Arimo Travels is a half-flightless travel blog that focuses on sustainable long-term travel. This page tells more about myself, this site and the idea of half-flightless travel.
About Me
I am Arimo, a former journalist and a current psychology student from Lappeenranta, Finland. Although I had already done lots of backpacking in the past, my 2-year trip around the world was by far the longest and most ambitious trip I’ve ever done. I started the journey in May 2016 and returned to Finland after 777 days of travel on July 2018. In total, I have traveled in 68 countries on six different continents.
As a sustainable traveler, I follow my own principle called half-flightless travel. In other words, I make sure that I cover over half of my travel kilometers without flying. And whenever I do fly, I compensate my CO2 emissions with Atmosfair.
Besides being a half-flightless traveler, I’m also half-deaf. After finishing my 2-year trip around the world, I was diagnosed a non-cancenrous brain tumor (acoustic neuroma). The tumor damaged my auditory nerve to the point where I’ve lost all my hearing on my left ear. In October 2019, I had a successful brain surgery where the size of the tumor was significantly reduced.
However, the tumor cannot be completely removed because of its difficult location, so the growth of the tumor is monitored every two years.
About Arimo Travels
Arimo Travels started as a travel blog for my 2-year trip around the world. I wanted to show what full-time travel felt like, so I wrote honest accounts about my travel experiences. However, I never wanted this site to be all about myself. Because of this, I focused more on long-term travel tips.
After finishing my adventure, I shifted the focus of this site once more. Now Arimo Travels focuses on sustainable travel tips. My worries about the environment reached new heights while I was traveling, so I want to spread awareness about sustainable travel.
Below are short descriptions about the differenct sections of Arimo Travels.
Destinations
If you’re looking for information about a certain country or region, my Destinations page is the best place to start. The page also lists all the flightless travel routes (such as Europe to Africa) that I’ve written about.
Some of my favourite destination posts:
Freighter Travel
“How Long Does It Take to Cross the Pacific on a Cargo Ship?” is the most popular article I’ve written for Arimo Travels. I traveled as a passenger on a freighter from New Zealand to the United States, and I support freighter travel as a sustainable mode of transport. To serve others who are curious about freighter travel, I’ve gathered all my resources about the topic on the page Freighter Travel.
Guides
The Guides page lists all the travel guides that I’ve written. These include my sustainable travel guides and older guides for long-term travel that I wrote during my 2-year trip around the world. Some of my guides are based on my personal travel experiences, while others are based on extensive research.
My top picks:
Random Generators
Listing Random Generators on the menu of a sustainable travel blog can seem a bit… yes, random. However, I have a long history with random travel. During my first InterRail trip back in 2012, I chose my destinations by throwing darts on the map of Europe. And for my 2-year trip around the world. I picked a completely random destination anywhere in the world!
To help others embrace randomness in their lives, I’ve created multiple random destination generators. The most popular one picks any country in the world, while others focus on specific regions such as US States. During the COVID pandemic, I’m also going to create random activity generators for those who are stuck at home.
Stories
Even though Arimo Travels focuses on travel guides for sustainable travel, I have also written about my personal travel experiences in the past. You can find these more traditional blog posts in the Stories section. I wrote most of these posts during my 2-year trip around the world. Expect bad jokes and honest accounts about the life of a solo full-time traveler.
My favourite stories:
More
Under the More button, you’ll find pages about other categories of Arimo Travels. The first one is called Hiking and focuses on hiking destinations all over the world. Next, I’ve gathered all my articles about Meditation on one page. These include some of my most popular blog posts that took literally – yes, I mean literally – years to write. For example, I wrote review of mindfulness app Headspace only after I had used the app every day for a full year.
On the More submenu, you can also find a comprehensive summary of my 2-year trip around the world. And last but not least, I’ve collected all my posts about the psychology of travel on the page Psychology. As a psychology student, I am interested about the mental side of travel. These posts describe the psychological factories of full-time travel.
Contact Arimo
Do you have any questions about traveling in general or something more specific? Or do you want to make an offer? I’d love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate! Hit me up on Facebook or Instagram or send an email to [email protected]
I am wanting to go from Hong Kong to Los Angeles the beginning of July. Where can I look to find freighter options to travel this route? Thanks so much.
Hi Pam!
The best way to learn about available connections is to contact cargo ship travel agents directly. I used Freighter Travel (NZ) on my trip, but other agents should be good too. For example, you can try contacting some of the following:
https://www.freightertravel.co.nz
https://www.cargoshipvoyages.com
https://www.freightercruises.com/
Note that the cargo ship connections are both limited and not very frequent, so you may need to be flexible on the dates and the departure/arrival points.
Hello Arimo,
I am really impressed about your traveling interest.
Wish, i would visit some places at least among the one you did.
Great inspiration. Best of luck for your future plans.
Thank you Roopa, I hope your wish comes true some day! 🙂
Hi Arimo,
I am glad to see your blog and some of the interesting tips you have mentioned on Travel Tips & Resources articles. However, I did not get when a traveler should use “Random Destination Generators”?
Both “Travel Tips & Resources” and “The Psychology of Travel” articles are immense of knowledge and I like the way you put forward the psychology of traveler.
In the entire blog, I have not seen you mentioning about the Vacation in a lush tropical paradise, Jamaica. It seems like, you have not visited Jamaica a jewel in the Caribbean tourism. Just-in-case you want to learn more please visit this blog here https://medium.com/@classiquetravel/jamaica-a-jewel-in-the-caribbean-tourism-8709bce55acf and https://medium.com/@classiquetravel/vacation-in-a-lush-tropical-paradise-jamaica-767e30a8f863
Hey! The random destination generators are meant for anyone who wants to pick a destination at random. They are not necessarily travel tips or resources, but they didn’t fit into my other categories, so I listed them there.
Great blog! I am from the USA and only 17-years-old and have traveled to over 20 countries so far for leisure and volunteering. You are an inspiration to me and I hope to travel to these places like Iran and North Korea one day. Keep blogging!
Thank you Victoria, and good luck on your future adventures! 🙂
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https://blog.dailytravel.com/en/20-things-to-do-before-you-travel/