Reflecting on The Adventure

I've finally made it home. After 13 ½ months, I've completed my trip around the world and it's nearly impossible to believe or really take in. I'm not really sure where to begin here... this is more or less the post that's supposed to wrap everything up, but I don't think that's possible at this point... I'll try to summarize some lessons that I've learned and ideas that I've picked up from this trip that I'll take with me for the rest of my life, and hopefully these are things that other people can benefit from as well.

First off, I want to acknowledge that I never planned on doing this. This was a completely unplanned, spontaneous round-the-world trip that just sort of happened as it continued to unfold. So don't think that even a crazy-adventure-life-changing-trip needs to be planned in the first place. Like most things in my life, I usually just go with the flow and do whatever feels right at the time, and this was no exception. My original plan was to travel around Europe for 3 months with my friend Alex, then possibly find work and live in Europe for awhile. That's it. In the back of my mind I thought about continuing to travel, possibly around the world, but that was so far from reality (mentally and financially) that I didn't think it would be possible, especially financially, but we'll get into that later.

Alex and I at the airport ready to go, with no idea of what was to come.

I should also start off by thanking my buddy Alex for convincing me to even quit my job and travel in the first place, regardless of how long I thought this trip would be. We made this plan at the end of 2013 and I had a lot of doubts and wasn't realistically sure it would happen after making a loose commitment to try and do it. I was always second guessing myself, asking myself if this was a good idea or not. I had a good, steady job with upward mobility and I was doing well financially. Alex would keep calling throughout those 9 months to check in and make sure that we were both still up for it, while I would loosely assure him that I was still committed when in reality I was never really sure. There was even one specific night that I remember vividly, maybe 2 months or less before we were set to quit our jobs and make this happen, when I really freaked out. I was so close to calling Alex and calling it off. I had student loans that I wanted to pay off and be debt free at the ripe age of 24, and that was a goal that I had wanted to achieve since I got my job and started making money. I told myself, "just wait 'till next year, when you'll be debt free and have money saved up again to travel." But Alex was set to go, and it was either travel with my best friend around Europe for awhile or wait through one more year of mystery where anything can happen and possibly prevent this opportunity from coming again. Thus, I decided to stick to the plan and I never looked back. So, thank you Alex for keeping me in it and continuing to motivate me to do this. I've never been great at making commitments, especially one this big, and I really don't think I could've made this one on my own.

What would unfold over the following 13 ½ months would be the most profound and amazing trip of my life, from which there are endless stories, experiences, and lessons to look back and reflect on. I definitely do not regret making this decision. My entire thought process about travel in general has completely changed, and I'd like to highlight some of the more important lessons that I learned here. These are lessons of life, travel, and a combination of both:

First and foremost, TRAVELING DOES NOT HAVE TO BE EXPENSIVE. I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about travel. In 13 ½ months I spent a grand total of $18,500 on my trip. That's an average of about $45/day, and I could've definitely done it cheaper. I was also paying off my student loans every month, a total of $270/month. If you add in my student loans, then I spent about $22,000 over the entire trip on everything. I saved up $20,000 for the trip, and set aside $5,000 of "emergency savings" that I wouldn't tap into unless I had to. I ended up tapping into about $2,000 of those savings in the end to extend the trip a bit :) but other than that, that's all of the money.

I'm especially happy with myself that I didn't let my student loans get in the way of preventing my trip from happening. This was my biggest financial concern, but I didn't let it stop me from having the best experience of my life. So, even if you have some debt to pay off every month, save enough to compensate and keep making those monthly payments while having the time of your life. No excuses.

Also, I discovered that when you do make an effort to travel for as cheap as possible (i.e. couchsurfing, hitchhiking, or searching for some local street food) you tend to have much better and more authentic cultural experiences. You interact far more with the local people, which is the best part of traveling in my opinion, and you learn much more about where you are than any guidebook can ever tell you.

My bag and I, hitchhiking across Myanmar in the back of a truck.

Another valuable lesson I learned while traveling was to avoid planning as much as possible. Now I'm not really a person who can just go and do something without a plan, and I never have been; but because this trip ended up being so spontaneous and just sort of happened, I actually got completely used to improvising and just traveling around wherever I wanted without a set plan or schedule. This was by far the best way to go about traveling. I had a general route that I eventually wanted to take around the world, but any specifics depended on whatever mood I was in, who I talked to, and last minute decisions. I came to learn that planning too much limits yourself, plain and simple. Traveling can also be much more exciting when you don't even know where you'll end up the next day. To have that kind of flexibility for even just a short time while traveling gives you a certain freedom that you almost never have back in your working life. It can seem a little intimidating at first to embark on a trip without a real plan of where you might go or what you might do, but I can assure you that you will get used to it and you'll be happy you didn't limit yourself in the end.

