has anyone here changed their lives radically and impulsively? like moving to another country out of nowhere, deciding to leave the place you live to become homeless, something like that. and if so, please share a quick story of what you went throught. could be interesting
I work office hours at US central time, so things don’t really change a whole lot there. I wake up, do breakfast if it’s offered, hop on the morning meeting, and optionally find a cafe to work at.
Many places offer breakfast and lots of hostels have kitchens and refrigerators, so I’ll take one of those eco bags that I got for $0.50 in latin america and buy a few things for a meal, or I’ll eat out, which I do too much.
Hygiene is fine. Every place has showers and toilets - just wear flip flops or shower shoes in shared showers.
I’m currently in the US. My company’s policy of work abroad changed, so I’ll be back here for a while.
problems
I’ve learned to be more flexible. Sometimes places have flakey internet, but I have my phone as a hotspot. Your plans won’t always work out and its fine, there will be another way to make it happen. There’s another bus, plane, lodging around. It’ll be fine.
Your moving long term and have a digitally oriented job.
I kept my job and I saved a ton of money in latin america. To give you an idea, the cost of my not out of the ordinary apartment plus utilities in Austin, TX came out to about $68 per day. My housing costs in latin america ranged from $10-$40 per day. It’s hard to spend there in a day what I was doing just for rent. And that’s eating out 2-3 times per day.
So I have way more money now.
Best part is the adventure and seeing the world. Worst might be that connections are fleeting and you need to be ok with the finality of things. I think this is good overall, but what I do is I’ll travel for a while and then settle for a month or more at a CoLive arrangement. Those have the benefits of hostels in the social aspect, but you often have your own room, sometimes a dorm, and people stay for minimum amounts of time, which is often a month.
The conveniences of home can be missed a bit, but then I can rent a private room or a hotel if I want. Also, sometimes I want my me time, but then I retreat too much, so the social aspects of hostels can pull me out of that.
Buses in Latin America are great. I flew sometimes, but I have local transit passes for most places that I went to. Going between cities, I often took the bus.
I’ve been doing it for a year and a half and don’t see myself stopping. I know people that have been doing it for 7+ years. It’s whatever fits you. You don’t have to fit a mold. You can try it for short term and go back, you can do it on and off, whatever. It’s your life. Live it. haha
Amazing, I think that is all very interesting. It would be nice to be able to feel that free. Thank you for sharing!
Sure thing! Hopefully that can help with ideas I got started by doing little short trips in the US. Maybe you can change things up with some weekend road trips or something
Thanks, yes, I love to drive out into the middle of nowhere myself actually.
In my job before last I invested in a a good amount of backwoods camping gear such as a good quality hatchet, ground mat, tarp, saw, hiking bag, maps, camp stove, and a few other things.
I was able to go out for an overnighter shortly after I had purchased these things to test them, but then I was laid off from my job.
I finally found work again and have not been able to go since, but some time in the near future when the weather is just a bit nicer, I intend to go where there are no other people and just spend about a week out there by myself. This is my type of escape.
As far as actual roadtrips go, at some point I kind of want to do what no one I know has wanted to do, and actually drive north until I hit the arctic ocean. I don’t know why exactly, except that everyone always goes south or east or west. I think it would just be interesting because no one I have ever met has done it haha.