Seasonal Hemispheric Migration

~Making the case for full-time travel and how continental migration could be one solution to mitigating exposure to climate extremes~

North and South America cover the northern and southern hemispheres. This means that when the United States is experiencing hot summer months, places like Santiago, Chile are having mild 60 degree winters.

I bring this up because as global temperatures continue to rise, historical refuge locations from the hot humid months in the United States and Canada are becoming hotter, thus, losing their appeal. But while the northern hemisphere is roasting in August, many parts of South America are experiencing ideal living temperatures.

If you're early in your full-time travel journey and aren't quite ready to travel internationally, there are still a few domestic travel destinations with geographical characteristics that can help mitigate the squelch.

First, if you live on the East Coast you'll be no stranger to humidity. Humidity traps moisture close to the body and is responsible for making you feel extra hot, not to mention that it is literally harder to breath with that much moisture floating around. You might be used to this and not know that you don't have to suffer.

The U.S. has several places better suited to spend the summer due to much lower levels of humidity. Those places are generally out west in states like Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. These places are more prone to wildfires that are likely to occur in the later parts of the summer but arriving in mid-May and staying until mid-August might be one way to maintain comfort levels, while mitigating exposure to humidity.

And it's not all about how far north you go in the summer months to escape the heat. In fact, northern regions in North America during summer are warming faster (and can actually feel hotter due to the strong rays of sun) than in more southern regions of the Americas. One factor that is often overlooked is altitude. The higher you live, the lower the air pressure. Warm air is created when gas molecules bump into each other. With fewer air molecules the higher up you go, the cooler the air will feel. Therefore seeking out towns in high elevations and in dry climates will actually feel cooler.

Recently Neil deGrasse Tyson was a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and used the thought experiment, what would the cosmos's solution be to persuade world leaders to work together to mitigate the effects of climate change on Earth's occupants. Dr. Tyson's solution was to send all of Earth's most influential people up into space and look back at Earth. There they wouldn't see lines drawn over vast swaths of land, delineating who owns what. They would see one entity. One oasis of life, placed in a sea of near nothingness. And maybe those humans would return to Earth with a fire lit under their butts to influence others to embrace changes like residential hemispheric oscillation.

Moving to Argentina in July and Arkansas in January doesn't do much for putting the ice caps back together. But by writing this article, maybe it'll spur another thought that could then spur another thought that might lead to your life being less environmentally damaging. Or maybe you feel gypped by previous generations and decide now is the time to eat your cake, because tomorrow their might not be any wheat.

If either of those sound like you, pick up a copy of our guide for becoming full-time travelers and start the journey of a life-time, while there's still time.