May 26, 2014
how can I travel the world on a budget solo
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What do you want to be when you grow up little Jane? Jane said HAPPY.
You know what I found myself doing yesterday? Searching google hardcore for a solid twenty minutes tracking down something I absolutely had to have that moment after seeing it by way of TV. Was it a bird, a plane...shoes? No, it was the new Katie Couric produced documentary titled Fed Up which was all too fitting since fed up is my perpetual state of being these days after watching one too many documentaries this month that had me questioning - "What the friggin hell is wrong with this country??" No one knows what's in their food yet they're incomparably obsessed with dieting and looking like Gwenyth Paltrow. Companies secretly take out life insurance policies on employees to make a profit off of death, like, the company you work at right now is doing it. Speaking of insurance, health insurance here is a joke and the fact that it took 65 years to progress only an inch is so laughable it's not even funny. We're bored, depressed, fat, envious, and a slave to devices with bright loud sensory overload like a newborn is to a mobile in their crib. Life here is to go to school 9-5, get a 9-5 job, swindle our way out of school debt to buy a mortgage and a car and afford to have kids that we will raise and train to do the same 9-5 grind. Vacations if we're lucky, health costs covered if we're fortunate, and happiness...well. And no questions this systematic tradition. We're American after all, this is the best country right! So yeah, nomad travel for free is in my future again. Period. Where does that leave me? Well, packing my bags to finish what I started last year with my RTW solo trip. Traveling around the world. For free. As minimalist as possible.
You know what I found myself doing yesterday? Searching google hardcore for a solid twenty minutes tracking down something I absolutely had to have that moment after seeing it by way of TV. Was it a bird, a plane...shoes? No, it was the new Katie Couric produced documentary titled Fed Up which was all too fitting since fed up is my perpetual state of being these days after watching one too many documentaries this month that had me questioning - "What the friggin hell is wrong with this country??" No one knows what's in their food yet they're incomparably obsessed with dieting and looking like Gwenyth Paltrow. Companies secretly take out life insurance policies on employees to make a profit off of death, like, the company you work at right now is doing it. Speaking of insurance, health insurance here is a joke and the fact that it took 65 years to progress only an inch is so laughable it's not even funny. We're bored, depressed, fat, envious, and a slave to devices with bright loud sensory overload like a newborn is to a mobile in their crib. Life here is to go to school 9-5, get a 9-5 job, swindle our way out of school debt to buy a mortgage and a car and afford to have kids that we will raise and train to do the same 9-5 grind. Vacations if we're lucky, health costs covered if we're fortunate, and happiness...well. And no questions this systematic tradition. We're American after all, this is the best country right! So yeah, nomad travel for free is in my future again. Period. Where does that leave me? Well, packing my bags to finish what I started last year with my RTW solo trip. Traveling around the world. For free. As minimalist as possible.
Why now? Is it giving up? How can it be free? Don't I have responsibilities? Am I, cough cough, privileged? Yeah if you call living below the government-officiated poverty line in a 600 square foot apartment eating carcinogenic packaged foods a privilege! How funny then, that I can trade "poverty" in my own country for laying out in a hammock on the beach, indulging in unfathomably delectable gourmet food, releasing baby turtles into the woods, or taking a solo stress-free cruise down the Duoro river only to be dropped off onto dry land where the world's best Porto wine awaits my supple lips. Yeah, that was my summer last year. What was yours? I tease, I tease. It's your turn! It's easier than you think, truly. The hardest part is social constraints and the barriers of judgment.
Let's be real here. I'm not cut out to rant and complain for days on end. As a woman, especially a woman of color, there is a propagated notion that complaining is all we do. Bitching about shit that has potential to be changed is not in my DNA. Stagnant life? Try something new. Dead-end job? Start a location independent business like I did. Bored to death due to a lackluster, inauthentic, big city social life? Make friends away from home. Have a bucket list? What the heck are you waiting for? Get a plane ticket and let's start this show. I'll do it with you. I PROMISE. But in all honesty, the real reason I simply cannot stay in New York, much less America anymore, is because the corrupt broken system bubbling over with subliminal messaging of be this race, this size, this profession, this wealthy, this healthy...it has completely suffocated who I was just ten years ago. I need to discover the real me and my untouched passions. I don't have kids or sick elderly parents and that is the ONLY two reasons you should ever be held back from traveling the world. How do I know? Because last year I left my boyfriend who didn't believe this was true and had a middle class traditionally conservative family hovering over his thoughts. It was a deal breaker for me so I left him and everything I knew, as I refused to selfishly force him into my lifestyle. Hence solo travel. But now, after being begged to return home, and trying to exist in this abysmal society together this past winter made him realize it's not worth it. You're only young once. He came to me, wanted out, and gave a two weeks notice just a week later. Besides a chair and mattress, we've sold everything and booked tickets to Mexico with a final destination of Southeast Asia. So this is for my solo gals with major cojones or those who might be joined by unexpected companions - I did both. Excuses to not try something new is real, but it's not tangible. You know what's tangible? Exploring a country that American media paints as a communist third world country and discovering the people are some of the most lovely in the world (who so happen to enjoy universal healthcare). Seeing sunrises over caves in the middle of the ocean. Cooking a meal from food you've grown with your own two hands in the French countryside. This ain't no Eat Pray Love bull crap. Just do it. The problem is we have so much more freedom than many other humans can dare dream to fathom. We don't know what to do with it. How to cope with the fact that no one is demanding we stay in America, or work for the industry we got that expensive college degree in, or fulfill happiness independently. Minimalist travel is a good start. Here's how!
