In the last two months, I have spoken to six world travelers. Rediscovered over a hundred countries and half as many customs. There was no other higher motive than the simple hunt of stories. And were there stories to tell! Tales of the world’s most sinful peaches, bikers who spanned continents, tiny towns and midnight truck rides. There are tales of running away and something to do with a lovely Citroën Diane and so much more.
This time, my conversations are with Theodora Sutcliffe. In early 2010, she sold her house in London, packed up a backpack and along with her then nine-year-old son, took off to see the world. It was meant to be a year long trip. It’s been much longer than that and Theodora has braved a lot more than bandits and mud slides. In her own words, “I’m Theodora. I’m nomadic.” Here are the threads of my conversations with her:
I’m Theodora. I’m nomadic — with Zac
Growing up
I was born in a little town called Stroud, in Gloucestershire, England, and moved to London with my family when I was five years old, to the suburb of Tooting, home of Citizen Smith. My father’s a book seller and my mother’s a retired headmistress – we didn’t have television until I was fifteen because they didn’t believe in it.
A Citroën Diane, a ferry to France and running away
My earliest memory of foreign travel is being piled into the back of a Citroën Diane onto heaps of duvets with my brother to drive us to a ferry to France. We were three and four, I think, and it was so exciting. We were supposed to sleep on the duvets. I’m not at all sure that we did.
About my only other memory of that holiday is running away. I can’t remember what I was cross about, but I insisted on getting out of the car. My dad let me out and then I ran, and ran, and ran, down the hill. Then I realised I wanted to come back, and turned to find my father had been trailing me in the car all that way (no doubt, as a parent myself, pissing himself laughing). I also remember my brother, then three, eating an entire baguette, and I think that was the starting point of my addiction to French cheese.
A tell tale Citroën Diane
On being a global local – tribal weddings and pickup trucks
As a child, the closest I got to being local was doing a French exchange with a girl who had an apartment in Biarritz and one in Montpelier, which was good for my language (and I got the worst sunburn I’ve ever had sunbathing topless in Biarritz – ouch!).
I’m not entirely sure of the concept of living like a local. When we’re staying with friends around the world, be that in Tel Aviv or Barcelona, that’s local: you’re eating local style, living like a local, because you’re with a local.
In Halmahera, Indonesia, we slept on wooden sleeping platforms in the temporary houses of hunter-gatherers, attended a tribal wedding, ate their food, drank their boiled water and rice wine – that was authentic, I think, on a level that arranged “home-stays” can’t be, but we were still very much outsiders to their world.
In Mauritania, also, in some village in the deep Sahara accessible only by irregular pickup trucks, we were put up by a local family – that was authentic, again, because we were sleeping outside on carpets just as they did, washing with the girls of the family at the spring, and so on. But that was 20 years ago! The girls will be grandmothers now.
Watching a fire being made – something about learning from the locals
Travel inspirations – motorbikes, peaches, undersea volcano
So many reasons. It’s a big beautiful world, and there’s so much to see. Part of why we travel is so that my son can see the world and understand the many types of cultures and people, so cultural travel is definitely part of what we do, and nature travel has been a big part of his science learning. (You learn a lot about ecosystems helping release baby turtles into the wild, for example, and a lot about geology bombing around the Sinai collecting fossils and climbing canyons.)
Quadbiking in the Sinai Desert
I love big, dramatic landscapes – deserts, seascapes, the Himalayas, vast expanses of jungle. I love nature. I love having adventures. I love freedom. We like physical stuff – diving, skiing, hiking. But I also like the food and drink side (I have a food blog as well, Worldfoodist.com) – that could be anything from high-end cocktails in a Japanese bar in Beijing through to the best hummus ever in Lebanon or the freshest peaches from a street vendor in Turkey.
From worldfoodist: Food for a Quid – Spicy Buff Momo, Kathmandu, Nepal.
We’ve been travelling for three years on 18 January, with the odd pause in places that we like, and my son has had more experiences in his twelve years than many will pack into a lifetime: he’s dived an undersea volcano, walked to Everest Base Camp, hot air ballooned over Cappadocia, ridden 3000 miles across Indonesia on a motorbike, cuddled baby yaks, baby camels, baby elephants, kittens.
