Sunset over the rice paddies in Bali
On March 10, I hit a personal milestone: I had been traveling for one year.
When I began this journey, I set a goal to travel for at least 3 months. Quite honestly, this felt challenging. Although solo-travel was something I had always pictured myself doing, it had always been part- idealistic fantasy: an image of a slightly braver, slightly bolder, slightly more perfect version of myself.
Now that I’ve lived this “digital nomad” life for over a year, I’ll admit I still don’t feel that I’ve transformed into that perfect Self. When I lump myself into the category of People-Who-Have-Dropped-Everything-To-Travel-The-World, I feel like an imposter. I never had my “Eat Pray Love” moment of clarity. No Brazilian Man. No life changing revelations born at an ashram.
In her memoir, Becoming, Michelle Obama reflects on Barack’s time in office: “Being president doesn’t change who you are,” she writes. “It reveals who you are.”
Turns out, digital nomads and former POTUS have much in common (please observe self-deprecating humor). I’m still the same me, whether I’m scooting around on a moto in Bali or dancing salsa in a Colombian discoteca. If anything, my “Eat Pray Love” moment was just that— realizing that no matter where I go, I still carry with me my strengths, weaknesses, fears, and insecurities. As it turns out, location is irrelevant. In my more closed-off moments, I have discovered that it is possible to be in a place without really being there at all.
I distinctly remember one night, sitting up late in a Bangkok hostel, avoiding the other young travelers while tending to a bloody toe. Feeling particularly alone and disconnected, I had spent the previous few days drowning myself in work and comfort foods (yes, I ordered spaghetti bolognese in Thailand…). Earlier that day, I forced myself to leave the comfort of the cafe for a small outing. I ventured out to a neighborhood known for its street markets and backpacker culture. After walking for about 20 minutes, I turned down a sparsely populated side street and immediately sensed that I was being followed. Panicking, I began to run, tripping on a bump in the concrete and slicing open my big toe. Too anxious to stop, I continued running, leaving a trail of little blood drops behind me. When I reached a main throughway, I finally stopped to look down at my raw and throbbing toe. Feeling utterly pathetic and alone in a chaotic and foreign city, I began to cry.
My three weeks in Thailand were a low point. Despite the fact that I was doing exactly what I had set out to do — at this point I had been solo traveling for 5 months already — I felt more lost and alone than I had in a very long time. I hardly remember my time in Bangkok, apart from working hard on a project proposal and tending to my injured toe. I was as if I was never even there.
When I was practicing yoga in Bali (cue eye roll), I learned that different poses serve different purposes depending on the state of one’s being in that moment. “Open” poses direct one’s energy outwards and upwards toward the sky, helping one feel more connected with and receiving of the universe’s energy, while “closed” poses funnel one’s energy and strength inwards by grounding oneself downwards to the earth. As I reflected on some of my darker days in Bangkok, I realized that it is up to me to notice when my internal balance is shifting toward open or closed. Then, like choosing a yoga pose, I must make a mindful choice about what I need in that particular moment, whether that’s allowing and honoring my need to be closed and protected, or gently pushing myself toward a more open state of being.
I was told that the success of one’s yoga practice is measured not by flexibility or strength, but by how one’s life changes off of the mat. As 2018 came to a close, it became clear to me how these lessons learned on the mat directly related to how I experience travel, and even life in general. While my travel adventure started on an incredibly open note, around the time I got to Bangkok I had started to increasingly close myself off, allowing my world to shrink smaller and smaller. I decided that one of my goals for the new year would be to tilt my open-to-closed scale just a little bit more towards open.
When I returned to California around Christmas, home offered me everything I had been aching for during my nine months abroad: a place that felt like home, the comfort of living in my own culture, eating familiar food and speaking a familiar language, and most importantly, a sense of belonging. And I’ll be honest, after just 4 short weeks, I didn’t feel ready to venture back out into the unknown.
But with my “open-to-closed ratio” in mind, I did anyway. Guitar in tow, I headed off to Colombia to explore yet another new city, new culture, and new continent. I’ve come to accept that the first week in a new place is always tough. It just is. But this year I’ve learned to push through that discomfort; better yet, to feel comfortable with discomfort. As someone who used to return home early from trips abroad when things started to get rough, this has been a big accomplishment for me. I didn’t give up!
I did make changes, though. I joined Wifi Tribe to ensure I had a community wherever I went. I prioritized doing the things that make me feel most alive and myself: guitar, dancing (riding unfortunately was not an option!). I found meaningful volunteer work to help me feel connected to local communities and help reconcile the “nomad guilt” I described in a previous post. I made efforts to get to know locals, for example, by living with a host family when I arrived in Peru. All these changes helped me feel safe enough to walk through the world with a more open heart.
I guess the last thing I’ll say is that none of this is unique to travel. I didn’t have to go halfway around the world to learn more about who I am, or how to be a better me. But travel does have a way of taking some of life’s challenges and packaging them up a little more densely and making the stakes feel higher. Like normal life, but maybe on steroids.
I am so unbelievably grateful for the past year. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not aware of how lucky I am to have the opportunity and privilege to choose this lifestyle for myself.