Ten Years a Nomad

by Matthew Kepnes

  I don’t want to overstate the Americanness of the resistance I found when I announced my plans. Sure, people around the world who are lucky enough to live in travel cultures (New Zealand, Canada, Europe, and Australia come to mind) are encouraged to see more of the world, but they still have to overcome some basic human instincts that restrain us from walking out our front doors without looking back. For many of us, traveling takes a strong shove across the threshold. We need to be forced outside of our comfort zone. Fear of running out of money, fear of being alone, fear of possible danger, fear of leaving it all behind, fear of having no safety net—they’re all universal worries. It’s hard to just jump headfirst into the unknown and leave your entire life behind, with nothing but a backpack and a dream.

  And that makes the hardest part of a journey the mental preparation. Once you are out of safe harbor, you feel the wind in your sails. Action begets action. As the shoreline drifts further away, the wind picks up and carries you like Gulliver to unknown lands. And once you’re out there, your fears fade away as excitement and adventure takes over. You are too busy having fun to worry about worrying anymore.

  But it can take a lot of work to get out of the harbor. Our comfort zones may make us unhappy at times, but more often than not, they keep us just happy enough to resist change. We may hate our routine, we may complain, we may daydream, but we don’t change. It’s the devil we know. It’s where we are safe.

  Society—and our DNA—tells us to favor safety over risk. Why leave the cave for where the monsters live when we can stay safe inside our shelter and live another day?

  There is safety in the tribe. In routine. In your cave. To go out into the night is to court danger and death. Our primitive brain screams to us, Stay here! This is safety! This is life! So, while people everywhere dream of traveling the world, it is only those whose dreams are strong enough who get out and stay out on the road.

  But strong enough for what?

  Strong enough to overcome the fear of people who love you—people who, like my parents, still to this day email me travel warnings and news of terrorist attacks.

  Strong enough to overcome the negativity of those who share your dream but not your intestinal fortitude. It’s understandable to resent someone who lives your dream while, for whatever reason, you don’t.

  Strong enough to overcome the societal norms that tell you not to leave the safe harbor.

  And, last but not least, your dream has to be strong enough to overcome your self-doubt. As I faced the daunting task of turning my dream into a reality, I asked myself the same hard questions I got from parents, coworkers, and friends.

  Would I finish my MBA? How much money would I need? Where would I go? What would people say? Would I make friends? What credit card should I use? Were hostels safe? What the heck was travel insurance?

  As I trudged through the seemingly endless preparations, I discovered a new daily mantra: “Fuck, what did I get myself into?”

  I didn’t so much care about my responsibilities. Bills disappear when you cancel the services that generate them. Cars go away when you sell them. And I knew my job at the hospital wasn’t going to be my career so I had no worries about walking away from it.

  What worried me was the personal skills I thought I needed to have to travel—the courage, the ability to go with the flow, the ability to talk to strangers, the confidence, the maturity—and whether or not I had enough of any of them after two two-week trips over two years to two countries that were full of English speaking travelers like me.

  Yes, a lot of people travel the world. I saw hundreds of world travelers in Thailand. Unlike my Canadian heroes, I wasn’t a hardened, experienced traveler. I was a sheltered child who never ventured far beyond his safe harbor. Did I really have what it took? Could I really fake a new me for so long? Would my secret nerdiness be outed? The fear and self-doubt I had whispered constantly in my ear.

  All I could do each day was push the daily worry out of my mind. “I am not Magellan,” I’d tell myself. I wasn’t setting sail into the unknown. There were well-trod tourist trails. There were guidebooks that held all the instructions I needed, like a manual for assembling a dresser. I just had to follow their collective wisdom. If all those backpackers in Thailand could do it, why couldn’t I? I made it in Costa Rica and Thailand. I made friends there. I talked to strangers. If eighteen-year-olds fresh out of high school can manage a year around the world, so could I.

  And that’s something I tell travelers now. We aren’t Magellan. We aren’t setting off into the blankness of history to chart new worlds. The next Magellans will colonize the moon. We’re simply getting on an airplane and going where others have gone before. That’s the difference between exploration and what we do—we’re trying to have new experiences and learn about ourselves, not uncovering blank spots on a map. We’re walking in others’ footsteps, and we can be grateful to them even as we blaze new personal trails.

  That doesn’t make our journey less special. The world is full of new stories. New stories and adventures we would be a part of that would be special to us. I didn’t need to discover Thailand to enjoy Thailand. The journey and experience was what mattered.

  With thoughts like these, I quieted the self-doubting voice in my head. I put the disapproval of my parents and coworkers aside. I learned to accept all those negative voices, even if I didn’t agree with them. If I was going to go away, I was going to have to do it on my own, because I wanted it for myself.

  And I wanted it badly.

  This trip was my chance to not only go on an adventure but finally shed the weight and insecurities of my past. This was my chance to go out there, live life, create stories, find opportunity, and become the me I’ve always thought I was in my head. To live out this character so much that I just became him.

