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Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight
- 44Aman 15y agoAmazing blog, thanks for posting it. Been living in Paris for two weeks now and not really even tried to speak French, my aim by the end of my internship was to become conversationally fluent. Definitely starting this soon: http://www.fluentin3months.com/the-smartest-decision-you-will-ever-make-to-achieve-fluency/ http://www.fluentin3months.com/the-smartest-decision-you-wil...
- irishpolyglot 15y agoAnother post that you may find more relevant to Paris is my experience in finally learning how to get along with Parisians: http://www.fluentin3months.com/closed-minded/ http://www.fluentin3months.com/closed-minded/ This is important to keep in mind as it's the only place in the world that my speak-the-language-from-day-one approach needed some tweaking ;) Enjoy the city - my favourite activity there is to stand over the bridge to the Cité and wave at a boat passing underneath and have 200 Japanese tourists wave back. Fun times!
- glimcat 15y agoThe concept of closed-mindedness is also heavily cultural; it doesn't always translate or map to local values.
- irishpolyglot 15y agoAs I said in the post, closed-mindedness is something that people have to realise lies within themselves. This post wasn't calling Parisians closed minded.
- glimcat 15y agoI assumed you were calling yourself closed-minded. But my point was that the whole open-minded versus closed-minded conversation hinges upon cultural values which are by no means universal. There are many cases where the reverse is seen as important (e.g. resisting outside influences) or where the entire topic is not seen as meaningful or important.
- irishpolyglot 15y agoThanks for explaining!
- nihilocrat 15y agoBasically the biggest trouble I have had learning a spoken language is in getting over the awkwardness of never being able to understand the other person or come up with a quick reply. You probably need to get used to sounding like an idiot all the time and constantly misunderstanding what people are trying to say. Then, get used to people switching to English even though that's really not helping your situation. If you have no trouble with that, you're much better off than I am. Another useful skill that I alluded to is the ability to quickly and accurately simplify your thoughts into words that you know in the language in question. You will learn that a lot of the time in English you are just adding layers and layers of nuance to what you are saying rather than more clearly saying what you are actually thinking.
- corin_ 15y agoMore money will NEVER solve your problems That just isn't true - the problem is that people realised that being rich isn't the same as being happy, and it was a good point. But then people took it too far, and it stops making sense. Sure, for some people, having more money wouldn't improve things, but for many people, it definitely could. And I'm not just talking about people who are starving or homeless. You don't need a car to be happy, but if it means you waste far less time every week driving wherever you need to get to, it certainly has the potential to make you happier. Can a really happy life be built entirely on having money? No (well, maybe for some people, I don't know), but that doesn't mean money can't or doesn't help to improve people's lives.
- vacri 15y agoI believe what he means by this is part "more money will not solve ALL your problems" (ie: it's not a panacaea) and part "if you have food and shelter, everything else is a form of luxury". If you require a car to provide food and shelter, then I don't think that what he's said is invalid.
- corin_ 15y agoSure a lot of things in life are luxuries, but that doesn't mean they are bad, and often can still solve problems. "My feet hurt all day" might get solved by buying a fairly expensive pair of shoes, for example. Will winning the lottery give you the perfect life? Doubtful. Can money solve many problems and improve your life in other ways? Very often.
- jonnathanson 15y agoAs an interesting corollary, it's actually a longitudinally studied and extensively documented fact that winning the lottery does not provide long-term happiness. More often than not, it actually causes more problems than it solves. I forget the statistic off the top of my head, but some astounding percentage of lottery winners -- let's say 75% -- end up worse off within 5 years of winning than they were before they won. (Granted, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the type of person most likely to be playing the lottery is also the type of person who has no real concept of the value of how to manage a $XXX million fortune, let alone a $XXX million fortune acquired literally overnight).
- revorad 15y agoAs I've been saying to others regarding startup advice and lessons, it's much more helpful and interesting to read stories. You may think you are extracting out wisdom from your experiences, but really, more often than not, these "life lessons" don't mean much without context. I certainly can't take them for a rule and apply them to my life. It may turn out to be the wrong advice for me and even if it doesn't, I'll always have the nagging doubt that I took the wrong decision based on someone else's experiences. It would be nearly impossible to read these "N lessons" posts if they were not in the form of lists, which points to the fact that they don't flow very well. They are written in bite-sized chunks for information-hungry internet nerds like us. Writers, please tell stories. We don't need more advice.
- irishpolyglot 15y agoThis is the only list post I've ever written on my blog, since I was in a reflective mood about a long list of specific things and felt this got my point across clearest. You'll find a lot of stories that expand on and discuss particular parts in greater detail if you follow the links ;) It's been an amazing experience seeing this go viral (see the counts on the left of the post), but I'll be sticking to my non-list posts for the majority of what I write :) Also, this isn't advice but what I've learned. I didn't want it to come across as preachy, but actually something I would like to have told myself at age 21 and am thinking aloud. I hope you enjoy other stories shared on the blog! Here's people's favourite one I've written this year: http://www.fluentin3months.com/speed-dating http://www.fluentin3months.com/speed-dating
- lhnz 15y agoA life lesson with context wouldn't be a life lesson. The context is life, if the context is more specific and not fully applicable to life then it is no longer a life lesson.
