While reflecting on my 8 month trip abroad over the past year, I decided a couple of weeks back to read Rolf Potts Vagabonding.
The opening of Chapter Two is a very sobering passage.
“There is a story from the Desert Fathers tradition, an order Christian monks that lived in the deserts of Egypt around seventeen hundred years ago. Theodore, Lucius and other monks were all eager to see the world.
They were not allowed to travel because they had made vows of contemplation. To satiate the wanderlust of Theodore, Lucius and their friends, they learned to “mock” their desires by deferring their travels into the future.
The monks continued to live this way for more than fifty years without ever leaving the monastery. We haven’t taken vows like these, but we still choose to live as monks, rooted to our careers or homes, and justifying the present with the past. We end up spending, as Thoreau said, “the most valuable part of life working for money to enjoy a questionable freedom during the least important part of it.”
But the time just never seems to be right. We make no choices when we have unlimited options.
Rolf Potts Vagabonding
All of us are born with the desire to explore and travel. We learn to crawl and then to walk before we run. But our freedom is restricted to our home and neighborhood. If we do anything more, our parents will be at our mercy.
When we reach 16, a license gives us our first taste freedom. We can now drive anywhere there is a road. We may still need to ask for our parents’ permission, but now we can finally explore.
We move to college for the first time. New places, friends and relationships. We can do anything we want, except for a few classes a day. Let’s face it, who hasn’t missed a few Friday morning lectures at 9AM? Only our wallets are a limitation.
We don’t truly achieve freedom until we have graduated from college. With a piece of paper proving that we’re employable, our former alma maters open up a whole new world to us.
No longer living in the home. We are no longer restricted by the class schedule. For the first time we can literally do whatever we want.
Then this strange thing happens. We can’t just do what we want.
After 22 years of preparation, we waste the next 40 making money we don’t need, buying stuff we don’t want, impressing people we don’t care about, and maybe, if lucky, spending our excess cash during retirement, when it’s least valuable for us due to our limited energy.
We don’t intend to live our lives this way. We are like the Desert Fathers from Vagabonding. We lie to ourselves for a lifetime.
We are ecstatic when we finish college. After 22 years he is finally able to break out of his cage and see the world. He doesn’t really care where he travels, as long as he does. He doesn’t really care what he looks at, as long as he does. Exploration is the only goal of an explorer.
We say, ” But hold on! “. We can’t do it yet. It’s too dangerous. When will we start laying the foundations for our career? “If we don’t start early, we won’t catch up.”
“But I waited 22 Years?” That voice in our heads replies.
We rationalize. We negotiate.
We tell him ” soon,“. ” First, let’s earn some money and get some momentum.
We all then apply for the exact same jobs, in the same fields, with the exact same companies. And we perform the same tasks. We talk the same to friends and strangers. How’s your weekend going? What do you do as a job? “Long workday?”
The year passes, and then the next. We become better at our tasks and earn more money. We’re 24 now, and we are applying for new positions. Money, responsibility and more money. The explorer in us is back.
We have some savings and are looking for a new job! Why not go on a trip to discover the world?
We reply ” Not now! “. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity. This new job is too lucrative. This new job will look great on our resume. We’ll have more time once we finish this.
Another year has passed. Another year passes. Another.
We’re now 27 and looking for a new job. We want to move to a different city. You can do anything. We all have an explorer in us that is just waiting to be released. To go explore. It’s risky again. It’s not the right time.
This cycle will continue for the rest our lives.
We do what we are supposed to do . We stick to the tried and true paths. We follow the stable paths. The safe routes. Always avoid unnecessary risks and take the next logical steps.
Why do we do it? It’s obvious that it is too risky to try anything else. We never think about the “risk” because we do not know what it is. It’s uncomfortable to stray from the well-trodden path. It is uncomfortable. It must be dangerous.
Let me let you in on something: That “risk” you’re avoiding? It’s not really risk. The unknown is all that’s left.
The risk lies in denying yourself the experiences you need to live a fulfilling life by following a path that may not be of interest.
It’s funny how we think that travel will ruin our careers or hinder them. Do you really think that a few months spent abroad will ruin your career?
Steve Jobs, in his 20s spent months in India seeking spiritual enlightenment. Jim Simons rode a moped to Buenos Aires after college (but only got to Bogota). Phil Knight, aged 25, embarked upon a one-year journey around the globe.
It’s a shame that Jobs, Simons and Knight chose to travel in their youth. It is no wonder that none of them has achieved any real success.
Spending a few months traveling the world will not hinder your career. But if you never take time to explore, your soul will suffer.
In a world where travel is cheap and convenient, refusing to explore beyond your geographical boundaries means that you value and find more enriching what you do than learning from the perspectives and experiences of 8 billion people.
Unless you are curing a cancer, I doubt that your current activities would be more valuable than building Apple, for example.
I was born in Tifton and grew up there. I attended school in Macon before moving to Atlanta. I spent the first quarter of my life in Georgia.
Georgia is home to 10.52 million residents, while there are approximately 8 billion people living on the planet. It means I’ve spent most of my life in a country that has only 0.13% the population of the entire world.
Imagine having access to thousands of books and reading the same book over and over. We do it every day.
While spending all your life in a single place won’t make a person culturally illiterate, it will make them a corporate pariah.
