8 ms·

"On paper, my life seemed great. I had a dream job, a swanky apartment, and a loving girlfriend. But something was off. I couldn’t bear being chained to my desk

by Apreche 10y ago

"On paper, my life seemed great. I had a dream job, a swanky apartment, and a loving girlfriend. But something was off. I couldn’t bear being chained to my desk in a stuffy office any longer. " Yes yes, this is sounds just like me! "So I decided to quit and travel the world, bringing only my passport, a small backpack, ..." Yes yes! This is what I dream of doing. How did you do it? I'll leave tomorrow. "... and my enormous trust fund." GO FUCK YOURSELF Yes, I recognize that this is satire. But there are real people out there for whom this is their real life. That is who I am waving my finger at.

nickthemagicman 10y ago
Hahaha, Here you go. It CAN be done, just with some...minor..sacrifices. https://www.reddit.com/r/EDC/comments/2uhnhd/as_a_hobo_that_lives_on_the_road_these_are_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EDC/comments/2uhnhd/as_a_hobo_that_...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sandworm101 10y ago
I see it the other way. We should encourage the rich to become more idle. Give their jobs to people who actually need them. So don't insult them. Laugh at their jokes and encourage them to fly to Ghana to commune with the trees. Once they are out the door, nail it shut.
- konschubert 10y ago
  The really rich don't have jobs, they have capital. And until they give away their capital, we are still working for them.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    You are correct in that they don't consider themselves to have "jobs". They treat going to work more as a hobby. The problem is that regardless of their opinion on the matter, someone else really wants that job as a job.
coldtea 10y ago
The thing is, this satire misses the point. Everybody (author of the satire included) always jumps to conclusions that people doing such acts always have some massive fortune or cushion in the bank to wait them. That's far from the truth. Thousands of people do the same thing every year without anything in the bank (and no sure job awaiting them when they get back). Some have meagre savings (like $5.000 - $10.000) and use all of them to fund the trip (like year-long). Others just go at it with nothing, and survive on the kindness of strangers and odd gigs here and there. I know a few personally doing the latter, but many more doing the first. Heck, if you have $10,000 in the bank, and are a decent programmer that can manage to find work when he gets back from the trip) you can quit your job, spend 3-4 months in Asia and Africa for dirt cheap, and still have like $2-$3.000 spare to get you through a month before finding some new gig.
- konschubert 10y ago
  For a big part of the population, savings of 5000 to 10000 are not meagre.
  - stuff4ben 10y ago
    if you're a decent programmer, shouldn't be hard.
    - gabrielcsapo 10y ago
      Work at a valley company, live in a shoebox, bank maybe $500 a month, if you are lucky. Please explain to me your equation for making a lot of money.
      - shigawire 10y ago
        Step 1: don't live in the valley.
        gabrielcsapo 10y ago
        apparently this is where all the stuff happens, It has been a year and I have realized how backwards life is here.
dougk16 10y ago
If you're serious in your travel ambitions, one simple term: Teaching English as a Foreign Language For the most part the qualifications are (1) a heartbeat and (2) English proficiency, and not even native level necessarily. No college diploma needed, no expert understanding of grammar, no upfront money needed. Of course various countries and schools differ in the level of qualifications and visa requirements but my experience has been that these are not huge hurdles as long as you don't have some super specific place in mind. If "the world" is your destination, it's wide open.
- shogun21 10y ago
  Honest question: how do you teach English if you aren't bilingual in the foreign language? It seems like if the students have questions, you won't easily be able to answer them.
  - otoburb 10y ago
    TEFL is usually a term reserved for teaching English to [young] adults. The teaching methodology is almost always quite different compared to teaching English to primary & secondary students. Not being bilingual is rarely an impediment.
  - dougk16 10y ago
    Sure, questions welcome! For the most part I was limited to classes intermediate and above when I started out so there's some basis for communication. Of course the best part of travel is learning the native language. After a few months you can probably start teaching beginners, especially once you get a feel for the kinds of questions students ask. People usually have the same confusion points. Some "immersive" methods such as the Callan method explicitly do not want you to use the native language at all, even if you know it.
