Odd Blog Comments and Travel Questions: Traveling with Vampires

It’s October! It’s Halloween season so we should talk about Vampires. You know my love of vampires is right up there with food and travel, right? Okay not really. But read this and you’ll soon get my drift:

During my seven years of blogging, you can imagine I get a lot of feedback, comments, and questions. Typically folks are asking me for more details about how I afford to travel around the world; or what I typically pack; or what I can recommend to do in Istanbul, or Berlin, or Melbourne.  Some are looking for help and inspiration as they are hoping to travel around the world too, like when my awesome friend Dave first wrote me, or Blake whom I met through Meet Plan Go, or my new friend Jennifer whom I met during her recent visit to Chicago before she too left to travel long term. Many others have written me and made me feel wonderful by complimenting me on my my writing, my photography, a hobby that started long ago when I was about eleven-years-old and I haven’t put down the camera since (the classes from high school paid off Mr. King!), and my general ‘go get it’ life attitude. It’s so heart-warming and honestly, it’s often your comments that keep me going after all these years; that keep ME inspired and feeling like I am doing this for some greater reason than my own schlepping around the world and navel gazing.  So, thank you.

But what about the vampires?

Oh yes, and then sometimes, this happens:

Some comments and questions make me laugh (these are often spam) and keep me on my toes. Like the one above that I received recently from an old TV news colleague. Bill and I worked together at WIS-TV in Columbia, SC. It was my first “real” job after university.

You have to admit, it’s definitely a unique and funny request, but I still took it seriously and being the expert traveler and all (but far from an expert on vampires), I tried to help the best I could:

4:52pm
Lisa Lubin

Wow…this is oddly the first time I’ve been asked this! 😉  Hmmm…I guess it has to be totally doable/believable?

I actually flew from HK to Chicago (or NJ) last year on Cathay Pacific in biz class (it was a press trip). That was a daytime flight…going back in time. I have some traveler friends that have done cruise ships in the ‘off season’ meaning the ship is just going to get back to its home port for the off season on a “repositioning cruise“.  I have no idea if that helps. I guess there could be overnight train rides to overnight flights…it would just have to time out that it’s all at night. Can it never be light at all…even with a sleeping mask?! I don’t know much about vampires!  LL

5:13pm
Bill Blume

I’m actually relieved to know no one else has ever asked such a thing. You’re assuming right about it needing to be as doable/believable as possible. It’s part of what helped me sell the first book, which is coming out this fall. I was able to draw a lot of my law enforcement experience as a 911 dispatcher for that book. It wasn’t until I started writing the second book that I realized the international travel was going to be as tricky an issue. There are ways to sidestep it within the story, because I won’t exactly be writing about the actual travel time, but I need a rough idea of where and when my character would arrive in the US. It also just adds a layer of realism which I definitely need, given the material I’m working with.

As far as the daytime portion of the travel goes, the vampire would really need to be as blocked off from sunlight as possible. In sunlight, my vampires would catch on fire. That means their travel also has to account for avoiding nosy people who might sneak a peak or might even accidentally expose the vampire.

Part of the cargo ship idea I’d had involved the idea that smugglers could easily capitalize on this, if they know vampires exist. It certainly doesn’t do much to keep the expense low, but when I consider how much it cost for me and my wife to fly to England a few years ago, I’m recognizing it’s likely unavoidable that it needs to be somewhat pricey.

Lisa, I appreciate you letting me kick this around with you. I’ll check on those sites and see if they might lead me in the right direction. Thanks!

Bill’s first book, Tales of a Tenth Grade Vampire Hunter, is now available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The second book, including my amazing insight on traveling with vampires (not really), will be out sometime next year.

Keep the comments and questions coming! The odder the better! Whaddaya got for me?!