Next thing: please don't believe everything the media tells you. I understand that unfortunately the media is usually the only exposure people get to other parts of the world, but if you actually go and see things for yourself you'll be pleasantly surprised at what you might find. The news might tell you otherwise, but I traveled to Israel and Palestine and felt perfectly safe. We are so obsessed with negative happenings and scary situations that it clouds so much of our view of the world when we turn on the TV to see what's out there. Just because there's a war going on in a country doesn't mean that every square inch of that country is a war zone. In most cases, war zones comprise of a very small portion of a country, and if you just keep yourself informed and avoid walking into these war zones, you can be completely safe traveling to these places. Also, don't let the reputations of extremists and terrorist groups give you ideas about how an entire religion or group of people behave. These misguided extremists and terrorists that you might hear about in the news consist of a microscopically small group of people in the grand scheme of things, but it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the reputation of an entire population when it comes to the media. The media is not always a bad thing, and I understand that it's important to stay up to date on some of these affairs, but please don't let it influence your personal views of the world or its people, especially when it comes to traveling.

Alex and I celebrating Thanksgiving last year in Morocco. Our couchsurfing host in Marrakesh
cooked us a turkey tajine to help us celebrate Thanksgiving.

With that being said, I want to go a little more into the people aspect of traveling. I'll admit I wasn't the biggest fan of people before I got on this trip. I may not have ever shown it, but overall I honestly found people to be more annoying than interesting, in general. However, over the course of my traveling, the best part of the entire trip by far was the people that I met and interacted with. Couchsurfing also falls into this category, which was the ultimate highlight of my experience. Staying with a local person who can show you around their city, treat you like family, and point you in the right direction whenever you have a question about their city or culture is so much better than seeing any temple, coliseum, tower, or waterfall. I met the most amazing people I've ever met in my life on this trip, and I created relationships with these people that will last the rest of my life. Whether it's staying with a complete stranger who becomes a close friend, getting a ride from someone who doesn't speak a single word of your language, or just walking through a foreign place and smiling and waving at all of the locals who are welcoming you, it's this intangible connection that is felt between each other that reminds us that we are all the same. We are all humans, so we should embrace it and love each other for it. It's a drug that I became addicted to. I wanted to develop a connection with everyone I came into contact with, whether it was a smile, a 'hello,' or a small conversation that consisted of me embarrassing myself trying to speak a foreign language. We laugh and we rejoice, because we are human. There is nothing better than the human connection.

I also want to touch on the risk involved in doing what I did. I really hope that what I've done can inspire at least one person to do the same, or something similar. I feel like this upcoming generation of young people have the mentality to travel and they want to do it, but most of them seem to have trouble committing to it. This is obviously completely understandable as I had the exact same issue. I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to see cool things and meet new people and have new experiences, but I had a good job, money coming in, and a secure future for the time being. The hardest part is the commitment.

But when I thought about it, a couple things came to mind. First, I didn't want to be the person that would look back later in my life and say, "man, I really wish I had done that." Regret can be a painful thing to deal with and that's one thing I really don't want to have when I get older. Next thing I thought about was, "well, when the hell else am I gonna do this?" I was 23 years old at the time. Am I gonna do it 10 years later when I might be married or have a house and a family? That can make things a lot more difficult. It would still be possible, but a lot more difficult. Even if I waited one more year, how do I know that something won't happen that could prevent me from doing this? So, if I'm not gonna do it now when I'm young and don't have much tying me down, and if I might not be able to do it in the future when I don't even know what could happen, then am I just gonna wait until next life to do it? Obviously not. So I made the decision to do it.

With that being said, THERE WILL NEVER BE A PERFECT TIME TO DO WHAT I DID. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the stars will never align and nobody will ever tell you that now's the perfect time to quit your job and travel the world. You have to come to terms with the fact that the perfect situation will never come. The only time to do anything is now. So take a risk, do something life-changing, and correct course along the way. There's a good chance you won't regret it later in life.

