202 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
202 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: >-
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Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 0: Bailtrain to Bailtown
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description: >-
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Wherein I quit my job and prepare to leave the country
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---
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## Denver
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In mid-2015 I moved to Denver, CO while continuing to work remotely at the
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company I had helped to found back in Gainesville, FL. Florida had been my home
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for my entire life, up until that point, and it felt like a change was needed.
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Denver was certainly a change, and ultimately I think it was one in the right
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direction, but it turned out to not be enough.
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{% include image.html src="mr-worldwide/denver-2017.jpg" %}
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While in Denver I'd rented a tiny studio apartment, which over the
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course of two years I'd learned to live in. Living large is pretty easy; for
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some reason we (generally) find it more difficult to throw something away than
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to exert the effort to make space for it in our lives. It takes a non-trivial
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amount of trial-and-error to figure out a smaller lifestyle with fewer things.
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So minimalism is something I started to practice, and continue to practice, in
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the literal sense of the word, often failing at it. But I find the challenge to
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be worth it.
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I'd always separated my work-place from my living-place, mentally. Eventually I
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realized that just because the two places were physically separate doesn't mean
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they aren't a part of the same thing. At the most basic level I work in order to
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afford basic necessities, like food and clothing and shelter. I have a dedicated
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home because it's the most efficient way to keep myself fit and healthy and
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clean, because it allows me to having my own ammenities and routines which work
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best for me.
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But the more I work, the more I burn out and need to recuperate at home. The
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more time spent at home, the more things accumulate there and the more upkeep of
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the home is needed, which in turn requires money which requires work. The one
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leads to the other, and so they are really part of the same thing. I neither
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want to work nor spend a lot of time at home, but that's what my life had turned
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into. It was unbearable, and I had to change it.
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## Mr. Worldwide
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In early 2016 I took a trip to Japan with some friends. It was the first time
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I'd been out of the US (sans a family trip to Nova Scotia when I was like 9 or
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something). Going to Japan might as well have been a trip to an alien planet,
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and yet it was also familiar. I learned that no matter how different our
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cultures are, the individuals of the world aren't that different at all. By the
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end of that trip I felt as at-home in Japan as I did in Denver, if not more so,
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because of how much time I was able to spend exploring (rather than being cooped
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up working).
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{% include image.html
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src="mr-worldwide/kyoto-2017.jpg"
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descr="Kyoto at sunset, 2017" %}
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By the end of 2016 I knew I wanted to travel and see as much as possible, while
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working as little as possible in the meantime (except on my own ideas, as they
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came up and I felt like working on them). I began trimming down my life, with
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the aim of only having as many things as would fit into a backpack. It probably
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seemed to everyone like I was preparing to become a homeless person. In a way I
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kind of was.
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My plan wasn't that I would never work again, or never live in a home again.
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Vagrancy isn't a sustainable way for me to live. But finding a life which didn't
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involve spending all my energy working while also not being homeless is surely
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possible, I knew, though maybe I wouldn't find it in the US. I began saving as
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much money as possible, and began thinking about where I might find that life.
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Europe seemed as good a place to start the search as any.
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## Leaving Denver
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By the end of 2017 I was ready to go. I had saved nearly $20k, had put in notice
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that I'd be leaving my job at the end of the year, and had given notice to my
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landlord of the same. My friends in Denver saw me off, and my friend Ibrahim
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gave me a small notebook to take notes in as I traveled, with some helpful
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phrases that might aid me along the way
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{% include image.html
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src="mr-worldwide/notebook.jpg"
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descr="Ibrahim made sure I was covered if I ever found myself in a tight spot"
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%}
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I drove all my things back to my parents' house in Miami just before Christmas,
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and enjoyed Christmas and New Year's with them. In mid-January I grabbed my
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single backpack, said goodbye to my parents, and headed to the airport. It had
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worked out to be cheaper to fly back to Denver before flying to Europe, so I
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spent another day there saying hello/goodbye to everyone again, collecting some
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recommendations of places to go while I was there, and continued on to Europe.
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## The Loadout
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(Wherein I give a summary of what I had with me throughout the trip, with
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affiliate links sprinkled in, cause money. You can skip this section if you
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don't really care).
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I'd already had a [40L backpacking bag](zulu) which had done me well enough on a
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couple trips already, so I decided to try and only use that. Other ~~homeless~~
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backpackers tend to go a little bigger, but they risk not being able to fit
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their bags in luggage overhead on planes. I also ended up needing a smaller day
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bag almost immediately, since being out and about all day necessitates bringing
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some things with you. The big bag/day bag combo is a classic amongst ~~the
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homeless~~ backpackers.