  I daydreamed the crazy things that would happen to me on the road. I’d make friends from around the world. I’d try adventure activities. I’d hike mountains and sail down exotic rivers. Locals would invite me out for drinks. I’d be sipping a latte, strike up a conversation with my beautiful waitress, and then the next thing I’d know we’d be at a wine bar, staring into each other’s eyes. It was going to be just like those travel articles I’d read, or movies I saw and romanticized.

  I knew there was a better world out there. I had seen it. I had felt its power to change me for the better.

  Elsewhere was out there and it was calling me.

  I was going to go, have the time of my life, come back in one piece with some stories to tell, and show everyone back home that travel is not a crazy idea.

  I was going to prove them all wrong.

  4

  The Planning

  The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.

  —ROBERT BURNS

  HERE’S ONE THING THAT IS CERTAIN about travel: All your plans will go out the window. Every budget you created, every hostel you researched, all the hours you spent researching will be meaningless the second you hit the tarmac as the reality of the road—the mishaps, the traffic-halting monsoons, the week-long rail workers strike—put kinks in your plans.

  Yet, despite knowing all that, planning is still essential for long-term travel because it forces you to think clearly about your priorities—about what you value, what you want to do, where you want to go. If you want to go to four countries but had to cut one from your list, which would you cut? Do you want to travel in a bit more comfort, or stay on the road longer? How prepared are you to pare down your day-to-day life to save money for your trip? The specific answers you come up with don’t matter all that much but the planning process helps you discover the kind of trip you want—and how much it’s going to cost you.

  Beyond that, planning travel is a rewarding experience in itself. Don’t think of it as doing your homework—think of it as part of the adventure. It’s fun, frustrating, exhilarating, and confusing all at once. There’s nothing better than getting knee deep in guidebooks or lost on the web while r
esearching your trip. It gives you ownership over your trip. It makes you an explorer before you’ve even set foot on foreign soil, as you discover places on paper that you’ll see with your own eyes soon.

  Planning can also help you stay positive and motivated when the opinions of your family and friends start to tip toward the judgmental and cynical.

  Planning lets you stay focused.

  Each decision you make brings you one step closer to departure. With each turn of a guidebook’s page, your trip comes to life more and more. Planning helps you solve the jigsaw puzzle that is travel. How much will things costs? Where will you stay? How long will you stay in each place? What will you do? Who will you meet? What adventures will you get into? What sights will you see?

  Planning, while rewarding, can also be hard work—figuring out what you value, in a disciplined way, always is. Would you rather carry clothes for all the seasons, or travel light? Do you withdraw foreign currencies before reaching your destination, even if you risk having your cash stolen or misplaced? Do you want to stick to packaged tours or guidebook routes, or do you want to go off the beaten path, even if that means exposing yourself to scammers? Can you stick to a budget? Can you save enough for a long trip, and what would you cut out of your day-to-day life to do so?

  Those were some of the questions I sat down to answer as I outlined my first extended trip in 2006. I bought guidebooks to everywhere I wanted to go: Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. I piled them high on my bedroom floor, and I read them cover to cover, highlighting activities, costs, and potential routes.

  Frugal by nature, I scoured the guidebooks for the cheapest versions of all the things I wanted to do, but as the days on my itinerary stacked up, so too did the amount of money I would need. If I was going to stay out on the road for an extended period of time, hopping from country to country, I was going to need lots and lots of money.

  I created a detailed spreadsheet of how much money I had and all my current expenses. At this point in my life, I didn’t even balance my checkbook. I couldn’t tell you how much I was spending per month. It was something I had never done before.

  But financial discipline is one of the keys to travel success. If you don’t keep track of your expenses, you’ll never make it to the finish line. You have a set amount of money that has to last the length of your trip. Budgets need to be followed.

  That’s why planning—even if your plans will go out the window—is so important. By setting your priorities, by researching costs, activities, hostels, buses, whatever, you can make your money last and stretch out to when that finish line will occur. You’ll never be blindsided and you’ll know yourself and your priorities.

  Love eating out? Great! You’re a foodie! Plan for it and eat away!

  Suddenly finding yourself staying in hotels instead of hostels? That’s a problem!

  This is one of the things new travelers don’t realize. When you have a set pool of money for your trip, money management is one of the most important aspects of travel.

  You need to have the attention to detail of a CPA—before and while you’re on the road.

  I created a savings plan, put money into high interest CDs, and started creating budgets based on how much I knew I could save. I cut out things I felt were wants not needs. Things like going to movies, eating out, my daily Starbucks, and drinking out each weekend. They all fell under the “want” category and were the first to be cut out.

  Next I worked on my “needs.” I needed a place to live—but one that cost less. I moved out of my apartment and moved in with my parents to save on rent. (Plus meals from Mom were free, and I didn’t have to cook them either, which meant more time to read travel forums and layout maps across my bed.) I needed to get to work—but in a way that cost less. I left my car in the driveway and took the bus everywhere.

  I was mercenary in my cuts. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to save one more penny for my trip. I added water to liquid soap containers to stretch it further. I ate peanut butter and jelly for lunch day after day, and then cut out the jelly.

  My itinerary for this first trip was simple. I would begin in Prague then head down to Milan, through the Cinque Terre, over to Florence, Rome, and Naples, east to Corfu, then Meteora, Athens, the Greek islands, and finally onward to Southeast Asia. From there, it was on to Australia and New Zealand before heading home.

