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Despite several millennia of such warnings, however, there is still an overwhelming social compulsion—an insanity of consensus, if you will—to get rich from life rather than live richly, to “do well” in the world instead of living well. And, in spite of the fact that America is famous for its unhappy rich people, most of us remain convinced that just a little more money will set life right.
as you reap the sublime rewards of simplicity, you’ll begin to wonder how you ever put up with such a cluttered life in the first place.
Travel can be a kind of monasticism on the move: On the road, we often live more simply, with no more possessions than we can carry, and surrendering ourselves to chance.
On a basic level, there are three general methods to simplifying your life: stopping expansion, reining in your routine, and reducing clutter.
In those eighteen months of travel, my day-to-day costs were significantly cheaper than they would have been back in the United States.
over two years of travel in Asia, eastern Europe, and the Middle East, my lodging averaged out to just under five dollars a night, my meals cost well under a dollar a plate, and my total expenses rarely exceeded one thousand dollars a month.
For what it costs to fill your gas tank back home, for example, you can take a train from one end of China to the other. For the price of a home-delivered pepperoni pizza, you can eat great meals for a week in Brazil.
And for a month’s rent in any major American city, you can spend a year in a beach hut in Indonesia. Moreover, even the industrialized
Although Henry David Thoreau never traveled very far outside of New England, he promoted an uncommon view of wealth that is essential to vagabonding. Considering all material possessions beyond basic necessities to be an obstacle to true living, he espoused the idea that wealth is found not in what you own but in how you spend your time. “A man is rich,” he wrote in Walden, “in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
“Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only,” he wrote. “Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”
The discoveries that come with travel, of course, have long been considered the purest form of education a person can acquire. “The world is a book,” goes a saying attributed to Saint Augustine, “and those who do not travel read only one page.” Vagabonding is all about delving into the thick plots the world promises, and the more you “read” (so to speak), the better you position yourself to keep reading. However, even if you’re stuck on the first paragraph, it’s still important to ready yourself for the pages to come. After all, you don’t stand to grow much from your travels if you just skim
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A good rule of thumb, then, when watching news coverage of other countries, is to think about how the average Hollywood movie exports visions of America to other countries. Just as day-to-day American life is not characterized by car chases, gun battles, and unusually large-breasted women, life overseas is not populated by sinister or melodramatic stereotypes.
hotel and restaurant recommendations will be the least dependable information in any guidebook you buy.
In Vietnam, for example, I found that the hotels and restaurants recommended in the Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide books invariably had the worst customer service, since guidebook notoriety guaranteed them a steady flow of Western travelers. Fortunately, sniffing out comfortable beds and tasty dishes on my own in Vietnam proved to be an easy and enjoyable process once I got a little experience and
an experienced vagabonder who uses a Moon handbook for Honduras might very well prefer a Bradt guide in Ethiopia, a Lonely Planet guide in Thailand, and a Footprint handbook on the South America circuit.
Should you want to get the most out of your travel dollar, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Central America, and South America are all home to cheap, safe, time-honored vagabonding circuits.
Africa and Oceania (including Australia) are slightly more spendy—but still no more expensive than your average week at home.
the slow, nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.
Despite how tempting a discounted “around-the-world” flight ticket might seem, it’s generally better to buy a one-way ticket to your first destination and plan your ongoing transportation as you
pack a dozen or so visa-sized photos of yourself, just to avoid the hassle of getting mug shots overseas.
Check the visa requirements of your initial destination before you leave,
ATMs are less common outside of industrialized countries, but they are numerous enough that you can find and use them in the bigger cities along your route—thus allowing you to periodically stock up on local currency and save your traveler’s checks for more far-flung locations. Before you leave, of course, check with your bank about the overseas compatibility of your ATM card.
ONLINE TRAVEL RESEARCH PORTALS Johnny Jet (http://www.johnnyjet.com) This Internet travel page is little more than a listing of links, but it’s probably the most relevant and well-organized list of topical travel resources online. Links to information about air travel, weather, money, travel warnings, insurance, packing, guidebooks, and dozens of other specialty topics.
BootsnAll.com (http://www.bootsnall.com) Billed as “the ultimate resource for the independent traveler,” this online travel community features trip-planning advice, advice from regional “insiders,” a useful message board to post and answer travel questions, and a fine collection of travelogues from everyday vagabonders. A recommended resource for planning and researching your travels. I Go U Go (http://www.igougo.com) Another dynamic online travel community, featuring message boards, photo galleries, and “travel journals” from over two thousand destinations worldwide. Travel-Library.com
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Foreign Entry Requirements (http://travel.state.gov/foreignentryreqs.html) A U.S. State Department tip sheet listing entry and visa requirements for Americans traveling to nations worldwide.
Fly Cheap, by Kelly Monaghan (Intrepid Traveler, 1999) Strategies and contacts for saving money on airfares. Monaghan also runs a companion website at http://intrepidtraveler.com. The Travel Detective: How to Get the Best Service and the Best Deals from Airlines, Hotels, Cruise Ships, and Car Rental Agencies, by Peter Greenberg (Random House, 2001) An entertaining guide for saving money on travel arrangements, though the emphasis is on vacation (as opposed to long-term) travel. Lots of air-travel advice. Consolidators: Air Travel’s Bargain Basement, by Kelly Monaghan (Intrepid Traveler, 1998)
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Air Hitch (http://www.airhitch.org) A cheap system for finding last-minute airline seats, primarily to European destinations.
Air Tech (http://www.airtech.com) Offers a discounted, standby-style FlightPass service for travelers with flexible plans. Priceline.com (http://www.priceline.com) Name-your-own-price bidding system for air tickets and other travel services. SkyAuction.com (http://skyauction.com) Bid on available air tickets to destinations worldwide.
Keep a journal from the outset of your travels, and discipline yourself to make a new entry every day. Feel free to be as brief or as rambling as you want. Keep track of stories, events, feelings, differences, and impressions. The result will be a remarkable record of your experiences and growth.
Bring a universal stopper for your hotel-room sink, and use shampoo as detergent.
When you leave your room for a day of adventure, take a hotel business card with you—just in case you get disoriented and forget where you’re staying (which, believe it or not, is a surprisingly common travel occurrence).
In places like Bali, ethnic villages have resorted to “staged authenticity” (hiding televisions and swapping T-shirts for ethnic outfits when tour buses show up) just to maintain their tourism-dependent economy.
surreal scenarios, wherein tourists from Los Angeles will travel to Thailand to see relatively modernized Hmong villagers don ethnic costumes, yet those same tourists would never think to visit a community of similarly modern Hmong-Americans in Los Angeles. As historian Dagobert Runes quipped, “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at
Leaving home is a kind of forgiveness, and when you get among strangers, you’re amazed at how decent they seem. Nobody smirks at you or gossips about you, nobody resents your successes or relishes your defeats. You get to start over, a sort of redemption. —GARRISON KEILLOR, LEAVING HOME
The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances. —ARISTOTLE, ETHICS
In tourist areas, be wary of pushy new “friends” who insist on giving you free shopping or sightseeing tours. Don’t fall into quick-money schemes (with locals or travelers) that entail gem or carpet export, duty-free resales, exchange-rate margins, or drugs—these are all time-honored scams.
your decision to enrich your life with time and experience (instead of more “things”) will invariably pay spiritual dividends. Travel, after all, is a form of asceticism, which (to quote Kathleen Norris) “is a way of surrendering to reduced circumstances in a manner that enhances the whole person. It is a radical way of knowing exactly who, what, and where you are, in defiance of those powerful forces in society that aim to make us forget.”
telling the story is not nearly as important as living the story.
