Sigh, I frequently regret my wasted youth. Now that I'm a husband and father of two wonderful kids, I wonder if I can transpose and apply what this guy did to my family situation? Maybe take a nice 3 month working vacation (work-cation?) during the summer.
If any of you younger whippersnappers are reading this blog post, GO OUT AND DO THIS!!! You'll most likely regret not doing it when you're older.
I don't have kids, but have travelled quite a bit. I have come across some fairly adventurous parents travelling with kids and staying in hostels. It is not the norm, but it is possible. If you really want to do it, I would start with something like 4 weeks in Costa Rica, and stay in places that are ~$20/night. That is long enough that you will have to do laundry, buy groceries, and learn to live as a family of backpackers. If the family can handle that, then you could go to more adventurous places.
My mother and stepfather traveled around the world over a year in their fifties. They bought a ticket that let them take any flight west for about $2k, sold their house, put all their stuff into storage, took care of insurance and little details, and left.
I have two sisters, a step-sister, and a step-brother.
We moved to St Anton am Arlberg (Awesome ski resort in the Alps) with a 15 month old & mortgage. Ski by day, work remote by night, best six months in a long time. So good, we are doing another ski season in Japan for 2012/13 (and we have a 2nd kid now).
One of the great things about IT is that you can be geographically free. Leave the hustle & bustle, get in touch with nature/family/yourself/beer and you will never regret it.
I've traveled a fair amount and I don't get the degree of fascination. It's essentially a form of entertainment.
I've learned more about almost any place from books and media than just passing through, seeing the sites, and meeting some people. "Traveling" is really not as enlightening as people try to pretend. Living somewhere a couple years is another matter.
> "Traveling" is really not as enlightening as people try to pretend
I strongly protest about this. I travel extensively, in a similar way to the OP (live where I choose for how long I can on a visa). My life, and especially my view on my home country, has vastly expanded. I have friends all over the world, I can speak a couple of languages and a smattering of many others which has lead to expanding our business because I can communicate sufficiently, and more critically, understand their particular needs. I wonder if you stayed in fancy hotels all the time? Have you spent a few nights in a Casa Particular in Cuba, or camped out in South Africa with local farmers?
"Essentially a form of entertainment". Wow, what an understatement about what this great world and the people in it can teach us.
Reading down a bit more, maybe you're referring to the travelling-salesman effect, a few days or hours in one place, all you are seeing are hotel lobbys and airports. This isn't travelling: it's commuting.
I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.
I'm nuts about Japanese culture. Did a lot of reading when I was a little weeaboo, even took a few semesters of Japanese language in college. It's all tremendously exciting and rewarding. But, when I landed in Osaka last year, it was a whole new ballgame watching, meeting, and talking to these people, conversing in their language, eating their food, seeing their homes and shops and shrines.
The reading prepared me for the experience. But it did not replace the experience. It's profoundly enlightening to go out, make yourself a foreigner in a new land and come to grips with a people, language, and culture who are not your own.
It may have helped that I took an unorthodox approach to vacationing, and minimized "sightseeing" and visiting tourist spots, instead just choosing to spend time in the city or in one of the outlying towns, observing and interacting with the natives.
I've traveled a fair amount as well (~30 countries, almost all the US states), and I guess I agree with you. I don't really find it "enlightening" but it can be very different and fun compared to what you can do while staying in the same place.
>just passing through, seeing the sites, and meeting some people.
Is what most people do because they are very short of time, due to the fact that the time they have is vacation time from their full time job. This forces them into a particular mode. But for many people, this is still very rewarding.
>"Traveling" is really not as enlightening as people try to pretend.
I think there's a big difference between spending 3 hours and 3 days somewhere. There's also a big difference between spending 3 days and 3 months somewhere. And then even further, you could spend 3 year somewhere.
I know in 3 months we don't get the same level of experience as spending 3 years, and we may well find a place where we want to spend 3 years at a time.
Everything in life involves tradeoffs, especially travel. I won't knock someone who spends 3 hours in a place I spend 3 months, anymore than I would want to be knocked by someone who spent 3 years there.
But I strongly disagree that you can books and media can replace travel. Sure you can learn a lot, but the experience of living somewhere or even visiting is a lot different than seeing it portrayed by others.
I contend that mostly what you're getting out of your three days or three months somewhere is a blast of novelty. It's not making you any smarter or better, which is what a lot of people try to claim.