  - n_coats 10y ago
    A lot of times you will end up teaching in a school where children or people know conversational English and are studying to become more proficient. I have two close friends (husband and wife) who spent the last 6 years teaching English in Thailand and Bali. In Thailand they taught at a private learning school and in Bali they taught at a school where the wealthier families sent their children. Per the larger discussion: While there, they lived on one of their salaries and saved the other. I think they left with $15k and returned with roughly double that. I know during there time over there, they took off around a year and half total to travel and relax. They didn't live in glamorous places and eat at fancy restaurants. Instead they lived more like the locals to some extent, but this mentality/lifestyle allowed them to stay longer and ultimately come back home in a better place than when they left. My wife and I visited them in Bali for four months last year (I am a remote software engineer). By association we adopted their lifestyle and had a fantastic/extremely affordable extended traveling experience.
melling 10y ago
You can travel through South American for a couple grand a month if you stay in a shared room in hostels and take cheap buses everywhere. Several years ago I spent nine months doing it. I wouldn't try to see the world in a year, unless you just want the highlights. Pick a continent. I started in Antigua, Guatemala learning Spanish for a couple of months http://spanishschoolplfm.com http://spanishschoolplfm.com I ended in Buenos Aires.
- jlg23 10y ago
  > You can travel through South American for a couple grand a month You are talking pesos, right? I've been doing this for 2 years now and the most expensive places in South America where French Guyana (about USD 2k/mo), Guyana and Uruguay (USD 1.5k/mo in each place) - both times in rented houses and with all food and transportation included. In all other countries you can stay in regular hotels without any discount for long term stays, eat out every day and still live on less than USD 1k/mo (I did this in Suriname, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil). The trick is simply not to use AirBnB or any other booking site except for the first one or two days in a new location and to buy flight tickets with cash at the airport. Having a clue about local economics also helps to evaluate offers and haggle them down from "clueless gringo" rate to "not so clueless gringo rate" (which is usually less than half of what one is asked for initially).
  - leojg 10y ago
    Are you saying that buying the flight tickets at the airport is cheaper than... say, buying two months in advance? Just being curious, because the usual advice is to buy a couple of months in advance to find better deals.
    - jlg23 10y ago
      You of course can still make a better deal with promotions, but slow travel and "buying two months in advance" don't mix well since it takes away the liberty to spontaneously change destinations or to leave a place if one does not like it (or to extend a stay). But when one wants to fly next day in South America, in my experience the cheapest is to just buy at the airport, followed by online booking at the Spanish airline site, followed by the English site.
mbrd 10y ago
You might be interested in this guy from my home town: http://onestep4ward.com/ http://onestep4ward.com/ He travels the world, but without the trust fund!
zem 10y ago
as an indian, the first thing i think of is not the money, but the visa issues. https://catapult.co/stories/my-indian-passport-is-a-bitch https://catapult.co/stories/my-indian-passport-is-a-bitch is a good read on the subject.
- vthallam 10y ago
  I know right! Came across this blog before, it was a good read on how big is the Visa problem in reality!
dang 10y ago
> GO FUCK YOURSELF This is the quintessence of what we don't want on Hacker News. Please don't "wave your finger" here. Yes, it's popular—but for bad reasons. We can't have both reflexive rage and reflective conversation. On HN we want reflective conversation. It isn't that we don't all feel these emotions; we do. The people you're waving your finger at do as well, and no doubt feel as justified. But the sine qua non of reflective conversation is to catch those reactions in oneself and then inhibit them before they hijack the cognitive apparatus. That is what allows the slower, subtler processes to engage—and that is what leads to interesting utterances, as opposed to bile.
vinceguidry 10y ago
> "So I decided to quit and travel the world, bringing only my passport, a small backpack, ..." > Yes yes! This is what I dream of doing. How did you do it? I'll leave tomorrow. What do you mean, how? Quit your job, pack a small backpack, and buy a ticket. I did it, twice. Was ready to come back after two months. Anybody who wants to actually do this should read Vagabonding.

