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Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

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Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#111

Post by ido »

jonnathanson wrote: post #91
corin_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure a lot of things in life are luxuries, but that doesn't mean they are bad, and often can still solve problems. "My feet hurt all day" might get solved by buying a fairly expensive pair of shoes, for example. Will winning the lottery give you the perfect life? Doubtful. Can money solve many problems and improve your life in other ways? Very often.

As an interesting corollary, it's actually a longitudinally studied and extensively documented fact that winning the lottery does not provide long-term happiness. More often than not, it actually causes more problems than it solves. I forget the statistic off the top of my head, but some astounding percentage of lottery winners -- let's say 75% -- end up worse off within 5 years of winning than they were before they…

    Granted, a lot of that has to do with the fact that 
    the type of person most likely to be playing the 
    lottery is also the type of person who has no real
    concept of the value of how to manage a $XXX million
    fortune, let alone a $XXX million fortune acquired 
    literally overnight
That's it - I (anecdotaly) know several people who won the "internet start up lottery" (gotten very, very wealthy due to their start-ups doing well) and all of them are doing alright years after "winning the lottery".

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#112

Post by dts »

These are pretty simple, not so preachy, and generally expected observations from someone working in a location independent profession while travelling the world and picking up new languages. This is also advice aimed almost directly at people in similar positions - those with higher education and almost zero financial or emotional attachment (ex. children, sick family memebers) to their original home. What I'm more interested in though is when the author realizes that being in different places every three months, no matter how much you "hack your experience" there only allows you access to a certain level of experiential depth. Love, trust, deep friendships, community - you just cant cultivate these things every three months while planning your next destination and as much friendliness, and kindness people in these places show you, its not the same as if you are someone planning to be a part of that place permanently.

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#113

Post by pinaceae »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #88
pinaceae wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do i need to "enrich my life"? can't i be happy with how it is? who are you to tell other what's BEST for them? how about you get a little older? how about staying in a place for a little longer, say 10 years and see how time makes a difference? your zero impact runaway life is a narrow experience - ever thought about that? maybe you'll realize that all your travels, all your experiences don't make your life a jo…

First off, you're really defensive about some person's blog post. I mean, seriously. He's not working on your spleen. Secondly, it's "lessons learned", not commandments. Just stuff he picked up whilst traveling, not universally-accepted, committee-approved advice for everyone on planet earth and those who aren't born yet. Finally, what on earth does age have to do with conveying general observations? What would stayi…

i'm replying to his reply...did you read it?

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#114

Post by bignoggins »

As someone who is currently taking a gap year to travel and work on my startup, a lot of this rings true. Especially the part about speaking other languages rather than English. There are interesting conversations that I just can't participate in because I don't understand what people are saying. However, there are several hacks for this that I've found.

- Don't stay at hotels, use airbnb. The hosts are almost always locals that speak decent English and want to get to know you, so that's enriched my experience tremendously. Disclaimer: I do NOT work for airbnb, but after seeing how it has enriched my travels it's definitely at the top of my list if I ever wanted to apply for a job again.

- Go out of your way to meet other travelers. Usually, travelers like to keep to themselves. But there are districts in any city that are especially frequented by foreigners. Why restrict yourself to locals? Foreigners from a different country who are traveling are just as interesting for cultural exchange as the locals. They usually speak English fairly well and it's not uncommon to be engaged in an English conversation with a German, a Russian, a Chinese, and a French person at a bar. It's quite fascinating.

While it is definitely less expensive to travel than one would think, it still does cost quite a bit if you want to travel to major cities and have a living standard which is at least close to western-standard. Staying with friends and using airbnb instead of hostel/hotel is the best way to keep costs down. After 3 months of traveling (Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and now Spain) I've spent an average of $4300/mo. I'm traveling with my wife so the per person cost is actually less. Could I get by with less by teaching English and staying in one place longer, etc? Yes, but as with everything, there is a tradeoff between time and money.

