In America, travel tends to be associated with "getting away." Getting away from work, from the usual scene, from the kids. Getting away from your normal life. Travel usually means going somewhere, checking into a hotel room, seeing the sites and spending time with the person you traveled there with. Hanging out with other travelers -- strangers -- usually ends when the elevator bell goes off and they get off at their floor.

Travel here works a bit differently. You end up spending a lot of time with fellow travelers and you get to know them. Part of this is because that "budget" or "independent" or "backpacker" travelers (pick whatever term you like) tend to stay in guesthouses or hostels. These places have common areas where everyone eats their meals, swaps information, hangs out at night to watch videos, etc. Guesthouses and hostels also act as travel agents, so its not unusual for them to not only give you a bed and dinner, but also arrange tours of local sites, buy your train tickets, find a car or driver for you, do your laundry, sell you books and maps. They are small but they meet all your needs.

The result is that you get packaged in with a group of people that you tend to see again and again. That cute Danish girl you saw at breakfast is probably going to be on your tour of the ruins this afternoon, and she will probably be on your bus to Saigon tomorrow. On a larger scale, there are certain routes through Asia that make more sense than others, so most travelers follow a similar itinerary, with only minor variations.

You find yourself bumping in to people that you met several towns ago. We met a guy in Beijing, traveled with him for a few days, then parted ways. But three weeks later in southwest China in the opposite corner of the country we ran into him again in a small town. This would be like meeting someone at a bar in Manhattan, and then happening to cross paths in Santa Fe, New Mexico a month later. It seems improbable, but it happens again and again.

This is true everywhere in Asia (and to a lesser extent in Australia and New Zealand), but nowhere is it more pronounced than in Vietnam. The country is narrow and tall and there are only 5 or 6 tourist towns along the way, so everyone does exactly the same route. Hanoi-Hue-Hoi An-Nha Trang-Saigon, either north to south or south to north. You can through in some side trips to Ha Long Bay or Dalat, but everyone does the same route on the same buses from the same traveler's cafes. It was strange to be halfway around the world from home, in a country where we supposedly knew no one, and walk down the street waving to everyone.

"Hey Drew!"

"Hey Geoff, how's it going?"

It got to a point where we literally expected to recognize every westerner we saw, and we were surprised when we saw a white face that was unfamiliar. The first few days after leaving Vietnam, when we were in Bangkok, it was odd to see so many unknown westerners. Though even there we ran into a few people we'd seen before. (Interestingly, a month later when we went to Siem Reap we ran into a bunch of the same Vietnam travelers again who were then making their way overland to Thailand via Cambodia.)

The travelers we meet are a motley bunch. I had expected most of them to fit into the neat little stereotypes I'd read about. Young, post-college, hippie types. Aimless and uninterested. Drifting. Partying. I thought Sarah and I, at age 30, would feel old, like chaperones at a college kegger. The reality is that most travelers don't fit into this profile. Many are in their 20's, but many more are in their 30's or 40's, and a surprisingly large contingency are retirees in their 50's and 60's.

Most are travelling for an extended period of time. Two or three months seems to be the minimum, and two or three years isn't unusual. In America, when you tell people you are traveling for a year they think it's dramatic and strange and "why are you doing that exactly?" But for most of the world, Europe especially, it is normal, almost expected. We met a Dutch family -- mom, dad, 15 year old daughter -- at 2 AM on the Vietnamese border with China. They had just taken the trans-Siberian railroad from Moscow to Beijing, and then caught the train to Hanoi en route to 6 months in Laos and Thailand. They weren't drugged-crazed earth-children, there wasn't anything wrong with them, they just wanted their daughter to learn something about the world. And the Dutch government agrees. If you take your child out of school for at least 6 months to travel they call it "world school" and give them full credit. Even in stodgy old England, many 17 or 18 year old kids spend their entire "gap year" between high school and university traveling. In fact, that's what Prince-What's-His-Name (you know, the tall good looking one?) is doing in Chile right now.

We meet travelers from all over the world. Germans probably outnumber any other single nationality. The Germans get at least 5 weeks of vacation each year, and many catch a lifelong travel bug. There are younger Germans that travel, but many that we meet are 30 or 40. Even the 70 year old retirees bus and hostel their way to the remotest of towns.

