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Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

fluentin3months.com

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

#61

Post by yaix »

Nice article. I have myself lived in Latin America and China for about 12 years now, however I prefer to stay at the same place for some years, to make it become "normal" life.

And while I agree with many of the articles points, I completely disagree with #16. The "easy going" may look charming and smart on the surface, but when reality suddenly shows up (illness, accident, any sort of emergency, etc) then its suddenly not so charming anymore.

I believe a big reason for the "easy going" attitude lays in the available Social Capital in a given society. In societies with low Social Capital, its often no use to be "less easy going" and work hard, since careers are not build by knowledge or good work, but by "Guanxi" and Amigos (because Social Capital is low these relationships become more important than actual professional knowledge). I am pretty sure that, having a real choice, most people would opt for the "less easy going" way, where products and services, houses and medical care are available and reliable.

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

#62

Post by jdost »

A few points I got from this:

- Possessions do own you. I have made an effort in the past year to minimize my stuff. One of my long term goals is to be able to shrink the majority of my life into a travel-able size. It allows me to cherish the essentials and not bloat the rest of my life.

- Money does allow for happiness, just to a certain extent. Money opens up many opportunities and comforts. It also adds security. If my car gets totalled tomorrow, I know that I have enough money saved up to be able to handle it, rather than suddenly be put in a dire situation that could jeopardize my job.

- Major goals are important, but not everything. People work towards things, its natural of humanity. Everyone sets goals and works towards them (or sometimes waits for them) and it is a strong driving force in our lives. But sacrificing your happiness now for the sake of those goals is counterproductive. You need to enjoy the time used to achieve that goal. You shouldn't look back on the year(s) taken to get to the point and see a lot of unhappiness and pain, enjoy some of the time instead.

- In regards to the internet/tv posts, I would say that the biggest thing anyone can do is read. The Internet provides an incredibly accessible portal of information and using it to learn new things (and an incredibly breadth of things) is a tool everyone should use and abuse.

... Just my random thoughts after reading the post.

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

#63

Post by Tomek_ »

ristretto wrote: post #40
stayjin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However it is amazing what an impact does living at a place away from were one grew up in have in the perception of the world. I had already traveled a lot ( as a tourist ) before I left Greece to come and live in Japan, when I started to make a life here, I practically had to rediscover myself. It is not so much the big things, it's the small ones : habits that I took for granted, jokes that do not sound funny, if y…

Travelling is different than living abroad though, right?

Depends how your travels looks like, you can travel living in luxury hotels, spend most of the time with people from your country either by the hotel swimming pool or guided tours or in the museums - or you can be less savy and go a bit "guerilla" with your travels: go a bit off from the typical tourists' paths, see the real local culture (not the one from museums) and real local people - this should be enough to "open up your mind" for different cultures (of course living abroad adds more of that but you can get some essence even if you stay somewhere for only a couple of days.

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

#64

Post by bemmu »

stayjin wrote: post #31
mburney wrote: post #10

Most of these life lessons have nothing to do with travelling. Most people I know (especially in their late 20's) would come up with a similar list even if they've barely travelled. I think this is just merely the blog poster's world view articulated into 29 points, and incidentally he has travelled the world instead of living in one place.

However it is amazing what an impact does living at a place away from were one grew up in have in the perception of the world. I had already traveled a lot ( as a tourist ) before I left Greece to come and live in Japan, when I started to make a life here, I practically had to rediscover myself. It is not so much the big things, it's the small ones : habits that I took for granted, jokes that do not sound funny, if y…

Where in Japan are you located? I'm in Tokushima.

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

#65

Post by vbtemp »

swores wrote: post #3

More money will NEVER solve your problems That just isn't true - the problem is that people realised that being rich isn't the same as being happy, and it was a good point. But then people took it too far, and it stops making sense. Sure, for some people, having more money wouldn't improve things, but for many people, it definitely could. And I'm not just talking about people who are starving or homeless. You don't n…

In other words, money is a necessary but not sufficient condition to be happy.

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

#66

Post by dimmuborgir »

alexro wrote: post #34
dimmuborgir wrote: post #15

IMHO, different world travellers come up with different life lessons. It all depends on the person's own prejudices. Lessons are not in the world, they're within you. World and societies are just tools to discover our own selves.

I can't really think of any written example of any traveler who came up with different conclusions about the world.

Conclusions about the world can be same. Like, everyone wants the same in life is a popular conclusion seen in several travel blogs. But we're talking about life lessons here, which I think, are not absolutes but drawn differently by different people.

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

#67

Post by whosKen »

mburney wrote: post #10

Most of these life lessons have nothing to do with travelling. Most people I know (especially in their late 20's) would come up with a similar list even if they've barely travelled. I think this is just merely the blog poster's world view articulated into 29 points, and incidentally he has travelled the world instead of living in one place.

I do agree that majority of these lessons have also been mentioned by other blogs.

However, to know them and to learn them are two different things. Since human, especially me, has a tendency of falling back into old habits (such as hoarding possessions), posts such as this now-and-again to serve as reminders should always be welcome.

On an another note, I have a feeling that the term "life lesson" is being thrown about way too much. Can you say you have learned a life lesson without living through most of your life (ie. < ~50)?

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

#68

Post by stayjin »

bemmu wrote: post #64
stayjin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However it is amazing what an impact does living at a place away from were one grew up in have in the perception of the world. I had already traveled a lot ( as a tourist ) before I left Greece to come and live in Japan, when I started to make a life here, I practically had to rediscover myself. It is not so much the big things, it's the small ones : habits that I took for granted, jokes that do not sound funny, if y…

Where in Japan are you located? I'm in Tokushima.

Hi thanks for replying, I am in Kobe, close to Osaka. Do you ever come to Osaka, by any chance?

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

#69

Post by dimmuborgir »

mburney wrote: post #10

Most of these life lessons have nothing to do with travelling. Most people I know (especially in their late 20's) would come up with a similar list even if they've barely travelled. I think this is just merely the blog poster's world view articulated into 29 points, and incidentally he has travelled the world instead of living in one place.

Absolutely. On top of that, not all 29 points are life lessons. Many of them are just general conclusions about the world.

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

#70

Post by rodh »

jasonkester wrote: post #49
lhnz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't spend 8 years traveling the world without quite a bit of money. The author should look at his own life before telling others that they don't need money; it sounds like luxury to me.

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 country for 6 months or longer, without a significant amount of savings.

Not everyone can necessarily do a bit of freelance work when they are abroad. As a former freelancer who who's spent several years now working full-time in an office, I have lost a lot of my freelance network of clients and contacts. Furthermore, if we're looking outside of the Hacker News community, not everyone has a skill that can be as easily marketable from a distance.

Trying to establish a freelance network back in your native country, once you're abroad could be an option for me, although not one I would rely on for my survival. I would also not rely on acquiring work visas, either. Especially if I couldn't prove to the relevant authorities that I had enough existing savings to not be a burden.

So unless you're a person in a particular situation in life, with a specific skill set, you will still be spending a reasonable amount of money during your months or years abroad. Add to that flights, insurance (maybe you're not too keen on cheap surgery in a third world country), vaccinations, the loss of maybe a few years contributions to your retirement savings, the cost of reintegrating yourself into your country when you return. Things get expensive. Although I previously did not think so, I would now definitely consider long-term travelling (with the intent of returning) a luxury.

Edit: That's not to say it's not a good idea. Or that it's impossible. As far as luxuries go, it's a very good one to go for.

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