Ten Years a Nomad Page 6

  A plan is not a list of directions, it’s a list of suggestions to take at your leisure. And that’s okay, because the point of travel is to be flexible. If I left home in large part because I wanted out of the rat race of office life and middle-class predictability, I realized that there was no point in re-creating those attitudes on the road. To me, travel was supposed to mean freedom, and freedom meant the ability to change direction on a whim.

  * * *

  AS I REACHED Southeast Asia for the next leg of my voyage, I applied what I’d learned in Europe.

  I went with the wind, where flights were cheap and friends had couches. When I didn’t like a place, I packed my bag and left. When I loved a place, I stayed until I felt it was time to move on. In the end, my trip around the world looked nothing like the original itinerary I spent so long meticulously crafting.

  Travel destroys plans with glee. In strange lands where you don’t know how to navigate around, when buses don’t show up and trains get delayed, when you get sick and can’t find a doctor, travel is there to remind you that things can and will always go wrong. You’ll find that the detailed plans you created—the timetables, itineraries, lists of things to do—melt away under the reality of the road.

  The details are pointless. It is the shape of the journey you are creating for yourself that matters most. With each change in plans, I was learning to forget the little details and keep my eyes fixed on the big picture. Going to Venice rather than Naples was, in the scheme of things, inconsequential. Experiencing the freedom of going wherever I wanted, of relying on the wisdom of perfect strangers who would become fast friends—that was the big picture.

  Just like a talented artist can draw a striking impression of a face with just a few lines, I learned to sketch my plans in less and less detail. “I’ll just head east” or “I’ll stay in France until Bastille Day.” Anything more and travel will look at your plans and go, “That’s not going to work for us!” and throw them out the window.

  Learning to go with the flow is the most important part of travel planning. Travel is about letting things unfold and happen naturally. It’s better to see fewer attractions and go deeper into a city or a region than to cast a wide net and go shallow. Going with the flow is how you get to know people and places better. It’s how you avoid the stress and expense of constantly being on the move from place to place and attraction to attraction. That magical, romcom serendipity that people dream of on the road—that moment when a local befriends you or you stumble upon the most charming café or hole-in-the-wall restaurant—that stuff only happens when you let the day unfold without trying to assert your will against it.

  That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped planning. No. There’s still joy in getting lost in blog posts, flight search websites, and guidebooks. I spend countless hours researching where I’m going. That’s still the part that makes the trip real and gives you something to look forward to. Even as I’ve become a travel expert, my love of overplanning has not gone away. But I’ve also come to enjoy throwing plans out the window even more and giving myself over to the moment.

  We travelers are not alone in this weird relationship with planning and spontaneity. Film actors understand it, too. The best in the world will prepare for months for a role—losing weight, developing an accent, learning to box, researching history—and then on the day, when the cameras roll and the director yells action, they forget it all and give themselves entirely to the scene. It’s scary to think about in the abstract, but in practice what an actor is doing is baking the spirit and the DNA of a character into their own bones so when it’s time to perform, they are the character.

  This is what we do when we plan. We absorb what is most important to us about travel and exploration as pursuits worthy unto themselves, so that when we land on terra incognita, and the bus is late or the hostel is full or the border is closed, we know what to do. The road is about learning to let go of all our plans, no matter how large or small, so we can grab hold of those serendipitous moments that turn into lifelong memories.

  I embarked on this life so I wouldn’t be tied down by plans and schedules. And even as my responsibilities have grown, I still hold onto this belief. If you want serendipity to happen, you cannot expect it come, and you cannot make it occur, but you must always be ready for it.

  Almost every day, life gives me a little hint of where I need to go next—“Hey, try going that way!” And more and more, I’ve learned to keep my ears open to that whispered hint, and to stop protesting, “But my plans!”

  Because it is only when you submit to the world you hope to see that you can truly be present for the experiences you’ve so long dreamed about. Plans shouldn’t be a security blanket—they should be a means to an end. And for me, that end has always been adventure.

  5

  The Start

  To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.

  —FREYA STARK

  GROWING UP, I wanted to be an archeologist. My grandmother would give me books on unexplained phenomenon—the kind that talked about ancient aliens, Atlantis, and psychic encounters. Along with a steady diet of Indiana Jones movies, those books helped me craft an image of myself on wild adventures around the world. From my comfy, middle-class life, I dreamed about discovering something new and living the interesting life I read about or saw on TV.

  Now, in 2006, on my first adventure in a foreign land without a tour guide or a friend to help shoulder the burden of navigating an unknown country, I was scared shitless. No amount of research and planning could quiet the world’s oldest traveling companion, fear.

  Almost immediately upon arrival in Prague, fear began to whisper worries into my ear. Entering the busy arrivals area of Prague’s international terminal, I looked around and saw signs in a language I didn’t understand. This time there was no one to greet me. No driver to pick me up who already knew where I was headed. It was just me, and I had to figure out how the hell I was going to get to my hostel.

  It was a simple enough task, but now that it was more than just a plan, fear arrived to resow the doubt of my friends and family into my fertile and frightened imagination. How was I going to do this alone?