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{% include image.html
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src="mr-worldwide/loadout-packed.jpg"
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descr="All packed up, one for overhead and the other for under the seat"
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inline=true
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%}
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{% include image.html
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src="mr-worldwide/loadout-unpacked.jpg"
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descr="(Almost) everything, unpacked"
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inline=true
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%}
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Most space in the bag is taken by clothes. Which clothes I actually had along
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changed as the weather changed and I gained and lost things. But my general
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clothing strategy consisted of a few key points:
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* All things need to be re-wearable, 2 to 3 days at least. This is more
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difficult for under layers, but wool is ideal as it's durable, warm, and it
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quickly-dries (which means the fungi/bacteria, which would otherwise cause
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smell, quickly-die). Wool socks were easy to find on sale for $5 a pair at the
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end of winter. Wool undershirts (smart wool or merino) are findable on eBay
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with some difficulty. [Uniqlo][uniqlo] makes good undershirts to fill in
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when wool undershirts are too expensive. [ExOfficio][exofficio] is worth the
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money in the underwear department. A pair of leggings is also super worth it
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for the cold.
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* For pants I went with three pairs; one beat-up pair, one casual, and one a bit
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nicer, and a few wool shirts/sweaters. Later in the trip, as summer rolled
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around, I'd pick up some shorts as well. My couple of wool shirts/sweaters
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were trivial to find on eBay.
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* For shoes I went with a pair of flip-flops and a pair of [waterproof
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boots][timbs] (also from eBay). The boots I chose for being able to be used in
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basically any occasion where flip-flops wouldn't do (marathons excepted).
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* I really can't stress enough how great wool is. That said, I would have died
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without [this jacket][jacket], which was well worth the relatively tiny amount
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of space it took up. Same can be said for my [linen towel][towel], which
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struck a perfect balance between packability and being a towel.
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* Other random things which were must-haves: rubber bands (for tying up
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clothes), sewing kit, external phone battery, tape, super glue, umbrella, and
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a small package of baby wipes.
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* I also insisted on bringing a laughably small and old netbook with me, cause
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I get cranky if I can't code now and then.
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Even before deciding on doing this trip I had begun purging all my old clothes
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in favor of a much smaller set of more durable, though perhaps more expensive,
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ones. So a lot of these clothes carried over from that, and all that I just
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described is really my current wardrobe.
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[zulu]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015SBLO28/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B015SBLO28&linkId=84ffbb4c20cf4dfcee00485312c1d5c3
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[uniqlo]: https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men/undershirts
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[exofficio]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001M0MN0C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B001M0MN0C&linkId=a1a2a1fac9c23c44c0633d0e7170fb98
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[timbs]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019CVV1AK?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=B019CVW406&th=1
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[jacket]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013HAXSLC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B013HAXSLC&linkId=44efbeb32af7cc0f303180ec70da207e
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[towel]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WBC17N4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00WBC17N4&linkId=dec48e5d729a51790abad2286f08fe34
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## (Lack of) Planning
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The trip was deliberately not planned out. I knew I would show up in Munich,
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because I have a friend who lives there as well as a distant relative. But
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past that I figured "show up and look around" would suffice. My motto for the
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trip would eventually become "plans are just lists of things which won't
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happen". From start to finish the only plans I had figured out at any moment was
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a general trajectory and my next destination. Rarely was my next place to sleep
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booked more than a week ahead of time, or my next bus or train ticket bought
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more than a day before.
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It could not have worked any other way. For a short trip it might be viable to
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have an itinerary with a list of destinations/sights which will be visited and
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all the traveling needed in between, but the strictness of an itinerary always
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adds tension. Rather than spend some pre-allotted time at each sight, adding a
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feeling of being on a timer no matter where you are, I would rather just meander
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around and spend as much time as feels right at each place. There's zero chance
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of seeing all there is to see, no matter how much is planned, so might as well
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see each thing in as much depth and detail as you feel like.
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And looking back, I don't think I _did_ miss all that much. Each city has its
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notable sights, and you can know by looking around and talking to other people
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which ones are right for you. Start with those, if there's time do the others,
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but you won't feel like you've missed anything if you don't get to them.
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Much later in my trip someone would ask me and another backpacker (who'd been
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traveling even longer than me) if we had advice for him. The other backpacker
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immediately replied "Just keep your head on a swivel". As in, just look around
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you, keep your eyes open, you'll see all you want and need to. My grandma gave
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me similar advice before I left, when I asked her what I should do in Spain (her
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home country): "Oh, you don'thave to do anything. You see something you like,
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you go there. You see something else, you go there instead. There is nothing you
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have to do".
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## Bailing
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In the next post I will actually leave and begin my _adventure_. Stay tuned!
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