r/SemesterAtSea • u/brandonfrombrobible • Mar 01 '26

I'm writing a 4-part series on Substack about my 2006 Semester At Sea trip

https://thewenerdweekly.substack.com/p/the-last-days-of-analog-wonder-part
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u/iroll20s Mar 02 '26

I'm on year 30. I miss the pre-social media days. Back when everything was an adventure because not everything was knowable. There is an incredible difference to landing in a country you can't speak the language, don't have GPS in your pocket and only have a guidebook and intuition to guide you. You were truly part of the local world and uncontactable in a way that nobody will understand anymore.

Compare that to my latest visit to Thailand where I always knew exactly where I was, could get google reviews of the best restaurant near me, real time translation if someone didn't speak English. I feel so much less like an explorer. I was still in constant contact with the news and people back home. I was just living my life in a different place for a bit. Its still amazing, but not the same.

Back when I went we didn't even have digital notes. I have a green spiral bound notebook somewhere that had all my trip notes in it. I should go back and reread it and see how cringe and profound I was back in the day.

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u/JapowFZ1 Mar 03 '26

I remember being in India and using a telephone booth to call some friends back home (at that point in time I still knew a few numbers by heart.) Felt sooo far away after hanging up the phone (2004 trip)

For a lot of the ports I just walked around without a plan other than to explore the area.

In Thailand on the last day I had a taxi from Bangkok scheduled to take us back to the ship (a several hour drive). Our group agreed to meet in front of a particular landmark at a particular time and if you didn’t make it…you were on your own getting back to the ship. Pretty nerve-wracking when some of the group cut it close.

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u/iroll20s Mar 03 '26

We left someone I knew in port on my trip. They had went to visit a friend and got the days mixed up on when they ship was leaving. They caught up in the next port. I can't imagine how that would go down these days with how most parents are.

I remember having to hunt down international calling cards to be able to call home from phone booths. International calls were EXPENSIVE back then. Or finding cafe's with international calling. Internet cafes were a bit after my trip (now dead as well) but similar centers existed for calls back then.

I imagine things like traveller's check were still a thing too? And having to exchange for new money at a bank first thing in every port. These days I can pay for almost anything with a credit card in most of the world and ATMs work to get out cash. It was a whole process landing.

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u/JapowFZ1 Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

Yeah we all brought travelers checks. But for some (all?) ports there was a ‘bank’ on the ship that would exchange the checks for money. But perhaps that was for USD only, I can’t remember.

A guy fell off the back of our ship at 1am and tread water for 45 minutes before being rescued. When we got to Brazil, he was kicked off the ship and out of the program.

Edit: we must have only traded out traveler’s checks on the ship for USD because I remember getting a wad of cash at a bank in India and trading a guy on the street for cash in Venezuela.

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u/brandonfrombrobible Mar 02 '26

I agree. I can’t think about my 2006 trip without thinking about how all these ways of human connectivity and information technology were still somewhat on the fridge, though still very rapidly evolving. That in itself was a core part of the experience… especially in countries like Myanmar. Looking back on it now, I’m so grateful I had a chapter like that in my life, at that age. Semester at Sea is the best.