The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World

by Chris Guillebeau

My kind of travel is not about sightseeing or visiting museums. A lot of the questions I’m asked in travel interviews are rudimentary. What kind of backpack do I use? None. What’s the weirdest thing I’ve eaten? I’m vegetarian, so a lot of the “weird” things are off-limits for me. What’s my favorite country? I don’t have just one, but among others, I really like South Africa, Hong Kong, Macedonia, Jordan, and Chile. Instead of obsessing over luggage, I like exploring, reading on park benches, and being spontaneous. I don’t claim to be an expert on every place I visit, and I wouldn’t make a good tour guide. After receiving nearly 1,000 stamps in my passport over the past decade, though, I’m pretty comfortable with settling in and finding my way around almost anywhere. I simultaneously work and travel at the same time. If I’ve been staying in hostels or guesthouses, every few days I’ll check into a business hotel so I can catch up on the hundreds of emails that I receive every day. If I have an important blog post going up in the morning on the East Coast, but I’m traveling in Asia, I’ll set my alarm clock so I can be awake to review feedback the first hour it goes live. Because I could be anywhere, I try to accommodate the other person’s schedule when working on a group project. In Kuwait I slept from midnight to 4 a.m., woke up for a conference call via Skype, then went for a run along the seashore before going back to bed for the rest of the morning. (If you’re going to ru...

What the hell?? This is a repeated few paragraphs!