We roamed North America, Africa and Mesopotamia without knowing about other lands 12,000 years before. In the early 2000s, travel was reserved for diplomats and military officials. In 500 years, the Western Hemisphere was just being discovered. In 200 years, we had to travel for months, risking death and disease in order to reach remoter parts of the world. In the last 100 years, it only took 40 days to get from London to Sydney.
We are not taking full advantage of this fortunate situation.
Yes, you can fly anywhere in the world for just $1,000 right now. Here are some prices for flights departing from Atlanta on the 19th of September.
- Cape Town for $680
- Sydney, $931
- I might book this trip, Argentina is amazing.
- Athens, Greece (not Georgia): $490
- $301 to Reykjavik
- Bangkok for $748
- Nairobi, $623
- 980 dollars to Tokyo
- Mumbai, $495
- Baghdad: $855
- $640 to Mount Kilimanjaro
- Casablanca for $561
- Svalbard is an island located 650 miles away from the North Pole, with more polar bears and walruses than people.
It is illogical to think that you can simply lean back in your seat and say, “Nah! I’m fine,“, when in fact, it is illogical and ignorant.
Excuse my French but that sounds “ “
Yes, I think that everyone should travel.
You shouldn’t just travel because you can, or just buy seven TVs at Prime Day because they’re 50% off.
Eureka moments are often the most unexpected and come from surprising sources. Eureka! moments can happen when you least expect it, and from unexpected sources. The best ideas don’t usually come to me when I am sitting down to write. My best ideas usually come to me while I am driving, at the gym or watching a film. A few experiences, articles or random observations can combine to create a new idea.
To generate quality ideas, you need a variety of inputs. Experiences are a great example. You can get inspiration by visiting places you would not normally visit, talking to people you’d never meet, or doing something you’d never do.
It is less important to go, meet, do and see than it is to simply go, meet, do and see.
Why is it important to travel early? Inertia is the first and most obvious cause. You are less likely to achieve your goals if you delay them. This includes learning a new instrument, taking up a foreign tongue, getting in shape or traveling abroad.
Early actions stops inertia from taking root.
The second reason is that time is not equal.
Traveling is not a privilege reserved for young people, but certain types of travel are only possible when you’re young. Three months are the same amount of time whether you’re 25 or 65. What you can accomplish in three months is very different at 25 than it is at 65.
What about the cheap, adventurous, adrenaline-rush travel you get when you hop from country to country on a bus or train? Where strangers become your friends within hours and luxury is not tolerated because it takes away from the experience of travel? This opportunity won’t last long.
You meet a group of backpackers one Thursday and become best friends the next Saturday. Then you drop your plans for a couple weeks to go on an adventure with them. These adventures are more limited than you might think.
5 dudes that met in random towns in Europe, decided to rent a car together and cruise around for two weeks.
The travel experience changes as you age. When you’re 45 and have a family, those youthful adventures don’t seem so appealing. While you “can” technically hop between different hostels at 45, it is just weird. It’s the same as being 20 years older. The 22-year olds who just graduated from college don’t want someone of their father’s age to run with them. Stop it.
The travel becomes more planned, domesticated and family friendly. There’s nothing wrong about this! If I ever have children, I’ll take them everywhere. It won’t be exactly the same as my trips in my 20s. You can’t go back and get those experiences you missed in your 20s. Father Time does not offer any exchanges.
You may be able to travel when you retire, but you will not have the energy. See what I mean by checking out retirement cruises that are offered in Barcelona, Lisbon or Athens during the summer. The luxury cruises are a great way to spend a couple of days, and then you can visit the main tourist attractions in the port cities.
Most foreign countries don’t have mobility-friendly infrastructure. As you age, steep hills and cobblestone roads become more difficult to navigate.
What is it about that “adventure”, which you have put off to some future date? You won’t find it. Seize the moment or it will be gone forever.
You will never lose your job, whether you like it or not. If not, then another job will come along. This is how the job market works.
The primary reason for not travelling when you are young is that “I’d love to travel, but am poor.” You will not have the same amount of money at 23 than you will at 53. Travel isn’t that expensive.
A few months back, I met two guys who had just graduated from college in a hostel near Sevilla, Spain.
They were on an all-poverty first-team Europe trip and were enjoying every minute of it. Staying in hostels with a price of $20 or less per night. Booking accommodation on travel days instead of sleeping on overnight trains. Self-cooked meals and kebabs are the only foods allowed.
The two-month trip cost them no more than $2,000. They visited Portugal, Spain France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
I spent two months in an Airbnb apartment in Buenos Aires on a budget of $3,000, including a roundtrip ticket back to the States.
Spend $6 per night for 7 weeks and you can fly to Bangkok roundtrip for $900.
Saving a couple thousand dollars over a few month’s time isn’t too difficult when you consider that you can easily spend $200 in any US mid-sized city.
Traveling young is an adventure. No plan is necessary. You’re allowed to mess up. You will do some stupid things, meet many fascinating people and learn a great deal of interesting stories. This will lead to more interesting conversation topics than, “How is your week?” What do you do? “Long workday?”
I have never met anyone who regrets traveling when they were young, but I’ve certainly met people who regret not going out and exploring.
Thoreau is right: We have become accustomed to spending the most valuable time of our lives earning money, in order to be able to enjoy the questionable freedoms during the less important part.
Your career will not be ruined or made by your decision to travel. The deciding factor is “which path will create the best experiences?” Not “which route is the least dangerous?” “
Aversion to risk does not guarantee success. You’ll just never have to take any risk.
