After my trip to the tropics I felt I’d packed in enough adventure in Australia to make it feel like a much longer trip; Christmas with my family in L.A. already felt like ages ago. But I had a couple more loose ends to tie up in Sydney for the daylong layover I was to have there between my return from Port Douglas and my flight home.

To mix things up I opted to stay this time with my pal Sarah at her tidy flat in a walk-up in Woollahra. Unlike the beach shack in Coogee, Sarah’s housing choices – both in terms of location and style – mirror mine so closely it’s almost hard to believe we’re a vast ocean apart: a restored vintage condominium-type residence in a small, close-knit building (okay, hers is a bit closer knit than mine: she filled me in on some colorful neighborhood gossip that echoes the show Melrose Place). Only significant deviation: she’s got a fourteen-year-old son.

Yet there, too, there’s common ground: the oldest of my nieces and nephews turns ten this year, and in talking to Sarah about Huwie I got a glimpse of what’s off on my familial near-horizon. It’s been fascinating to watch, for me at a bit of a distance but still very much engaged, how the little ones develop and blossom into the people they will become.

I also managed a meetup with the very first person I’d met in Australia: Dean’s mother was good friends with some friends of my parents back in Montreal. We did the usual life-catch-up that occurs on so many of my visits where I make acquaintance with a long-lost chum.

On that note, the subject turned, as it often does, to travel; Dean and his family have done a fair bit of it, even doing bigger en-famille adventures (they were all headed to Hawaii in a day or so, in fact); but when I told him about my trip he had two observations.

“I couldn’t travel alone,” he said. “When I travel by myself, the journey feels like this,” he added, crimping his thumb and forefinger together with little space in between.

“But when I go with a friend – if I can find one who’s got the same time and budget – the trip becomes like this.” He held out his hands wide apart.

Fair enough, I nodded. But what about the notion of longer journeys such as the one I took?

“I could have seen myself doing it maybe when I was younger,” he said. “But now? I feel that now’s the time we need to be building up our lives and our careers.”

Aha! It’s instances like this one when my “career break flashpacker” light goes on.

“I hear ya,” I replied. “But if it is something you ever did want to do, your career will still be there when you come back.” This was a fear I had to overcome, one every midcareer professional lies awake at night considering: what if I’m no longer viable/needed/in demand? The amazing discovery so many of us have made who’ve gone on longer journeys is that, more often than not, aside from the short-term economic hit of traveling and not working, a career break really doesn’t adversely impact one’s career – and often augments it, bringing the career-breaker new perspectives and (sometimes) new skills to the table when returning to the workplace. Granted, not everyone is in a position to simply take a lot of time off and be able to count on a soft landing upon return… but many more people are in that position than realize it.

Some final packing, then a hop to the center of town, where the summertime Sydney Festival was just getting underway. I was going to miss it, but I did catch a sliver and enjoy a nice little rendezvous with a career peer: fellow writer and travel memoirist (and accomplished actor and screenwriter as well) Jesse Archer.

Jesse had been one of the early champions of my book back in its pre-release days, when I contacted him in a “what the heck” moment after reading his book about traveling in South America some ten years back. We’d traded e-mails and tips and such, but as he moved from New York to Sydney with his boyfriend last winter, we’d never had a chance to meet up. Even on this trip that looked unlikely: he was up in northern New South Wales at a New Years camping event when I arrived, and was recovering from a bout of flu this week from, shall we say, a little too much fun in the forest. But he made time for me and we sat on the grass swapping war stories.

“I love Sydney; the place is like a postcard,” he said. But it’s been tough for him as an indie gay filmmaker to be away from the burgeoning scene in New York. We’d chatted about my still-in-the-early-stage work on adapting Wander the Rainbow into a screenplay and he was able to offer some ideas to help make it more producible – though he conceded that the challenges of shooting overseas on a microbudget could be daunting.

As it grew later it was time for me to head off; bidding Jesse and his galpals goodbye I walked in the opposite direction of the human tide heading toward the festival, a bit sad to be leaving this place one more. I hopped on the train to the airport and checked in for my long, long flights back Stateside.

Oh, and wouldn’t it be nice if I could end it here. Unfortunately, the vagaries of sky-high holiday-season fares meant that I wasn’t doing a direct-to-San-Fran hop home but instead a bordering-on-ludicrous itinerary: two flights with Air China: an eleven-hour haul from Sydney to Beijing; a ten-hour layover in Beijing; then another eleven-hour jaunt across the Pacific to San Francisco.

I went for it partly because I knew the lay of this land, having been both to Beijing and its gargantuan new airport before. Still, this was to be a journey of eleven thousand miles and thirty-three hours total – about a sixth of the total mileage of my entire seven-month world odyssey.

Long-haul air travel has always been a challenge for me, who’s too tall for those economy seats. Our first flight, out of Sydney, however, confirmed a suspicion I’d had this past spring when going from San Francisco to London (a flight of similar duration): ten or so hours international, on a widebody plane with two meal services and a longer chance to sleep, is actually a better experience than the six-hour misery that has become domestic transcon travel. As suspected, Air China’s still finding its way in the overseas marketplace, but I’d say they’re still putting on a pretty decent showing.

Arriving before dawn into subzero Beijing, we entered the spaceport-like Terminal 3. A quick stampy-stampy at International Transfers and we were in the main lounge. I’d done my homework and knew where I wanted to go: as a newly-minted major overseas transit hub (a distinction it didn’t enjoy as little as five years ago), Beijing airport is now endowed with a number of options for passengers needing to while away too many hours – and who don’t relish the prospect of sleeping on a public airport bench: short-stay hotel-like lounges. Ordinarily reserved for elite-class travelers, the airport now offers a “pay as you go” option for we regular folk. Comfortable and cozy (though by no means cheap) it made for a great way to sleep off a bunch of hours and surf the Internet (albeit behind the Great Firewall of China – sorry, Facebook, I couldn’t get to you).

A respectable (and also not cheap – China really has “arrived” as a travel destination, I suppose) meal of Chinese fare, some amusement at a few brilliantly-worded “Chinglish” signs, and it was time for leg number two: the voyage home.

On this run, another pleasant surprise: instead of crying babies or moribund fellow flyers, my seatmate this time around was a San Jose State sophomore returning to school. Frank’s from Beijing and is majoring in Computer Science; how oh how do they always find me? Friendly and outgoing, he told of stellar experiences as a newcomer to America; I’m always heartened to hear such stories, proving my adopted homeland is a lot more open to would-be immigrants than we sometimes realize. Frank and I got to comparing notes on travel tales and (of course) computing; again I’m reminded that encounters like these are what really makes world travel magical: you really never know who or what’s around the next bend.

That’s it for Australia, but the adventure goes on… I’m slated to head to Europe this winter for a bout of snowboarding in the Alps. Stayed tuned, Wander fans!

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