  “Where’s the bus stop to town?” I asked at the exchange counter while exchanging dollars for Czech Koruna.

  “It’s outside to the right. Just follow the sign for the bus. There’s a picture,” the attendant said, as if I had asked the dumbest question in the history of the world.

  Exiting the arrivals hall, I turned right and found my way to a bus stop. This had to be it, I thought. Why else would people be standing here with their luggage? I pulled out my guide and reread the instructions on how to get into Prague until a bus finally came. I got in line. I told the driver where I wanted to go. He said something in Czech. Was that a question? Did he understand me? Unsure of what to do, I simply handed him the biggest note I had. He looked at me, gave me change, and waved me to the back of the bus.

  “Train station, right?” I asked a little slower, in the way all Americans do when they are confronted by someone who doesn’t speak English. As if, just by slowing down and enunciating the same words that were foreign to his ear, he would magically understand me.

  He simply looked at me and waved me back again.

  I took a seat near him, hoping being in his view would remind him I was a confused tourist, and he’d tell me when my stop arrived.

  The last passengers boarded and the bus rumbled to life and set off. As we rolled through the countryside, I tuned out the chatter of the passengers and the roar of the bus and stared out the window, watching the countryside unfold in front of me. Outside were rolling green hills dotted with farms as little medieval towns and their church spires peaked up on the horizon. It was a rural, ancient land steeped in history. The sky was blue and the few white clouds scattered about made everything seem like a painting. This was the Europe I had imagined in my mind so many times.

  I star
ed wide eyed and unblinking at this new and exotic place. This was it. I was here. I smiled and took an obscene amount of photos.

  Slowly the countryside gave way to suburbs, which gave way to a bustling city center. As the bus stopped, the driver turned and pointed to a large building across the street.

  “Train station. Metro,” he said in heavily accented English.

  From Prague’s main station, I followed the directions I had printed out from the hostel’s website. I took the subway to my stop, exited the metro and, for the first time, I took in Prague.

  When the bus came into town, I was so worried about getting off at the right stop, I didn’t really notice the city. I had imagined Prague as a city of beautiful cobblestone streets, medieval architecture, and ancient buildings. There would be tiny little squares and bustling cafés with waiters gliding among the tables serving wine to trendy Europeans.

  But when I took in the scene outside the metro, my bubble burst. In front of me was a communist architect’s wet dream. There were large ugly, grey rectangular apartment buildings with no outside décor except for the graffiti that now covered them. They were carbon copies of each other. There was a large ugly radio tower in front of me, the roads were paved with concrete not cobblestone, and there was trash everywhere.

  As I searched for my hostel, the streets narrowed, graffiti proliferated, and the run-down buildings made me wonder who, if anyone, lived there. Fear crept back into my mind. Would I get mugged? Would drug addicts appear in doorways? Was this area going to be safe at night?

  Eventually, I snaked through enough alleyways and turned enough corners to find my hostel in a small, dilapidated building with a nondescript sign hanging out front. Inside, there were a few computer terminals in the entranceway and a chatty Australian behind a desk.

  I checked in and walked up an endless flight of creaky stairs. I had imagined European hostels as dirty, old, and cramped places with tiny showers covered in mold that looked as if they were last cleaned by the hippie backpackers who first founded the place. I wasn’t far off.

  My room smelled like the inside of a sneaker that someone only wore barefoot. In the summer. I cracked open a window to let in some air. The room was a square with six beds. Two bunk beds on one side and one (mine) on the other.

  There were no lockers so I dropped my bag on the floor. As I sat on my lumpy bed, I smiled, and tried to put the shabbiness of the room into perspective.

  I was here.

  I made it.

  * * *

  AS AN INTROVERT, talking to strangers makes me nervous. I’d think of all the ways they might judge me and convince myself that, if we did talk, I’d stumble and stammer and wouldn’t have anything interesting to say. Of course, I’d made friends on my previous travels before. But even then I was faking it. Deep down I was still the shy kid who could never fathom walking into a bar and walking out with a whole new group of friends. From time to time, I’d find ways to overcome my shyness—and then, when I least expected it, it would come crashing back.

  My first night in the hostel was one of those nights. After a couple slices of pizza by myself at a place next door—I didn’t know Czech food and day was turning to night by the time I checked in—I headed downstairs to the bar in hopes of meeting people.

  As minutes passed like hours, I sat there alone watching the bar fill up with people interacting, laughing, smiling, and enjoying themselves. Too awkward to say anything, I used my jetlag as a self-justifying excuse for why I couldn’t talk to anyone and went to bed early, hoping the next day would be a little better.

  The next morning I wandered around Prague and found that my first impression was way off. Prague was a beautiful city. The city center had been wonderfully preserved. Like the location of many hostels in big international cities, it was just my neighborhood that was a rundown shithole.

  I wandered Letenské sady, the gigantic park with an outdoor beer garden, where I stared out across the city from a lookout as couples posed for photos and an art student drew the skyline. I meandered through the nearby Královská zahrada, where the noise of the city fell away as the nearby St. Vitus Cathedral rose above the trees, and all that could be heard were the whispers of travelers talking about the park’s beauty.

