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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

#71

Post by matthewlyle »

lhnz wrote: post #60
sanswork wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travel can be very expensive. It can also be very cheap. It might be nicer to fly from point A to B but odds are there is a cheaper bus ticket available. A 4 star hotel is very nice to stay at but a 0 star hostel will often cost you less than $15 a day. Working in a bar will easily cover that, your food(buying cheap from local sources and cooking for yourself), and allow you to save for your next bus/boat ticket or w…

You see, that's my point, as soon as you have to cut the costs of other parts of your life you've clearly started doing something which requires large amount of money...

What costs are you cutting? No, vacationing in 5-star hotels for 8 years would not be cheap but that's not a necessity for travelling. You probably don't rent a 5-star apartment at home.

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

#72

Post by stayjin »

Tomek_ wrote: post #63
ristretto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "op…

This is so true.

My current work as a system engineer implementing ERP systems for overseas affiliates, takes me often to work abroad (from Japan, that is) for a few weeks a time. Although I don't have time to do almost any sight-seeing at all, and although they will usually have me stay in more or less high grade hotels (that narrow one's vision, because they are the same, everywhere), it is working together with the local operators and managers, eating together, understanding their work ethic and habits, getting their feedback, pushing it together through the transition period, so when I go back I feel I understand a little bit more about the country from these interactions than from whatever I saw during my limited time off work.

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

#73

Post by stayjin »

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?

Yes it is (at least for me it was).

It has to do with the change of perspective. When traveling you usually curry your original perspective with you so it is kind of difficult to see things from another angle while bound for back home.

I guess it depends on how you travel though (the OP sounds like a very serious traveler).

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

#74

Post by napierzaza »

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'm pretty sure this is 29 lessons learned from Fight Club. Though I didn't get to the soap recipe.

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

#75

Post by srgseg »

> 2. Deferring your happiness to the future is a terrible idea

Every time I see this, I ask myself, how is this advice reconciled with the famous Marshmallow experiment? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

There surely must come a point where enough deferred future marshmallow gratification makes deferred gratification a recommended life strategy.

If I were always to choose not to delay my happiness, I'd eat unhealthy foods, not force myself to do exercise and never work hard to achieve anything.

As I heard a comic say, "I decided to live every day as if it were my last. Now I have really bad credit."

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

#76

Post by jasonkester »

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'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 hard pressed to find a Brit or Aussie who didn't take a Gap Year at some point.

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

#77

Post by pinaceae »

irishpolyglot wrote: post #20
pinaceae wrote: post #18

but what if i ENJOY watching tv? or being on the internet for hours? why is outdoors better by definition? this fits nicely into the "what white people like" stereotype. go outside! why? maybe i want to read a book and be left alone. maybe i don't like dancing and singing. how about: do whatever you like, but please, don't preach. we are different. /white, like travel and outdoors, but love to consume art

If after spending many hours watching TV you feel your life has been enhanced in some way, then by all means keep it up. In my opinion people don't feel this way (I certainly never did and grew up glued to my TV) and would have spent their time better in other activities rather than following hours of reality TV shows etc. Doing "whatever you like" doesn't necessarily enrich your life. It's just immediate pleasure. S…

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 jota more "valuable" or less valuable than the ones of any other being, whatever life they live.

your open mind - isn't.

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

#78

Post by radu_floricica »

srgseg wrote: post #75

> 2. Deferring your happiness to the future is a terrible idea Every time I see this, I ask myself, how is this advice reconciled with the famous Marshmallow experiment? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment There surely must come a point where enough deferred future marshmallow gratification makes deferred gratification a recommended life strategy. If I were always to choose not to delay my ha…

They're different things. Marshmellow isn't about deferring satisfaction, but about using metacognitive skills to reach an outcome you _know_ beforehand is favorable (i.e. two marshmellows instead of one). If you just find a marshmellow on a plate somewhere, by all means, the best strategy is to eat it.

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

#79

Post by gdulli »

srgseg wrote: post #75

> 2. Deferring your happiness to the future is a terrible idea Every time I see this, I ask myself, how is this advice reconciled with the famous Marshmallow experiment? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment There surely must come a point where enough deferred future marshmallow gratification makes deferred gratification a recommended life strategy. If I were always to choose not to delay my ha…

"Life lessons" aren't formulas and aren't objective, so they don't need to be reconciled. Knowing when and how to apply them takes maturity and life experience. If that wasn't the case, then anyone could read a list of them and be equally enlightened and successful. A counter-example doesn't invalidate advice, or else there would be no legitimate advice.
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