How I Sold Everything and Left Home to Travel the World Indefinitely
It was on a return flight from Mexico that I started reading Tales of a Female Nomad. The desire to ditch everything and travel the world full time had been gnawing at me for years, but I told myself that it was impossible. That I was too old for a gap year. That I didn’t have enough money. That I would regret leaving the stability of my teaching job, apartment, and all the rest. There are always a million reasons not to do something daring. But reading Rita Golden Gelman’s memoir, I grew jealous. She had also had a million reasons not to become a nomad, yet she made it happen. On that flight, a seed was planted. I was faced with a confrontational truth: if I wanted to do what Gelman did, I could. My fear was the only thing holding me back. I didn’t like the thought that I was deferring my dreams out of cowardice. The more I reflected on this, the stronger my resolve became.
Talk is Cheap — Do Something
By the time I landed back in Washington, D.C., I had more or less decided that I was not going to renew my contract at the end of the school year, that I was going to end my lease, and that I was going to sell or donate my things and take off. But I wasn’t sure how to tell my housemates, friends, and family. I started slowly, selling things on Facebook Marketplace that had just been collecting dust: my road bike, old instruments I hadn’t played in years, books I had bought but never read. I gradually began telling the people in my life about my plan. They said it sounded cool, but I could tell they initially didn’t believe I would actually follow through with it. I couldn’t blame them. It was a wild dream, and I had not the remotest semblance of a plan. But as the weeks went by and my personal possessions were reduced to only a few boxes, they began to take my words more seriously. When I came home one day and told my housemates that I had officially resigned from my job, it started to become real.
Where to Begin?
I know people who have dreamed of walking El Camino de Santiago their entire lives and people who have never heard of it. The Camino is mystical in that way — at once wildly popular and utterly unknown. The Camino didn’t really come onto my radar until just before the fateful trip to Mexico that inspired me to travel indefinitely. But when I made the decision to take this leap of faith, there it was: a tugging. I felt pulled to the Camino, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. So as I sat on the front porch steps, waiting day in and day out for the next buyer from Facebook Marketplace, I listened to podcasts, joined Facebook groups, and read blogs about El Camino de Santiago. The more I learned, the more eager I was to begin my walk.
Everything is Figure-out-able
I’ll be transparent: as difficult and stressful as it was to sell my car, walk away from a stable job that I loved, and move out of a wonderful apartment with amazing housemates, those were the easy parts compared to what was to come. The hard parts were figuring out how I was going to afford my adventures, gradually disentangling myself from a life rooted to one place, and coming up with contingency plans. I got to work building up a bank of resources, formulating Plans A-Z, and generally making sure that if something crazy happened, I had backup.
Boldly in the Direction of Your Dreams
By June, I had a one-way ticket to France, emergency nomad insurance, and a subscription to a platform connecting travelers with opportunities to exchange skills for accommodation. Every morning, I would take practice walks to my local Starbucks. I was conscious of my neighbors’ curious glances, and felt like a fool, walking down the street with a fully-packed 46 liter Osprey, but I didn’t care. I would walk to the UPS store and ask the associate to weigh it for me. My goal was to get my bag under 20 pounds, but at that time, I was still intent on overpacking.
When I went anywhere with my best friend, she would brag about me to anyone who would listen. “She’s leaving to travel the world indefinitely!” While she was proud of and excited for me, I was downplaying the whole thing. “Maybe not indefinitely…” I would qualify. “I might fail epically and come home in a month, jobless, carless, and penniless.” I didn’t want to set high expectations and under-deliver. I didn’t want to risk humiliation if I couldn’t complete the walk, or if my trip ended up being just a summer thing and I came home early, begging for my old job back.
But something happened when I touched down in Biarritz and made my first pilgrim friend. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I had made the right decision. Every step I took after that only confirmed my conviction. Following my intuition and leaving everything behind to travel, starting with El Camino de Santiago, was the best thing I’ve ever done.
Watch this space for my next post about long distance walking and backpacking…
