A Year on the Road: Everything Changes

If I close my eyes and focus, I can nearly picture it– me in heels and a suit, rolling a suitcase behind me, laptop bag over one shoulder, trying to hail a cab and text on my blackberry at the same time. It’s strange, but the most visceral memory of those years is the physical sensation I carried with me: the uneasy stomach, anxiety tightening my chest, tired and heavy shoulders and worse– the excruciating boredom. The rest has faded, except short clips I can’t associate to any one moment, but more like a montage of my former life. There’s me, sitting on a conference call and catching myself fading away, cut to me trying not to fidget or stand up and throw something during 3 hour long staff meetings, cut to me sitting in my silent office and dreading all the stuff-I-don’t-want-to-do.

And that was it. The thing I remember most is that feeling of unease. Not the perks or business travel or the projects or the swell vacations. Just the feeling of wanting to crawl out of my skin, but forcing myself to bear it, because, well, that’s what you do. And eventually it gets better, right?

Yes. It does. If you blow it all up.

So I did. A year ago, I quit my job, and decided I was a writer, which by the way, is super easy to say but quite difficult to actually do, and caught the first plane to Madrid. I traveled, learned Spanish, learned how to surf, took salsa lessons, learned how to make typical Guatemalan food from scratch, and slept in late.

I wrote enough words on this blog that if it was book form it would be longer than most bestsellers.

Whatever it was that wore me down only a year ago, call it malaise, boredom, or depression– it’s gone. It’s been gone for awhile now, but at this one-year anniversary, looking back, I suddenly remembered– hey, I didn’t always feel so… light.

Back then, I had always wondered what it would be like in a year from now. I understand now, why anything I read at the time failed to construct that feeling for me. It’s hard to describe. It’s not a lack of ambition, I still have high standards for myself, but I’m letting it unfold naturally instead of forcing it. It’s not a lack of work, I write and read nearly constantly. But there is a balance– I’m not replaying the day’s work for the rest of the evening over a martini while I sulk. It’s not even the travel, although it fits me so well, I love the change and challenge of it, but if I had the same attitude, I could be happy anywhere. It’s a way of seeing things. Travel makes you easily charmed, whether it’s seeing how English words are translated or the way kids act or the way food is prepared, you get used to being surprised or curiously delighted. You appreciate things, especially the details.

It’s not happiness, exactly. No, it’s closer to being relaxed, open, allowing things to happen. Spending 12 hours on a crowded bus is still uncomfortable, but you bear it better. You’re not grinning like a madman, but you do laugh more. When the bank won’t change your currency and you’re nearly broke, you shrug and figure out a way around it. You get used to not having control, you learn to live with that. You can’t speak the language, you have no idea where anything is, you don’t know the correct custom, you don’t know the proper price, so you let it go.

And then, the habit, becomes routine.

So now a year later, a few questions answered:

Will you keep traveling? Yes. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever live full time in the US again. Although I do admit, I am catching thoughts of semi-permanent housing creeping in. Perhaps a modest home in southern Spain for the winter? A spring cabin in Central America, an hours drive from the beach so we can surf during the day and retreat to the mountain side and watch the monkeys from our verdana while they climb the mango trees? Summering in our Croatian apartment? Christmas in a Thailand bungalow? Could we be quad-coastal? Three months in 4 different homes? How fast could we save for the tiniest of places in each location?

Where will you go next? Well, so far I’ve covered some of Europe and most of Central America. I’d love a big change of pace, so I’m eyeing up Asia and Africa in the next year.

Where you able to make a living? Yes. But not in the ways I thought. It ended up being a very eclectic mix of work: some writing assignments for magazines/other sites, this blog, photography commissions, freelance writing for commercial clients and so on. There was no one stream of income, as I had anticipated. Somewhat naively, I assumed I’d be making more of my living from writing travel articles for the glossy travel pubs. But in the last year, the industry has changed, and even in my short time in it, I’ve noticed a huge difference. Editors that used to respond to me, have disappeared. Publications are closing. The only thing that has increased is the number of “travel writing” workshops, which promise a fast buck writing and traveling the world. I’m optimistic that the hard work I put in now, will pay off later when the industry invariably rebounds (right around the time when the economy rebounds and advertisers are looking to place ads again) but in the meantime, I am diversified.

What would you do differently? Nothing. Oh there are little things, like stay longer in this place or avoid doing that, but I wouldn’t have known that until, I did it the wrong way. Things have worked out incredibly smoothly, although one thing I’d caution against: microwaving a cup of water to boiling (but not boiling for 2 minutes) in a country with unsafe drinking water is probably a bad idea. It was the only time I got truly sick. Like, oh my god, I am going to die, kind of sick. Thankfully, this same country has great pharmacies with over the counter cures for almost anything.

How’s the internet? I’d love to write a book on this, because there is an art to finding good internet almost anywhere, and you’d surprised how a tiny cafe in Guatemala can have a scorching fast internet speed (almost 3X faster than my connection at home) and yet find nothing in a certain US airport. The bottom line: I was able to get internet everywhere I went, with only very minor exceptions. So if you’re looking to work overseas and travel, getting online may be an occasional hassle, but never impossible.

Are you still going to blog? Yes. Although, I’ve spent some time thinking about this, because, as with all things, this blog grew organically. It started basically enough: I’m going to quit my job and travel the world. Then I told you about it. But as it has grown, I haven’t taken a look at where I want to be now. Is this just about my travels? What’s the most useful information for other people? Where’s the most value? So this summer, I’m making it a goal to start looking at those things and the feedback from everyone to see if there are any shifts I need to make.

Any advice for someone thinking about doing the same thing? The biggest illusion in life is that you have control and that by staying your current course you are preventing bad things from happening to you. The second biggest illusion is that money, career-status, community-status, following the rules and having stuff is the defacto route to happiness. But without personal experience, I know these things don’t ring true– yet. My best advice is to keep looking for the answer, and slowly over time, it will reveal itself to you. And then you’ll feel it, and you’ll know what to do.

A year of travels down, many more left to go…