Andrew Ingersoll is nicely recognized to readers of Rick Ingersoll’s well-known website, The Frugal Journey Man, for the photographs of men and women, locations and cultures he’s captured about the entire world. At age 29, Andrew has now visited 47 countries and, armed with all the cost-free and frugal travel techniques he’s acquired from his father, he is not about to stop.
“The tips I have picked up from ‘Pops’ have authorized me to proceed traveling at reasonable costs and to share my encounters via my images,” Andrew explained just lately.
Rick Ingersoll is a retired mortgage loan banker who turned a “travel hacker” as a hobby so that he and his wife, Katy, could commit his retirement yrs traveling the world. He started running a blog about his recommendations and approaches for collecting regular flier miles and other absolutely free-travel methods in 2007 (his existing “bankroll” of regular flier miles is up to 1.5 million) and authored the e book The Frugal Journey Dude Handbook in 2010. The passion grew to become a business enterprise as readership grew and the travel sector began promotion on it.
It was not extensive right before Rick’s overall loved ones joined “the game,” as he calls it — together with Andrew, who quickly discovered that “the world is a fascinating area, and I want to be in a position to share some of its glories with other folks who are not capable to decide on up and go.”
He takes advantage of his pictures to do that – images whose high quality defies Andrew’s “beginner” status.
“It would be terrific if I could inspire others to vacation through my photographs,” he claimed. “Traveling and enduring cultures and customs opens up minds and difficulties the ignorance and prejudices portrayed by the media.”
Escalating up in Traverse Metropolis, Michigan, Andrew graduated from Michigan Condition College with a Bachelor of Nursing diploma in 2004. He started touring to Europe in holidays and during summer months breaks even though he was in faculty.
“That’s when I found out that the planet was so a lot greater than white, center course America,” mentioned the trim, sandy-haired photographer who is at present ensconced in Antarctica. “This influenced me to take up as substantially from other nations around the world and cultures as attainable.”
Andrew started his photographic journal with a “point and shoot digital digital camera,” he mentioned, and picked up a Nikon Coolpix in a Malaysian market place, “typically because the value was ideal.” But when he produced the determination to stop by all 7 continents before he turned 30, he understood an upgrade was in get.
“I received a wonderful deal on a Nikon D5000 at Costco this final December and Antarctica was my trial backdrop.”
He moved to Seattle, Washington, soon after he graduated from Michigan Condition. “It was at this time when we, as a spouse and children, started off identifying the true gains of regular flier miles,” he explained. “My to start with excursion to Asia was on a United Mileage Plus reward ticket that took me from Seattle to Tokyo to Singapore. My eyes had been now fixated on cultures so distinctive from Northern Michigan, I was hooked. And to this day, I appreciate Asian society.”
On a 28-working day Intrepid Tour of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, Andrew met an Australian guy who gave him the plan of pursuing a postgraduate diploma overseas.
“When I returned to Seattle, I discovered the Masters of Worldwide Public Health program at the College of Sydney,” he reported. “Calculating the value gain assessment of attending a university in Australia as opposed to The us, I was ready to leap ship. I created the motivation to pursue Australia, but not with out ticking off just one of the matters on my ‘bucket list’ to start with.”
Andrew’s “bucket checklist” – which he insists he designed prolonged just before the movie “The Bucket List” came out — was truly a Major 25 checklist that a buddy instructed he make. She could see he was battling with what path to go in his lifestyle just after he’d been given his undergraduate diploma.
“So she had me jot down the top rated 25 encounters I wanted out of existence,” he recalled. “I still have that list right now.”
The record impressed him to be part of a professional medical mission to Mali, West Africa, the place he worked alongside area Malian medical doctors and nurses at a clinic for women of all ages and little ones. His occupation was component of a relief group that assisted nearby employees with significant-danger childbirth.
“Again, my eyes ended up opened and my brain raced. I was so grateful for the options I experienced been granted,” he explained. “So right after some pretty psychological periods in Mali with some of the most wonderful individuals, I joined yet another Intrepid tour to invest 15 days in Morocco. That was my first taste of Arabic and Muslim society. And I wanted to working experience it as impartial as attainable.”
In February 2008, Andrew moved to Sydney, Australia, wherever he received his MIPH degree and often labored as an evacuation and repatriation nurse — nurses who bring ill and wounded persons to Australia from South Pacific islands for remedy they could not obtain or else.
“This is terrific enjoyment and quite gratifying — traveling off into the South Pacific to pick up an individual and carry him or her to Australia for treatment,” he explained. “I’ve gone to New Caledonia, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Kirabati, Tahiti, Norfolk Island, Tonga and Vanuatu.”
Andrew is now doing work element time in medical investigation ahead of he commences pursuing a Juris Medical professional diploma at the College of New South Wales in February, a a few-calendar year postgraduate legislation diploma built for experts getting into into a vocation in regulation. “I am self-confident The Frugal Travel Person site will continue on to deliver me with the essential equipment to allow me to satisfy my individual targets of journey,” he mentioned.
What’s future on his agenda? “Caving in Malaysian Borneo and camper-van journey in New Zealand,” he claimed. “And I’m however in the arranging process of checking out the Excellent Wall of China with expensive previous Dad.”
Also on his desire checklist: Nepal, Ghana, Bolivia, Mongolia, Croatia, and Maldives. No one uncertainties that he’ll fulfill his needs, least of all his father.
“I want I experienced the braveness to undertake some of the adventures Andrew has been on,” Rick stated. “Not only does he see the entire world at charges he can pay for, he does it at times in the most essential of indigenous lodging. He actually will get in the tradition extra than I have at any time been able of. I am just a tourist when I evaluate my travels to Andrew’s. He is a accurate environment traveler.”
Andrew posts his travel pictures and humorous commentary on The Frugal Journey Dude weblog each Wednesday and Sunday. To see an archive of his posts, visit http://frugaltravelguy.blogspot.com.
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