by Apreche 10y ago

nickthemagicman 10y ago

Hahaha, Here you go. It CAN be done, just with some...minor..sacrifices. https://www.reddit.com/r/EDC/comments/2uhnhd/as_a_hobo_that_lives_on_the_road_these_are_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EDC/comments/2uhnhd/as_a_hobo_that_...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sandworm101 10y ago

I see it the other way. We should encourage the rich to become more idle. Give their jobs to people who actually need them. So don't insult them. Laugh at their jokes and encourage them to fly to Ghana to commune with the trees. Once they are out the door, nail it shut.

konschubert 10y ago
The really rich don't have jobs, they have capital. And until they give away their capital, we are still working for them.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  You are correct in that they don't consider themselves to have "jobs". They treat going to work more as a hobby. The problem is that regardless of their opinion on the matter, someone else really wants that job as a job.

coldtea 10y ago

The thing is, this satire misses the point. Everybody (author of the satire included) always jumps to conclusions that people doing such acts always have some massive fortune or cushion in the bank to wait them. That's far from the truth. Thousands of people do the same thing every year without anything in the bank (and no sure job awaiting them when they get back). Some have meagre savings (like $5.000 - $10.000) and use all of them to fund the trip (like year-long). Others just go at it with nothing, and survive on the kindness of strangers and odd gigs here and there. I know a few personally doing the latter, but many more doing the first. Heck, if you have $10,000 in the bank, and are a decent programmer that can manage to find work when he gets back from the trip) you can quit your job, spend 3-4 months in Asia and Africa for dirt cheap, and still have like $2-$3.000 spare to get you through a month before finding some new gig.

konschubert 10y ago
For a big part of the population, savings of 5000 to 10000 are not meagre.
- stuff4ben 10y ago
  if you're a decent programmer, shouldn't be hard.
  - gabrielcsapo 10y ago
    Work at a valley company, live in a shoebox, bank maybe $500 a month, if you are lucky. Please explain to me your equation for making a lot of money.
    - shigawire 10y ago
      Step 1: don't live in the valley.
      - gabrielcsapo 10y ago
        apparently this is where all the stuff happens, It has been a year and I have realized how backwards life is here.

dougk16 10y ago

If you're serious in your travel ambitions, one simple term: Teaching English as a Foreign Language For the most part the qualifications are (1) a heartbeat and (2) English proficiency, and not even native level necessarily. No college diploma needed, no expert understanding of grammar, no upfront money needed. Of course various countries and schools differ in the level of qualifications and visa requirements but my experience has been that these are not huge hurdles as long as you don't have some super specific place in mind. If "the world" is your destination, it's wide open.

shogun21 10y ago
Honest question: how do you teach English if you aren't bilingual in the foreign language? It seems like if the students have questions, you won't easily be able to answer them.
- otoburb 10y ago
  TEFL is usually a term reserved for teaching English to [young] adults. The teaching methodology is almost always quite different compared to teaching English to primary & secondary students. Not being bilingual is rarely an impediment.
- dougk16 10y ago
  Sure, questions welcome! For the most part I was limited to classes intermediate and above when I started out so there's some basis for communication. Of course the best part of travel is learning the native language. After a few months you can probably start teaching beginners, especially once you get a feel for the kinds of questions students ask. People usually have the same confusion points. Some "immersive" methods such as the Callan method explicitly do not want you to use the native language at all, even if you know it.
- n_coats 10y ago
  A lot of times you will end up teaching in a school where children or people know conversational English and are studying to become more proficient. I have two close friends (husband and wife) who spent the last 6 years teaching English in Thailand and Bali. In Thailand they taught at a private learning school and in Bali they taught at a school where the wealthier families sent their children. Per the larger discussion: While there, they lived on one of their salaries and saved the other. I think they left with $15k and returned with roughly double that. I know during there time over there, they took off around a year and half total to travel and relax. They didn't live in glamorous places and eat at fancy restaurants. Instead they lived more like the locals to some extent, but this mentality/lifestyle allowed them to stay longer and ultimately come back home in a better place than when they left. My wife and I visited them in Bali for four months last year (I am a remote software engineer). By association we adopted their lifestyle and had a fantastic/extremely affordable extended traveling experience.