- kd0amg 15y agoA "life lesson" may still have a non-universal set of (common) situations to which it applies.
- glimcat 15y agoA little John Lennon here, a little Miguel de Cervantes there.
- mburney 15y agoMost of these life lessons have nothing to do with travelling. Most people I know (especially in their late 20's) would come up with a similar list even if they've barely travelled. I think this is just merely the blog poster's world view articulated into 29 points, and incidentally he has travelled the world instead of living in one place.
- ristretto 15y agoIt also makes it seem like there's not that much to learn by spending large amounts of time travelling. That's because people on average are similar, so it's equally probable you will meet the people who will make a difference in your life, travelling or no-travelling. Maybe in the end you will be wiser using the internet, which can actually help you find people with common aspirations/interests etc.
- georgieporgie 15y agoThe advantage of traveling is that it forces you out of your comfort zone. You'll meet types of people that you otherwise wouldn't ever bump into.
- stayjin 15y agoHowever it is amazing what an impact does living at a place away from were one grew up in have in the perception of the world. I had already traveled a lot ( as a tourist ) before I left Greece to come and live in Japan, when I started to make a life here, I practically had to rediscover myself. It is not so much the big things, it's the small ones : habits that I took for granted, jokes that do not sound funny, if you can ask someone's phone number... Like a very thin safety net of supporting culture I never new was there just disappeared underneath me. I also had a fresh view of Greece , and my life before I think traveling gives you a change of perspective difficult to grasp at home
- ristretto 15y agoTravelling is different than living abroad though, right?
- Andys 15y agoPoint #1 is why we shouldn't be at war, why people in power shouldn't be always trying to control the populace, and why there shouldn't be so much poverty
- beilabs 15y agoHave an up-vote for being from Cavan! Languages should be always acquired wherever possible. On my travels I've picked up Irish, French, Chinese and attempting to learn Nepalese to placate the in-laws for my future wedding speech.
- irishpolyglot 15y agoWa hey! Fellow Cyavan-man? I'll be back for the Fleadh in a month :)
- beilabs 15y agoThe aul fellah is from Cavan, being a mongrel with Kerry blood in me I had the misfortune of living in the Faithful county for many a year. Out in Sydney now.
- dimmuborgir 15y agoIMHO, different world travellers come up with different life lessons. It all depends on the person's own prejudices. Lessons are not in the world, they're within you. World and societies are just tools to discover our own selves.
- alexro 15y agoI can't really think of any written example of any traveler who came up with different conclusions about the world.
- dimmuborgir 15y agoConclusions about the world can be same. Like, everyone wants the same in life is a popular conclusion seen in several travel blogs. But we're talking about life lessons here, which I think, are not absolutes but drawn differently by different people.
- pinaceae 15y agobut what if i ENJOY watching tv? or being on the internet for hours? why is outdoors better by definition? this fits nicely into the "what white people like" stereotype. go outside! why? maybe i want to read a book and be left alone. maybe i don't like dancing and singing. how about: do whatever you like, but please, don't preach. we are different. /white, like travel and outdoors, but love to consume art
- irishpolyglot 15y agoIf after spending many hours watching TV you feel your life has been enhanced in some way, then by all means keep it up. In my opinion people don't feel this way (I certainly never did and grew up glued to my TV) and would have spent their time better in other activities rather than following hours of reality TV shows etc. Doing "whatever you like" doesn't necessarily enrich your life. It's just immediate pleasure. Sometimes doing whatever is BEST for you (which you should of course decide) is way more important. If people really sat down and thought about it, a lot of them would realise that, as much as they like it, TV is NOT best for them.
- speckledjim 15y agoI feel my life is infinitely enriched by watching TV and movies. (In UK, we have extremely high quality programming). You wouldn't say "all books are bad" would you... Sadly people seem to take the worst TV (reality TV) and assume it's all like that. Watch some good movies, comedies or documentaries. Heck watch "How it's made" for a few days.
- glimcat 15y agoI think there's a difference between watching the tele without regard to content and using it to watch specific content. The "read more" crowd gets the reverse of this - much of what is in print is not worth the time it takes to consume it. In general, value your time and use it accordingly. You're not getting it back if you decide it was wasted later.
- irishpolyglot 15y ago
- rheide 15y agoExcellent read. As someone who has (hopefully) just taken up the travelling+programming lifestyle myself I was really inspired by the website. There's a lot of interesting articles on there.
