The title of the following post is deliberately extreme, as it is meant to describe some situations you can face when you are traveling and do not have a bed to spend the night. In that case, safety is your most important concern.

I thought of writing this article after spending another night at the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. After 11:00pm, it is hard to find something in this airport to entertain yourself (especially compared to the amazing hubs they have in Bangkok or Hong-Kong) and you have to make do.

When traveling, you can be stuck for the night in a train station, an airport or even in the street.

In that situation, you should take precautions to avoid being attacked and/or waking up without your personal belongings. Today, I would like to share some easy safety tips.

While traveling, I ended up sleeping in airports and train stations several times and spent the night in the street (only) 4 times (twice on the beach). In terms of difficulty (freezing cold, danger), I will keep in mind two major events: one night spent in Chicago (USA) with a homeless guy, and one night spent wandering in Yekaterinburg train station (Russia) and the city center, which almost ended very badly.

(La suite…)

I recently launched the brand new Romain World Tour fanpage on Facebook but I never really had the opportunity to do it properly. So it’s now or never !

During one week from now (beware, only one week !), you just have to join this new fanpage and I’ll offer you a link to download my round the world trip movie Backpacker (in HD). Normal price is 12 euros, don’t miss it !

Important : Once the fanpage is liked, please send me a message through the following page whith your facebook profile adress and email adress! I’ll get back to you ASAP.

Moreover, please note that every 100 new fans, I’ll organise a lottery that will allow you to win free DVDs ! So feel free to share and stay tuned !

It’s been a while ! During my trip, I was forced to concentrate myself on the french website. It took me a long time to lead this project from scratch but at least I always took the time to include some english subtitles in my videos. Today I’m really happy to share a big information with you : the final movie is coming !

Here’s the synopsis :

“The Backpacker movie tells the story about the 365 day trip around the world of a young french man. From the coldest times in Canada to the terrible heat of India, from the Nepalese mountains to the mythical trans-siberian train, you’ll live this adventure as a real backpacker mad about discoveries.

Get close to great white sharks in Southern Australia, discover Bob Marley’s birth place in Jamaica, be part of the huge west american landscapes and reach the end of the world in Ushuaia…”

The movie will be available in French but no worries, some English, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian subtitles will be included ! It will be released January 15, 2011.

I’m also giving 2,5 € to charity on every single movie sold, as is it now a core value of my project.

Would you like to advertise on the movie ? If so, hurry up as the dead line is soon.

Today, I wanted to share with you a story that really touched me. Few days ago, Emeline, a french young girl, contacted me through the blog. We started to talk about my project and travelling in general. Emelyne then told me that her dream was to travel the world with her boyfriend.

Travelling should be open to anyone, shouldn’t it ? To use a wheelchair can limit some of your activities, but will never kill a travelling spirit ! I’m really proud of these two people from Montpellier (France). They are really brave and have a real challenge to face. So please GO FOR IT ! Start to build a sponsorship report, contact companies…but never give your project up !

Emeline also told me about this interesting website called Envie d’Agir which helps young people projects. I’m loving their Emelyne’s project and i definitelly think they should contact such organizations I promise I will help you soon in building your dream.

Here is an interview of Emeline that we recorded through Seesmic. Here is the video interview . I apologize, I really did not have the time these days to build an english version for it, so the interview will be only available in french…

Présentes toi un petit peu ! Quel a été ton parcours et surtout parles moi du projet de toi et ton copain ?

emeline henot pour romain 1

One adviced this movie to me. Then once again. Finally, one told me that I just can’t leave without having seen it. Time after time, this movie became a real reference for me. I must confess, I had it for a long time on my laptop’s desktop, but I just did not have the time to watch it. Finally another sleeplesss night helped me to do so. And I really felt so good about this movie, it changed my way to see the travel and even if it’s quite a hard task to describe all the feelings I got, I really enjoy what the movie wanted to “say”. What did you say ? You never saw it ? Well, that’s a shame but I’m going to help you… Follow this link. You can also buy it here. The amazing soundtrack can be listened here.

Here are some chosen extracts.

“…Hate think of a wild man like you in a cage. Tramping is too easy with all this money you paid me. My days were more exciting When i was penniless. I’ve decided I’m going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty is just too good to pass up…”

“All that the see has to give is this kind of gust, and sometimes a feeling of power. It’s true that I don’t know much about the see but that’s the way it’s here and I also know that in your life, the most important thing is not only to be strong but to feel strong and to experience at least once in your life the fight against the blind and deaf nature, without nothing to help you except your hands and head.”

“Rather than love, celebrity, faith, money, rather than justice, give me the truth”

Or at least, I really love this kind of iPhone applications. More precisely, this one is a Mandarin translator, but I won’t be surprised of the availability of some other languages. It could be really useful while travelling, couldn’t it ? Ok, I must agree, it has a cost (and one need to know to stop buying hi-tech things for the trip). I just lost my mobile phone and I’m currently looking for a really basic one, that will resist to this long year alone.