melling 10y ago

You can travel through South American for a couple grand a month if you stay in a shared room in hostels and take cheap buses everywhere. Several years ago I spent nine months doing it. I wouldn't try to see the world in a year, unless you just want the highlights. Pick a continent. I started in Antigua, Guatemala learning Spanish for a couple of months http://spanishschoolplfm.com http://spanishschoolplfm.com I ended in Buenos Aires.

jlg23 10y ago
> You can travel through South American for a couple grand a month You are talking pesos, right? I've been doing this for 2 years now and the most expensive places in South America where French Guyana (about USD 2k/mo), Guyana and Uruguay (USD 1.5k/mo in each place) - both times in rented houses and with all food and transportation included. In all other countries you can stay in regular hotels without any discount for long term stays, eat out every day and still live on less than USD 1k/mo (I did this in Suriname, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil). The trick is simply not to use AirBnB or any other booking site except for the first one or two days in a new location and to buy flight tickets with cash at the airport. Having a clue about local economics also helps to evaluate offers and haggle them down from "clueless gringo" rate to "not so clueless gringo rate" (which is usually less than half of what one is asked for initially).
- leojg 10y ago
  Are you saying that buying the flight tickets at the airport is cheaper than... say, buying two months in advance? Just being curious, because the usual advice is to buy a couple of months in advance to find better deals.
  - jlg23 10y ago
    You of course can still make a better deal with promotions, but slow travel and "buying two months in advance" don't mix well since it takes away the liberty to spontaneously change destinations or to leave a place if one does not like it (or to extend a stay). But when one wants to fly next day in South America, in my experience the cheapest is to just buy at the airport, followed by online booking at the Spanish airline site, followed by the English site.

mbrd 10y ago

You might be interested in this guy from my home town: http://onestep4ward.com/ http://onestep4ward.com/ He travels the world, but without the trust fund!

zem 10y ago

as an indian, the first thing i think of is not the money, but the visa issues. https://catapult.co/stories/my-indian-passport-is-a-bitch https://catapult.co/stories/my-indian-passport-is-a-bitch is a good read on the subject.

vthallam 10y ago
I know right! Came across this blog before, it was a good read on how big is the Visa problem in reality!

dang 10y ago

> GO FUCK YOURSELF This is the quintessence of what we don't want on Hacker News. Please don't "wave your finger" here. Yes, it's popular—but for bad reasons. We can't have both reflexive rage and reflective conversation. On HN we want reflective conversation. It isn't that we don't all feel these emotions; we do. The people you're waving your finger at do as well, and no doubt feel as justified. But the sine qua non of reflective conversation is to catch those reactions in oneself and then inhibit them before they hijack the cognitive apparatus. That is what allows the slower, subtler processes to engage—and that is what leads to interesting utterances, as opposed to bile.

vinceguidry 10y ago

> "So I decided to quit and travel the world, bringing only my passport, a small backpack, ..." > Yes yes! This is what I dream of doing. How did you do it? I'll leave tomorrow. What do you mean, how? Quit your job, pack a small backpack, and buy a ticket. I did it, twice. Was ready to come back after two months. Anybody who wants to actually do this should read Vagabonding.