About living on the move
Travel was part of my childhood – we took a lot of holidays, often quite long ones, because my mother worked as a teacher and my father is self-employed (they travelled overland to Afghanistan in the 1960, back when travel was difficult). And I’d been taking Zac away on holiday since he was a tiny baby: he’d visited six continents before he was seven, and we’d always talked about taking a year out to travel.
Travelling with Zac – on bikes in Laos
Then in 2009 I had the year from hell and crashed my life into a ravine, so 2010 looked like the right time to take that year out and travel, be with my son without the distractions of work, and work out what to do next. Then I worked out I could make money on the road, and sell travel writing, and do the whole freelance shebang and live better and more cheaply while working, so we decided to keep going. There wasn’t a grand plan. There never really is.
From the UN country list, I’ve visited 54 countries and many of them with Zac. Some people use that silly Travelers Century Club list, and that puts me at 71 “countries”. I’m not very well travelled in either the US or Latin America, though, and that’s something I need to rectify.
From travel observations – other exotica you’ll find on the menus of the riverside bars in Laos
Revisiting the best of the travel years
I’d go back to every country on that list but Gambia and Monaco without a second thought. I’d love to walk the Great Himalayan Trail in Nepal, which would be a multi-month project, and I’d be fascinated to go back to Mauritania. We’re on our second visit to China at the moment, and that looks like being a life-long love affair, we’re likely to end up being based in Bali, Indonesia, my parents have a house in Greece, London’s our hometown, Zac’s father’s in Australia , and we have a special connection to Dahab in Egypt, as well, so those are all places we do and will go back to.
On the Up in Flores: Bajawa Ikat weaving
The top 3 favorite travel experiences?
The Spice Islands, Indonesia – we walked a long way into the jungle to meet nomadic hunter-gatherers, people who live like all humanity once did, wandering the forests living off what they hunt and forage. We dived an undersea volcano, hung out with treasure hunters, attended a séance with the governor of the region at his mansion, picked fresh spices, my son learnt to use a bow and arrow, and make one out of bark leather.
Learning Bird Calls and Spear Fishing in the Wild
Everest Base Camp by way of Gokyo, Nepal – we’ve just completed this trek, and, though I kind of wish we’d done the Three Passes trek, Himalayan high landscapes are just incredible, Gokyo lakes are awe-inspiringly beautiful, and crossing a glacier at 5330m is not something I’ll forget in a hurry. I want to see more of the Himalayas when Zac’s grown.
At the Everest Base Camp
Hitch-hiking Around South Africa – an incredibly stupid thing I did when I was nineteen or twenty, but also an amazing experience. I went to stay with a friend who was teaching there, and rode lorries and cars around the country, picking up lifts from petrol stations, seeing all sorts of things, meeting all sorts of people, and coming out of it, miraculously, unscathed and with a great faith in humanity. South Africa is beautiful. I’d love to see the new South Africa, and how it’s changed since those apartheid years.
Where is Theodora now?
I’m in Hong Kong, arranging our visas for our return to China, where we’ll be getting a base in the north so that Zac can go to Chinese school and get his Mandarin up to scratch and we can both work on our skiing.
Tomorrow, we’re going to Ocean Park, a fab theme park here, which is Zac’s Christmas present because the rivers were too low for good rafting in Nepal and the weather too cold for a theme park in Beijing. The next day we’ll bag a museum or two, hop on the metro and cross the border to Shenzhen.
On my blog? We’re still in Nepal, alas. Don’t worry, though! There’s good stories in China too.
On a slow boat in Halong Bay
“I love the freedom of movement that we have, the fact that we can just pick up and go to a new place without looking back. I can’t imagine a life where I’m stuck in one place.” - Theodora Sutcliffe
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I usually end these conversation posts with words from the traveler. I figured, there is nothing better than the beautiful stories doing their own justice and refueling the travel fire in the readers. On this occasion however, there is one more story that needs to be told. Theodora and Zac’s inspiring take at education while on the move and what they call the “World School” and “It’s All About The Cross-Hatching“. It is not just worth a great read, but a good deal more. It’s about learning at the grass-root level.
Zac has been blogging his own for the last two years. Read his side of the story on kidventurer.com. Follow Theodora’s travel adventures on her blog.