Learning "how things are done" in other very different places does tend to make you smarter. In several ways, including but not limited to:
- you are forced to solve new problems imposed by your surroundings, which makes you a better problem-solver generally
- you become exposed to and aware of different ways that other cultures solve problems, which widens your own tool set
- you become more aware of some of your own default cultural/political/technological assumptions, and thus better able to set some of those biases aside when you face problems for which they aren't appropriate.
A weekend package tour won't give you much of that, but living for a few weeks or months someplace significantly different than your home country often will.
- you become aware of inner resources you weren't aware existed when you're exposed to situations you're unfamiliar with, developing a greater sense of self-confidence and self-respect
> I contend that mostly what you're getting out of your three days or three months somewhere is a blast of novelty. It's not making you any smarter or better
Given the endless research literature on challenges and cognitive capabilities, and especially the inverse correlation between novelty and mental decline in the elderly, I would be chary of making such claims.
Ever heard the phrase 'you get out what you put in'?
Travel can give you most of the benefits most people claim it does without you actively trying because of how it forcibly takes you out of your comfort zone. But if you show up just expecting it to change you, or even worse; challenge it to, then you won't get anywhere near as much out of it.
I expect that your own experiences are more a reflection of your attitude towards it than what most enthusiastic travelers (including myself) claim it does.
Have you ever had your passport stolen in a country where you don't speak the language? Been stuck on a bus for 10 hours in the middle of nowhere where the only food looks like it can walk? Had to get from your hotel to the airport at 2am without having a taxi service to call? Everytime I go through something like this it empowers me and that will to survive goes straight into my business. Sales down this month? Whatever, we'll figure it out. Critical service down? Eh, I'll do an all nighter and write personal apologies to customers with salutations in their language. Before I travelled I was a youthful know-it-all. Years later I'm a much more youthful, stable, interested-in-all-perspectives adult who has the confidence to take on almost anything because business just isn't that hard compared to living on $1 a day with fresh water 10 kilometers away.
All your examples look strange only if you're living in a wealthy place. I can recall having to do all these without having to set foot on a plane, except one: whenever I go somewhere, I bother to learn at least a little of the local language.
Thus highlighting a benefit to traveling if you're not familiar with the realities of different countries. I was shocked to find out that some relatively affluent countries still don't have street addresses.
Yes, you're right. I grew up in a very comfortable country where bureaucracy, transport, communications etc were not problematic. When I go home I'm no longer bothered by 'first world problems' and it's just made me a happier person.
No way. I spent six months in Japan last year, on two three-month tourist visas. Within the first three months, I had learned immense, immense amounts about Japan, myself, and the rest of the world (via housemates and acquaintances). That trip taught me more than any other similar period in my life.
It's not making you any smarter or better, which is what a lot of people try to claim.
The best quote on travel I've read is, "travel doesn't make you interesting, it makes you interested." The few people I've met who thought it made 'better' were the same sorts of desperate saps that name-drop their college all the time. But these schmucks say nothing about going to college, just as the other schmucks say nothing about the validity of travel. You can't judge the world on the basis insecure people.
I'm 6 years in and still learning. I guess it's beyond travel at this point, but it's still an amazing country.
That said, I spent roughly 3-4 months back and forth staying in NY in 2010 and it was also an eye opening experience.
The key is to try and live like a local (as much as your persona permits) - and then address why you feel uncomfortable when you do, yet everyone else around you does not.
Well, yes, if you've never traveled at all, and especially never traveled outside the west, I would guess that's rather eye-opening.
I'm addressing the people who endlessly hit up new places and try to pretend it means something. It's just novelty seeking, as best I can tell, which is to some extent a trait of immaturity.
I suspect that the problem here is simply that you are wrong.
I'm not sure why, but you're consistently trying to be condescending about those who value travel. What do you gain by categorizing and marginalizing others? Living somewhere is okay, but merely traveling through is just "novelty seeking"? As if "novelty seeking" cannot itself be an activity that leads to personal growth?
Hey now, though he's not saying it well, he's got a point. I've been on some extensive travels and sometimes everything starts to blend together. I sit in a cafe and can't remember which city I'm in. It's really the people you meet that stand out, but the sample size per city is still quite small. It's easy to claim that you get exposed to a different culture, but if you only get to know a few dozen people then you might have found a similar culture back home in a different neighborhood.
I think the key is the attitude change that is often stimulated by, but not necessarily caused by travel. You could get the same thing by waking up one morning and realizing you'd like to meet some folks from the other side of town and learn what they think about life, work, love, etc.
Disclaimer: I travel for work. Meeting up with CouchSurfers keeps me sane.
If any of you younger whippersnappers are reading this blog post, GO OUT AND DO THIS!!! You'll most likely regret not doing it when you're older.