There are the Danes and the Norwegians, tall and blonde and multi-lingual, all of them walking advertisements for undiluted gene pools. The men have big toothy smiles and strong jaw lines, and try as they might the women can't seem to keep on their bikini tops when they get near a beach.

The commonwealth travelers -- the Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians -- are represented in big numbers. They can work without much red tape in each others countries, so lots of young people undertake lengthy work/play holidays. The Canadians all have Canadian flags sewn onto their backpacks to let you know they're not American, and just in case you didn't see the flag, the fact that they're Canadian and not American always comes up in the first minute of talking with them.

The Israelis have a bad reputation on the traveler's circuit, but Sarah and I have found them to be nothing but fun and welcoming. We see a few young Japanese. Most of the men dye their hair blonde and try to pull off a southern-California-surfer-dude thing, but they are far too polite to make it convincing. The older Japanese and Hong Kongese descend in huge numbers from luxury tour buses to buy or take a picture of everything in site (not unlike a western traveler in Asia!) There is a smattering of French and Italians and Spaniards. Almost no one from South America, Eastern Europe, or Africa.

The Dutch put everyone else to shame. For a country that is so small, they are represented in huge numbers. The saying goes that the Netherlands has a population of 15 million but they only need housing for 10 million because 5 million are always away traveling!

The big glaring question that jumps out at me: Where are all the Americans? For a rich country with a large population, we show up outside our country in embarrassingly small numbers. I could count on one hand the number of Americans I met during our entire 5 weeks in China. The Americans we do meet are either partying college kids or older retirees. It's as if world travel for Americans is thought of as a foolish indulgence, something to occupy time for those without a real life to live, rather than as an important part of living a real life.

[Time for a quick aside. I've been keeping tight-lipped for the past three months for fear of offending my reader, but I can keep them tight no longer. I leave the country for a couple of months and you go and elect George W while I'm away! I read somewhere that he has been out of the country only three times in his entire life. How can we elect a world leader who doesn't even know what the world is? I'll stop there.]

All travelers, young and old, European, Asian and American, all of them speak English, and speak it well. I had expected that English would be the prominent language of travel, that I would use it to speak to Chinese taxi drivers and Vietnamese hotel clerks, but I've been surprised to learn just how universal English is. It's the language everyone uses to speak to everyone else. If a Japanese guy speaks to a German, they speak English. Whole tables full of people talk all night in English, and none of the people around the table are native english speakers. Sometimes, a Dane speaks to a Dane in English, just as a courtesy to those around them, so others can join in the conversation if they wish.

Another ever-present factor in travel, especially in Asia, is the ubiquity of the Lonely Planet series of guidebooks. I knew they were widely read, but I didn't expect every single traveler to have one. It's known as The Book, and it is such a lifeline that several times I've heard places referred to by page number rather than by name. For instance, on the bus back to Beijing from the Great Wall I asked a Dutch guy where he was going the next day and his answer was "Page 547." He didn't even have to add the ". . .of the Lonely Planet" and I knew what he was talking about.

Hand-in-hand with its popularity, bashing on the Lonely Planet is a favorite past-time of travelers. Any book that attempts to catalog specific details of an entire country is bound to make a few mistakes, but all in all I must say that I've found the Book to be surprisingly accurate and extremely useful. We don't use it as a Bible, like many do, but I have no complaints. The maps are good. They do a pretty good job of describing what to see and what to skip. The maps are excellent. If I have one complaint it is that their restaurant reviews are a bit off.

Some travelers take great pride in telling you about a place they've just been, describing its wonders and then when you tell them you haven't heard about it they say for their kicker, "Oh yeah, well, it's not in the Book yet." This to them is a sign that they have gotten off the beaten path, had a real adventure, and generally out-traveled their fellow travelers. Their stories sound good, and for a while Sarah and I were enthralled by them, but with experience we have come to realize that there is generally a good reason why it's not in the Book. Calling a place "good" just because it's not in the book is like giving an Academy Award to the worst, most unknown actor you can find.

And with experience we have also learned that there is no such thing as off the beaten path. It's all beaten. Everywhere. Pick a place on a globe, a place that looks big and empty. Fly to its national capital. Then take another flight to a big provincial city. Take a train to the closest town, a rickety bus over the mountains, hitchhike the last 45 miles, and when you finally get there you will find two bored looking Germans sipping Carlsberg outside an Internet cafe.