  I crossed Charles Bridge, famous for the baroque statues of saints and heroes that line the sides. I later found out that all of the statues are replicas, and that the centuries-old originals had been placed in a museum for safekeeping. But at the time, I was just awed by the centuries of history on display. This was the city of Kafka and Kundera. Swept up in the excitement of it all, I made the mistake of paying one of the many artists on the bridge for some paintings of Prague, only to realize that I’d have to leave them behind in Europe: carrying them for a year was impractical, I didn’t know anyone who could hold them for me, and mailing them home was more expensive than my budget could bear.

  When you first start traveling solo, there’s a sense of excitement about being alone. Unhindered by other people, you’re the hero of your own story. You fantasize about all the people you’ll meet and situations you’ll get into as strangers take you under their wing and wonder with curiosity and excitement about your trip. There’s no one to get in your way, no one to compromise with or negotiate with. There will be friends when you want them, but also solitude when you need it—a chance to unplug from other people and take time to think about what matters.

  Just like well-laid plans, it’s a romantic, reassuring idea that helps you get on the road but falls apart once it runs into real life. Few things push a person so completely and unceremoniously out of their comfort zone like solo travel. When you are with a tour group or friends, you can rely on someone else to do all the heavy lifting. Someone else can make the plans, talk to people, find the train station, navigate, keep track of money, or tend to you when you are sick. When you’re solo, you have to do it all. You only have you. You have to figure out how to talk to people if you want to make friends. You have to figure out how to get to the airport, or your hostel, or how to find the right bus, or a good doctor. You have to figure out who is trustworthy or who is going to scam you. It’s all on you—and that forces you to learn about people and places in a way you simply don’t when you travel with others. Traveling solo, you learn who you are and what you are capable of. You learn how to be comfortable with only your own thoughts for companionship. In this sense, solo travel is a wonderful teacher, because it teaches self-reliance.

  And that self-reliance is valuable even when you return from your travels. Self-reliant people know better than anyone what they can contribute to the world, what kind of life they want to lead, what kind of people they want in that life. Self-reliant people know that their confidence doesn’t depend on the judgments of others. They know that they can make it anywhere—that they can be plopped down in the middle of nowhere and still figure it out. They know that they can face down their fear and anxiety. When I think of the self-reliance I learned on the road, I think of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous words on the same topic. “Trust thyself:” he wrote, “every heart vibrates to that iron string.… Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” It’s one thing to sense that those words have truth to them—it’s another to try, as I tried, to live by them.

  But, on the other hand, as richly rewarding as traveling alone can be, it has its costs and its downsides, as well. As you wander, eat, and sit in bars alone, you come to realize that traveling with no one but yourself for company can be its own kind of trial. Eventually the thrill of solitude wears off. Your mouth becomes dry from lack of use, and you forget how to have a good conversation. You turn to share experiences with someone only to realize there is no one there. Your aloneness has become loneliness.

  Wanting human contact, I went back to the hostel bar on my second night in Prague hoping I’d work up the courage to say something to someone.

  The bar was dimly lit, with well-worn tables and sticky floors. On the walls were names and sayings from
travelers long since departed. They had all come here looking for adventure. I wondered if they found it.

  Like the night before, the bar filled up with travelers chatting together, talking like they were old friends, and I sat there in silence trying to find the right time and group to walk over to and say “Hey, mind if I join you?”

  Fortunately, someone did the work for me.

  “Hey! Want to join us?” said the short girl at the table next to me.

  “Sure,” I answered trying to hide my enthusiasm at the offer.

  I moved over to their table. There were four of them and, when I sat down, they asked me the typical backpacker questions—where are you from? When did you get here? How long are you traveling for? Where are you going to next?

  Boston. Today. About a year. Milan.

  From the looks of us, the five of us could not have been more different. The girl who invited me over was a short, brown-haired, brown-eyed American girl who’d just come over from an under-the-table waitressing job in Greece after scaring away her traveling partner by peeing in their tent every time she got really drunk. Next to her was a tall, blond, thin-faced guy from Melbourne, Australia. Next to me was a bearded, bushy-haired, flannel-wearing chef from Oregon who, if he told me his name was L.L. Bean, I would have believed him. And then there was the quiet Canadian guy trying to travel for as long as he could make his money last. (One thing you learn with time is that every group you meet in a hostel has at least one Canadian.)

  As we talked more, though, we discovered that we all shared a similar backstory. We were young, underemployed, and spending our summer in Europe seeing the sights, taking in the culture, and getting drunk before we went home and got real jobs. The only real difference between us was that they were all more experienced at hostel life than I was. I’d already encountered a few on my travels, but to that point I’d preferred cheap hotels and (even better) free lodging on friends’ couches. But this—the crowded bar, the creaky stairs, the shared bathroom and musty bedroom with bunks—was the real hostel experience. Staying in uncomfortable places like this is a central part of the backpacking experience.