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#115

Post by Tsagadai »

rodh wrote: post #70
jasonkester wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply not true. When I first started traveling for long durations, I quickly realized that my biggest expense was keeping my life in the USA alive. Once I ditched the apartment/car payment, I found that I could live substantially cheaper on the road than I could back home. As an example, living and climbing on the beach in Thailand, I could pay for my monthly rent/food/beer expenses with a single day of billable wor…

I do see your point, and agree to a certain extent. Having spent some time in south-east asia, I have experienced first hand how cheap life can be compared to what I'm used to (a factor of 10, for a comparable lifestyle). In fact at one point I would consider that I pretty much ran out of money but still managed to get by. However, I still see this type of travelling as a luxury. I would not fly off to another countr…

You don't need to limit yourself to freelancing work either. I've done odd jobs that got me enough money for another week of travel with a few days works. One was laying concrete in a 3rd world country after drinking with a local farmer. It is very easy to get by if you have a varied skillset. Learn how to weld and you will never go hungry anywhere (until they invent cheap, intelligent welding robots).

I've been working abroad for over a year now. Make it happen and go where you want. Kids are easy to travel with in most countries too.

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#116

Post by baha_man »

jasonkester wrote: post #76
rodh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do see your point, and agree to a certain extent. Having spent some time in south-east asia, I have experienced first hand how cheap life can be compared to what I'm used to (a factor of 10, for a comparable lifestyle). In fact at one point I would consider that I pretty much ran out of money but still managed to get by. However, I still see this type of travelling as a luxury. I would not fly off to another countr…

You're arguing against an Existence Disproof here. Right this minute, there are tens of thousands of people travelling the world slowly from a backpack, picking up casual work as needed to get them to the next place. No special skills needed. Most of them you'd consider unskilled, which is just fine for waiting tables or running the front desk at a hostel. It's less common to see Americans doing this, but you'll be h…

"...you'll be hard pressed to find a Brit... who didn't take a Gap Year at some point."

Not true. Sure, it's common enough for young people to take a gap year before or after university, but not everyone does - I certainly didn't. Among those who don't go to university, taking a gap year would be the exception rather than the rule.

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#117

Post by danneu »

randomdrake wrote: post #50
clistctrl wrote: post #43

I have a strong desire to do something like this. I've been saving for the day that I can quit my job, and work on a start-up. At the same time I also want to move to somewhere like Costa Rica with exciting rain forests, and a lower cost of living. Unfortunately I feel tied down, I'm more than willing to sell most of my stuff, I basically stopped buying "things" a few years ago. However I could never move away from m…

I'll just leave this here for you then: http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-T...

And I'll even cut to the chase: http://www.vagabonding.net/excerpt/

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#118

Post by eftpotrm »

jasonkester wrote: post #76
rodh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do see your point, and agree to a certain extent. Having spent some time in south-east asia, I have experienced first hand how cheap life can be compared to what I'm used to (a factor of 10, for a comparable lifestyle). In fact at one point I would consider that I pretty much ran out of money but still managed to get by. However, I still see this type of travelling as a luxury. I would not fly off to another countr…

You're arguing against an Existence Disproof here. Right this minute, there are tens of thousands of people travelling the world slowly from a backpack, picking up casual work as needed to get them to the next place. No special skills needed. Most of them you'd consider unskilled, which is just fine for waiting tables or running the front desk at a hostel. It's less common to see Americans doing this, but you'll be h…

As a Brit... might I suggest that the more accurate answer is that you'd be hard pressed to find an ex-pat in your current country of residence who didn't do that at some point?

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#119

Post by avstraliitski »

schiptsov wrote: post #106

Well, it is good to have rich parents, no one argues. You can discover basics of the life in 8 years rather than in one year of visiting a public library. ^_^ Disclaimer: I have seen so many Enlightened Tourists after two weeks in Lhasa or a Hindu/Yogi Gurus after one months in Varanasi and especially Teachers Of Humanity with an obvious Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Being in India right now, I couldn't help but laugh at the disclaimer. Nicely worded :)

Re: Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

#120

Post by bemmu »

stayjin wrote: post #105
jason_tko wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Stayjin, I'm coming to Osaka next week actually on Friday. Let me know if you have time for a coffee! My email address is in my profile. Cheers,

I guess it is not a coincidence, but just in case that you don't know it already, patio11 is giving a talk at a presentation group we have here called "Design Matters", at the Osaka Shinsaibashi Apple Store. It will be great. Check out http://designmatters.jp/ This group was initiated by Garr Raynolds of http://www.presentationzen.com/ but Garr became very busy, so since last year, together with another guy we run th…

Could you send me an email (in my profile) / put your contact info in your profile so I can find you if I go there.
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