The boys and I in Mumbai, India

Words simply cannot express how happy I am with the decision that I made. It's impossible to completely explain the endless benefits and lessons and experiences that I had. My biggest recommendation would be for you to do it yourself. And for those of you who might be concerned about leaving a good job or possible career opportunity and creating a "gap" in your resume, don't think that there aren't any benefits to be gained by traveling around the world long term, even in the corporate world. Now, I don't have a job yet but I'm not the least bit concerned in finding one. I have never been more confident in my life, and I'm excited to see what happens. There are endless skills and values to show when it comes to documenting this experience on my resume. Skills like independence, flexibility, negotiation, planning, boldness, self-sufficiency, improvisation, and communication have never been stronger. I can effectively adapt and communicate with people from different cultures and backgrounds in a way that has become natural for me. I know myself better now than I ever have before.

Two words: Life experience. That's where the most value in the world comes from, and traveling can fill your life with experience.

I want to thank every single person on this planet for being here. I want to thank Earth for being such a cool place, much cooler than what I thought before. Thank you to everyone who supported me on making this happen. I received an endless amount of support, much more than expected; even from my co-workers before I quit my job. Support is a huge thing, and that's something I'm forever grateful for. If you or anyone you know is thinking about doing something amazing, please support them as much as possible. It makes a huge difference. Thank you to my amazing parents for supporting me during the entire adventure and helping me make the transition from home-life to travel-life and back again. Everything would be infinitely more difficult without you two.

Thank you to everyone who hosted me, gave me a ride, gave me advice, taught me something, showed me something, cooked for me, or helped me in any way. You are the ones that made this experience what it is, and you changed my life.

And thank you to my bag. You're small in size, but you have a big pouch that fit all my things for a long time. You held up the entire time with hardly any issues and because of that, this trip went very smoothly. I still can't believe I lived out of you for 13 ½ months. It turns out you really don't need much to survive, especially when you're traveling through cities where you can usually find whatever you need whenever you need it. The minimalist lifestyle really works. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My sweet little bag. Thank you bag, ya done good.

I'll never forget on my last night of the trip I was in Bangkok in a taxi with my good friend Blair and some other friends. We were going to a club that night to celebrate the end of my trip. Blair's been a nomad for the last 15 years living, working, and traveling wherever he wants, doing whatever he wants. He's living proof of what we call "the dream," and there's others like him out there. I told him that I couldn't believe I was going home, back to the "real world," and I wasn't sure what I was gonna do. Blair told me "dude, what are you talking about? THIS is the real world! What you're doing now is reality, you're not going back to it, you're just leaving it for a short time." This blew my mind. I had never thought about it that way, but he was right. The "trip of a lifetime" that I had just taken was the "real world" for me. And I'm not sure if you can call it a "trip of a lifetime" if there's more like this to come :)

Enjoying reality while floating on the Dead Sea

The Final Month

Somehow I've made my way back to Bangkok yet again. It's hard to believe I decided to come back after my adventures down under, but I wanted to have one last 'hoorah' here before I finally head home.

I wanted to go back to Asia one more time, and since I don't have much money left to fully travel and explore a new place the way I'd like to, I thought it would be best to head back somewhere familiar that I can still have fun at while getting that exotic Asian experience. So Bangkok was calling my name and I'm really happy about my decision to spend my last month of the trip here.

Before coming back, I was able to book my flight in a way that allowed me to see Hong Kong for a day on a nice long layover. So I stopped in Hong Kong for a day, headed up Victoria Peak for a beautiful view of the city, and then met up with a friend (and SigEp brother) of mine who's living in nearby Shenzhen on mainland China. I will say that just from a quick observation and taste of Hong Kong it's a truly impressive and diverse place. Of course everywhere you go seems to be screaming business and money, but what blew me away the most was just how the heck they built this place on such an unfriendly landscape for building. Hong Kong is not really the flattest place in the world. In fact, it's quite hilly... and there's water everywhere. So don't ask me why or how they decided to build all of the amazing skyscrapers they have there, but it sure makes for an impressive skyline and view of the city.

Hong Kong selfie. Too hot to smile.

But alas, that's about the most I can write about Hong Kong after my quick trip there, and then it was back to that old familiar place: Bangkok. It felt good to be back, and I was already happy with my decision to return shortly after I arrived. To be honest, I don't have a ton of stories from this particular trip back to Bangkok. I've more or less just been enjoying my last days of the adventure, living and enjoying life in a foreign country as much as I can before heading back home.