  I had big dreams—dreams that were crushed the second I left home.

  * * *

  ONCE I GOT TO EUROPE, all my plans fell apart. Travel had other ideas for my carefully constructed agenda. In retrospect, I should have expected it, but at the time, any thrill I may have felt going off-script was tempered by disappointment (mostly in myself) of letting all my careful planning go to waste. In fact, none of that work went to waste—it shaped my sense of priorities and values for traveling—but that didn’t change the fact that learning to let go of my plans was the most challenging part of this first big trip.

  The first time I seriously scrapped my plans, I was in Rome. I had hit all of the Roman highlights—the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, lots and lots of gelato—and was ready for my next stop, which was supposed to be Naples. But every time I talked with a new friend in a hostel about travel in Italy, the city that came up was Venice, not Naples. They kept telling me that I had to see the canals and St. Mark’s Square while I had the chance. Their descriptions were enthralling, but I still thought I had some pretty good things planned: I was going to gorge on pizza napoletana in the very birthplace of pizza, then I would tour the ruins at Pompeii, at which point I would be just a stone’s throw from the island of Capri.

  Then, as luck would have it, I learned that Ryanair—Europe’s main budget airline—was having a €1 sale for direct flights from Rome to Venice. I took it as a sign. The CPA inside me took it as an opportunity to add money back into my budget after spending so much on drinks in Rome.

  Before I knew it, I was getting lost in Castello, the city’s main island. I strolled through the Piazza San Marco and gawked up at the ornate façade and domes of St. Mark’s Basilica. I saw cafés where tourists drank overpriced wine, drank in small coffee bars where locals had their quick espresso, and wandered among the shops and eateries on Via Garibaldi. I passed down tiny streets, meandered over historic bridges that straddled the city’s patchwork of canals, and found tiny, peaceful courtyards that acted as an oasis from the crowds.

  At the hostel in Venice that night, looking up tomorrow’s weather, reading the news, and checking my email, I saw a new message from an Austrian girl I had met during a road trip around the United States. Before I left for Europe, I had decided to drive across my own country for two months, hoping to learn about it before I learned about the world. Out near Sante Fe, I’d met Hannah in a hostel and she joined two other travelers I picked up for a few days. In her email, she suggested I visit her in Vienna. She would show me the sights. A free place to stay with a local? How could I say no? So I called a second audible, changed my plans again, and made the jump north over the eastern Alps.

  Hannah and I visited the famed Schönbrunn Palace, built in 1600s as the summer home for the Hapsburgs. The palace was once situated in the countryside, where generations of monarchs hunted, fished, and escaped the heat of the city, but as Vienna has sprawled outward, it now sits in the suburbs. Though a major tourist attraction like the Schönbrunn is always mobbed by visitors snapping photos or listening to audio guides (something I do enjoy), I got lost in the little details that helped me block out the swarm of humanity and take me back to the palace’s heyday—things like the thick red carpet and gold detailing on the walls of the Great Hall, or the water playing in the massive Neptune Fountain in the gardens outside. Those gardens, once the exclusive retreat of monarchs and nobles, are now free and open to the public, and we took full advantage. We climbed the garden’s hill, cracked open a bottle of wine, and looked out over the city. The medieval spires of St. Stephen’s church pierced the sky, dominatin
g the landscape, and offering me a sense of calm that I’d made the right choice to come up to Austria, even if only for a day or two.

  Amsterdam was my next stop. This, too, was unplanned. I found a cheap overnight train from Vienna and took it. My intricately planned itinerary was now officially torn to shreds. I was going with the wind now. In Amsterdam, I rented a bike and joined thousands of locals on a leisurely pedal around the old city’s canals, taking in the features that have earned it the title of “the Venice of the north.” At the Rijksmuseum, I came face to face with famous paintings—like Rembrandt’s The Night Watch—that I thought I’d only ever see in books or on Wikipedia.

  Next was Spain’s Costa del Sol because I could stay with someone from my tour in Costa Rica. I sunned myself on white, sandy beaches, ate fresh calamari with crisp white wine, and discovered that I was quite fond of the Spanish habit of staying up talking and drinking until dawn, and then sleeping into the next afternoon.

  In Athens, I climbed up to the Acropolis and gazed out at the tile roofs of the city stretching away in every direction. As a history lover, roaming the Greek ruins in town and visiting the museums was a dream come true. Somewhere in the past, my high school self was smiling. My CouchSurfing host, the first ever I had, showed me around with such warm hospitality that I still find myself constantly returning to Greece, pulled in by the nation’s charms. I took a bus to Cape Sounion, and watched the sun set behind the ruined columns of the ancient Temple of Poseidon.

  These are the memories that stick in my mind from the European part of my trip, and yet very few of these destinations were on my original itinerary. I started where I landed and I ended where I intended, but everything in between was a jumble of impromptu decisions, happenstance meetings, and lucky (price) breaks. This, I was realizing, was the whole purpose of planning your travels: to give you some key checkpoints that you can always rely on, and the flexibility to do whatever you want in between.