In the winter of 2011, Elenka and I met Sara and Daniel in the Philippines. It was a brief get together. Dinner at a communal table, the usual "where have you been?" and "where are you going?" The following morning they left and within a week were but a vague memory. A year later, Elenka and I were eating lunch at a patron-less rooftop restaurant in a backwater town in India when we heard a voice say, "I know you." It was Sara, and the four of us have been friends ever since. 

 
We've come to Sweden to visit them. Daniel and Sara work 6 months a year, give or take a couple of weeks, and spend the rest of their time travelling. They've walked 790 kilometres of the Camino de Santiago, covered a good part of East Africa and have travelled in Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh. By comparison, they make our travels sound and feel like all-inclusive get-aways. 
Daniel and Sara took Lynn, Elenka and I to a sauna - check the photo, we had to walk a mile-long wharf to get there - where just before our blood began to boil, we ran out of the place screaming like Vikings, then hurled our naked bodies into the frigid Baltic Sea - not once, but twice. Then we visited churches, graves, small Swedish towns and even went back to Denmark for a day of castle exploring. These two wonderful Swedes were kind, generous and thoughtful beyond all expectations.

 
Daniel and Sara have very strong feelings about the mark they leave on the places they visit. Destinations on the lower end of the economic spectrum which have become frequently visited in recent years are their greatest concern. 

 
Who are the tour guides and taxi drivers of the poorer countries, Daniel once asked me. I remember shrugging, not understanding the question. Doctors, dentists and a host of other professionals who have influence and enough money to invest in their "new" businesses, he'd explained, making quotation marks with his fingers to emphasize the word "new". These individuals can make far more money serving wealthy foreigners than they can working at their professions. So let's just use the doctor as an example. In many cases, the government has spent time and money educating their doctors, only to have them climb behind the wheel of a taxi. Not only have government funds and time been wasted, but this much needed professional won't be saving lives or making people well anymore. I remember when Elenka and I went to St. Petersburg. The hosts of the place we stayed were professionals who'd more or less given up their careers to concentrate on renting rooms in their five bedroom flat. 

 
Giving gifts to children creates begging and makes the act acceptable, Daniel says. Once you become a good beggar why would you want to change. Why would anyone ever want to work when they've learned at an early age that getting things for free takes far less effort. In India there are apparently rent-a-kid programs. You rent the child for the day or maybe longer to beg for you. And where do these kids come from? Their parents of course, who realize the more units or children they produce, the wealthier they will become. Another memory I have: In Lhasa, Tibet, a woman lugged her - or perhaps someone else's - 4 or 5 year old child around the streets with a clear plastic bag half filled with paper currency, not realizing that she should have been hiding most of it away. Just about every job has its learning curve.

 
Bringing bags of old clothes to impoverished nations. Who could that possibly hurt? How about the clothing manufacturers in the countries that are receiving the free clothes. Without anyone to sell their shirts, socks and pants to they'll soon board up the factories and maybe get themselves taxi cabs to drive around tourists trying to find homes for their old clothes.            

This fall Daniel and Sara will escape it all. They're going to North Korea, where they don't expect to see beggars or wealthy taxi drivers.