However, one really interesting thing that I did this time around was take a little trip to northeast Thailand with my Ajahn (Thai for "teacher"). I first met my Ajahn through my first Thai friend I made during my first visit to Bangkok, and I briefly wrote about the first time I went to meet this old Thai wiseman in a previous blog post back in August. I was interested in paying him another visit now that I was back in town, so I contacted him and he invited me to join him in giving a guest lecture at a university in Nakhon Ratchasima, about 4 hours outside of Bangkok. He thought this would be a great opportunity for me to see parts of Thailand that I would never normally see as a tourist, and when he invited me to join him it was an easy invitation to accept.

So I met up with him the day before the lecture at his place in Nakhon Pathom, about 45 minutes outside of Bangkok, and we sipped some more Thai whiskey (as we did during my first visit) and talked about life and society. I was getting smarter by the sip, which is why I always enjoy making conversation with this guy. He's traveled the world, he's a successful artist, and he's been teaching in universities across Thailand for about 40 years, so he always brings a good perspective to the conversation.

It was good to be back, and the following morning we had a private mini bus take us straight to the Suranaree University of Technology in Nakhon Ratchasima. We arrived a bit early, which gave some of the students at the university time to show me around the campus and see what this place was all about. It was actually an impressively large campus, and it reminded me a lot of the traditional college campuses we have back home. There were the dorms, administration buildings, lecture halls, and various faculty buildings scattered around the area. I felt like I was back in school again, this time with no responsibility whatsoever, and it felt great.

Then it was time for the lecture, which was interesting in a comedic sort of way. We all made our way to a large lecture hall big enough to fit a few hundred students and my Ajahn proceeded to deliver his two hour lecture in Thai. It was funny, because here I was sitting front row in a giant lecture hall full of Thai university students listening to some guy who I came here with deliver a lecture for two hours about something in Thai while I was catching up with my journal, writing at my desk as if I was taking notes during the lecture. I thought it was pretty funny and found myself pausing and trying to put together where I was and how the heck I got myself into this situation. This is the beauty of long term travel. You just never know what kind of experiences the adventure will throw at you next.

Me and ajahn Winai. Just after he gave his lecture at Suranaree University of Technology. Thank you, ajahn!

So after what would have seemed like a very interesting lecture (if only I could understand more Thai) with plenty of power point slides and maps, we headed off to a local restaurant to get some dinner with my Ajahn and some of his colleagues from the university. We ate some of the local food and I must say, it was one of, if not the best meal that I had in Thailand. The food was great, the company was awesome, and after the meal we of course sipped on some whiskey and drank and talked the night away, sharing our cultural views and stories from our adventures through life. 

It was such a great experience, and after a great breakfast at our hotel and a couple random stops to a roadside attraction featuring really impressive scrap metal sculptures and yet another temple, we were back at my Ajahn's home in Nakhon Pathom and I was back in Bangkok the following day.

It was an awesome little 3 day trip and it was good to get out of Bangkok after a couple weeks of settling down. It's experiences like this that keep me going and keep this adventure interesting. Those kinds of things never get old.

Another highlight that I should probably briefly mention is the hotel party I decided to host before my departure. I have quite a few left over Hilton hotel points from my traveling during my old job, so what better way to use them up than throwing a pre-departure celebration party in a King Executive Suite at the Hilton in downtown Bangkok? Obviously don't need to go into too much detail here, but let's just say it was a huge success before getting the party shut down by management at 1am. But we took the party to the clubs after that and it was a great night. Thanks Hilton.

Doesn't get much better than Champagne in a hotel suite at the Hilton.

Other than that, I do want to mention one more thing that I've experienced in Bangkok that I haven't really anywhere else. Since I've been here for awhile now, over the course of about 4 different visits on this trip, I've actually been able to develop a social circle of friends here. This is not something that backpackers typically experience while traveling as you're never usually in one place long enough to meet some locals and hang out with them enough to actually develop a social group of friends. I think that it's really cool that I've actually been able to be part of a group of friends that live here, and even get caught up in some of the drama. It's a completely new experience for me and another experience of the adventure all the same. I'm glad I've been able to actually have the opportunity to experience something like this, and it's more or less been a great way to finish off the trip for me.

With that being said, I'm planning to come home very soon which is nearly impossible to fathom. I'm excited and scared at the same time, but at some point it's always good to get home and remind myself of some of the most important things in life: friends and family, the ones that helped me make this adventure possible to begin with. So here's to finishing off the last month strong and enjoying the final moments of what has become quite the adventure :)