizzy, especially in these times of inflation in which we make impossible balances to adjust the budget for vacations. In their case, savings from a very young age and a life without too many luxuries allowed them the necessary financial cushion. “We spent a total of 33,000 euros per person; we had never bought a car or a home before,” they explain in RAC1.cat.
They began in January in the southern hemisphere, taking advantage of the summer there: they traveled four months through Africa, passing through South Africa, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. It is the continent that was most difficult for them. “We wanted to improvise, but it’s difficult there. The hotels that we had reserved through Booking we found them closed. We didn’t have a car and we were stranded in strange places”, they comment.
In fact, of their world tour, South Africa and Malawi are the two countries where they have gone through the most difficult situations. “We were a bit ‘Disney’, and in South Africa there is tension between blacks and whites at night; it is better not to move on the street when it gets dark. In fact, not there or anywhere when you travel the world,” says Roc. “In Malawi they ripped us off with the price of transport, we protested and ended up having problems with a man who was very cool. It almost ended in some kind of altercation between males; luckily, a van that was passing by saved us and took us to our destination”.
From the African continent they are left with the natural spectacle of the landscapes. “Nature is not organized or exploited, everything is virgin, because there are no resources. In a volcano, for example, there is no railing to protect the visitor, everything is unexploited”. They also fell in love with the calm pace of life. “We came from a very stressful life, with very demanding jobs and Africa forced us to stop, to let flow.”
From Ethiopia they took a flight to Dubai, where they began the seven months they would spend in Asia. The United Arab Emirates, Oman, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia were the countries marked in red on their maps. “In Asia it is very easy to move around, transportation and technology are very advanced, there are no dangers, you feel safe, they don’t exaggerately rip you off…”, they explain.
China is the star country of the entire world tour for the Roc. “We had a great time, we laughed a lot, nobody spoke English and it was like traveling to the past, you have to wake up, you go to the supermarket and you don’t understand anything! In addition, the Chinese were very amused to see Europeans because many remote areas are very beautiful, but there is no tourism, like Zhangjiajie, which we loved”, they recall. Roc says that things happen in China that would never happen here. “A man was wearing a t-shirt with a counterfeit logo of the Generalitat de Catalunya! A Chinese company had worked for the Generalitat and had made fake T-shirts with the logo”, he laughs. “Bestial nature, strange things, beautiful people, very cheap prices, easy transportation…”, he sums up.
The final Asian leg was in Bali (Indonesia), and the Gili Islands. And from there, I fly to Australia to end 2018 and welcome 2019. “There we thought moving would be easy, but it wasn’t. We had to go renting cars, taking planes…”
They toured northeastern Australia, with the tropical jungle, and from there to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne… “There the public infrastructures were fantastic: very cool parks and public pools with barbecues for parties, for example.” They also passed through New Zealand, south and north, the two islands, and they spent ten days traveling in a small minivan with a bed, but it was a bit cold!” they recall.
They arrived in Latin America and began the route through Chile, “the most expensive country around the world! It seems strange, but it is so. For the local economy, things for tourists were expensive, but so was food in any supermarket. We deduced, from how people lived, that a lot of black money was moving around”
The budget in Chile also skyrocketed because they wanted to get to Patagonia by boat, in the south of everything; and also to the Atacama desert, in the north. They completed the route passing through Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico, before going up to the United States.
Mexico is the country that Anna’s heart stole. “He is my favorite. As a traveler, you seek a balance between prices, comfort, good food, cultural offer, that you learn things… And Mexico has all of this, it is 100% complete and the people are very friendly”, she relates. They also especially remember the passage from Iquitos (Peru) to Leticia (Colombia), crossing the Amazon in a fast boat, sailing for eight hours. From Colombia they were surprised by the reception of the locals.
Already tired and thinking of returning home, they visited several cities in the United States. In New York they met family who came to visit them, they passed through San Francisco, and went to Las Vegas, from where they returned married. Shortly after, I fly back to Barcelona. “We arrived in Catalonia on July 31, 2019, when everyone was on vacation. We really wanted to go back and have a house, a washing machine and a fridge”, they admit.
“On our return we thought we would be the heroes with family and friends but they had already followed our route on Instagram, and it was not like that. We came back very freaked out, but for people it’s not such a big deal: they can’t imagine the magnitude of everything you’ve experienced, ”explains Roc. One sentence sums up his experience: “There is a Roc from before the trip and a Roc from after. We are different people. In a year and a half traveling, more things happen to you than in many years of normal life”.
On the return Anna and Roc were clear that they wanted a change of life stage. They started looking for a flat again. In a few weeks, pregnant with the first child. Now they have two little ones, one and three years old, and they continue to work each one in their sector. Anna is self-employed and Roc runs the technology company that she has had for years with a partner and friend.
“Later on we will make trips of two or three months in the summer with the little ones, but we do not have an adventurous mission, at the moment. We like being here, having a house and family, now we want to be parents. We will go around the world again when we retire!”, they affirm convinced.
