The Sunday travel sections of the paper are rarely of interest to me, mostly covering B&Bs in Wisconsin or Caribbean cruises. But, to my surprise, last week’s Chicago Tribune ran an interesting article that might just save frequent travelers like myself some money.

The article, titled Foreign fee refunds may take a while, was the first I’d heard of a class action lawsuit settlement concerning the rate and disclosure of foreign ATM, debit and credit card fees.

From CFSettlement.com:

The lawsuit is about the price cardholders of Visa-, MasterCard-, or Diners Club-branded payment cards were charged to make transactions in a foreign currency, or with a foreign merchant, between February 1, 1996 and November 8, 2006. Plaintiffs challenge how the prices of credit and debit/ATM card foreign transactions were set and disclosed…

Although many consumers were sent information about the settlement, many were not. Despite the fact that I’ve used Mastercard and Visa ATM and credit cards all around the world I had heard nothing of the settlement. Before you start spending your refund keep in mind that the money is not guaranteed and will take some time to get to consumers. If any of my American readers spent time outside the U.S. I suggest they take a look at the settlement on the official websiteto see if they qualify. Personally, I spent 997 days using my cards outside the U.S. during the covered time period and it doesn’t even cover the second half of my last trip!

From reading my blog some of you may have discerned that I’m a visual person. It’s true that when traveling I probably can’t tell East form West but I do remember how many barber shops we passed or that we need to turn at the giant chicken statue. I’m also very detail-oriented and keep track of almost every cent I spend on the road. Naturally, I’ve combined these two traits when documenting my trip. Some travelers keep a calendar where they write down which city they visited each day—I keep a calendar where I sketch an image of what I did each day.

The calendar started out as a quick way to remember what I’d done when I fall behind on my written journal. By cross-referencing my expenses with the image on my calendar I could almost always remember exactly what my day entailed even if I was a month behind on my writing. The early sketches aren’t very interesting but the last six months begin to really develop into something worth following. In fact, it wasn’t until I entered Africa that anyone noticed my obsessive detailing of the trip. Some fellow travelers who caught on began anticipating my drawings and would sit around the hostel drinking cheap beer and guessing what I would draw. At times the pressure was so great that I would field complaints if I didn’t complete the day’s drawing by dinner. Granted, we all have to make our own entertainment on the road when we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Sure, they’re small and rough but I thought some of you would want to see my sketches while others might draw inspiration and take up your own calendar-making when you leave on your trips. My favorite is May 18th, where I am depicted wading through a flooded road in Western Madagascar. The calendar pages can be seen by clicking here and scrolling through all 400+ days.

Now that everyone has had time to look at my Phase II videos I’ve added Phase I. The majority of these videos are from Myanmar, although I do have a fondness for the one video I took in Thailand. Possibly my favorite video from both of my trips is this mob scene when I was trying to photograph children playing in a nondescript Mandalay alley. Not to disappoint people who like videos of driving there’s not one, not two, but three videos from the back of taxi speeding through Monywa, Myanmar. Finally, those interested in traditional culture can catch a glimpse of four dances performed at a Shan celebration at Inle Lake.

We can all appreciate our jobs more when we see the working conditions in Myanmar:

Silk Loom from Megan Kearney on Vimeo.

Travelers I met along the way
I’m sure there were more over the 14 months, but these were the ones I had written down.

Victoria from Northern Ireland whom I traveled with almost a month in Mongolia. She’s just finishing her trip about now.

David, who I connected with online before meeting in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia and then crashing at his apartment in Urumqi, China. He’s making his way home and has interesting posts on his time in Iran. I think he’s still in Turkey but heading into Europe soon.

Tom & Barbara, whom I met briefly in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Brooke & JR, fellow Chicagoans and yoga retreat drop outs who I watched the Super Bowl with in Trivandrum, India. I ran into them out of the blue last week in Chicago so I can confirm they made it home.

Grace, whom I traveled with in Uganda, D.R.C. and Uganda. She finished her trip around the same time as I did but decided to go back to Korea to earn some cash before coming back to the U.S. It’s possible she’ll continue to update. My mom loved reading Grace’s blog to figure out what I had been up to and just how dangerous The Congo really was.

Travelers who read my blog
I would like to give a little boost to those of you who leave your personal travel website in the comments. Some of the travelers’ sites below have completed trips but many are planning future RTWs. One is even leaving for South America tonight! Anyone listed below can contact me by email if she doesn’t want her site listed.

Alsup World Travels
Brian & Brooke vs the World
Cigale en voyage
Claudia Cavazos
Everything-Everywhere
Go Backpacking
Gus Errante
Kevin Cure
The Lost Globe
Matthew Goes Awol
Matthew Unleashed
Six in the World
Sky Frontier
The Southern Cone
Trail of Ants
Vagabonding

A while back a reader asked if there was some way to view all of my videos. At the time there wasn’t—I had been uploading videos to my own server in appropriate posts. Because of the requests and the realization that I have a lot of videos from my trip that never made it into a story on Me-go, I decided to upload all of my travel videos to Vimeo.

These videos were recorded with my backup camera, the Canon s60, which broke at the end of phase II. I also have videos from phase I, many from Myanmar, which will be online soon. Although the videos aren’t well filmed or visually stunning I think they help to convey my surroundings during my trip better than a photograph alone.

More than sixty of my videos can be seen at here, on Vimeo. The videos were uploaded in chronological order, with a few exceptions, and most are included in albums (ie. India) for easy viewing. Sorting through these videos I’m struck by how few I took and recommend to other travelers to capture all of the seemingly mundane scenes they see on the road.