- alexro 15y agoI've spent almost 10 years not having a stable place/work relationships. I also travelled a lot and came to almost same conclusions. But. Looking back at it now I think that's everything should be limited. Including TV, including reading books alone and including travelling around the world. But. The only thing that shouldn't be limited - is the pursue of your own unique excellence. ADD: So, if you want to be an excellent traveller - travel, if you want to be an excellent writer - write even not seeing others, if you want to be anything you like - do want you like. And try to be excellent. That's the only life advice I have! ADD 2: Naturally, if you don't want to be excellent, try to be excellent to be non-excellent !!!
- clistctrl 15y agoI have a strong desire to do something like this. I've been saving for the day that I can quit my job, and work on a start-up. At the same time I also want to move to somewhere like Costa Rica with exciting rain forests, and a lower cost of living. Unfortunately I feel tied down, I'm more than willing to sell most of my stuff, I basically stopped buying "things" a few years ago. However I could never move away from my girlfriend, and she could never move away from her life here in Boston.
- randomdrake 15y agoI'll just leave this here for you then: http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180 http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-T...
- danneu 15y agoAnd I'll even cut to the chase: http://www.vagabonding.net/excerpt/ http://www.vagabonding.net/excerpt/
- mberning 15y agoI disagree that the desire to own stuff all boils down to wanting recognition and validation from others. In my experience there are a range of reasons that people want to own things, and validation is just one of the more base reasons.
- klbarry 15y agoIt's easy to be single with this lifestyle, as a professional who can work remotely anywhere. You can't have pets, as well.
- yaix 15y agoNice article. I have myself lived in Latin America and China for about 12 years now, however I prefer to stay at the same place for some years, to make it become "normal" life. And while I agree with many of the articles points, I completely disagree with #16. The "easy going" may look charming and smart on the surface, but when reality suddenly shows up (illness, accident, any sort of emergency, etc) then its suddenly not so charming anymore. I believe a big reason for the "easy going" attitude lays in the available Social Capital in a given society. In societies with low Social Capital, its often no use to be "less easy going" and work hard, since careers are not build by knowledge or good work, but by "Guanxi" and Amigos (because Social Capital is low these relationships become more important than actual professional knowledge). I am pretty sure that, having a real choice, most people would opt for the "less easy going" way, where products and services, houses and medical care are available and reliable.
- jdost 15y agoA few points I got from this: - Possessions do own you. I have made an effort in the past year to minimize my stuff. One of my long term goals is to be able to shrink the majority of my life into a travel-able size. It allows me to cherish the essentials and not bloat the rest of my life. - Money does allow for happiness, just to a certain extent. Money opens up many opportunities and comforts. It also adds security. If my car gets totalled tomorrow, I know that I have enough money saved up to be able to handle it, rather than suddenly be put in a dire situation that could jeopardize my job. - Major goals are important, but not everything. People work towards things, its natural of humanity. Everyone sets goals and works towards them (or sometimes waits for them) and it is a strong driving force in our lives. But sacrificing your happiness now for the sake of those goals is counterproductive. You need to enjoy the time used to achieve that goal. You shouldn't look back on the year(s) taken to get to the point and see a lot of unhappiness and pain, enjoy some of the time instead. - In regards to the internet/tv posts, I would say that the biggest thing anyone can do is read. The Internet provides an incredibly accessible portal of information and using it to learn new things (and an incredibly breadth of things) is a tool everyone should use and abuse. ... Just my random thoughts after reading the post.
- munin 15y agopossessions don't own you. attachment owns you. the difference is subtle.
- srgseg 15y ago> 2. Deferring your happiness to the future is a terrible idea Every time I see this, I ask myself, how is this advice reconciled with the famous Marshmallow experiment? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment There surely must come a point where enough deferred future marshmallow gratification makes deferred gratification a recommended life strategy. If I were always to choose not to delay my happiness, I'd eat unhealthy foods, not force myself to do exercise and never work hard to achieve anything. As I heard a comic say, "I decided to live every day as if it were my last. Now I have really bad credit."
- radu_floricica 15y agoThey're different things. Marshmellow isn't about deferring satisfaction, but about using metacognitive skills to reach an outcome you _know_ beforehand is favorable (i.e. two marshmellows instead of one). If you just find a marshmellow on a plate somewhere, by all means, the best strategy is to eat it.
- mcantor 15y agoAnd then let me know where you were when you found it. I'm all about finding random marshmallows while I'm just ambling around.
- gdulli 15y ago"Life lessons" aren't formulas and aren't objective, so they don't need to be reconciled. Knowing when and how to apply them takes maturity and life experience. If that wasn't the case, then anyone could read a list of them and be equally enlightened and successful. A counter-example doesn't invalidate advice, or else there would be no legitimate advice.
- gcb 15y agono life changing advice survives any form of analysis.
- skldfnlknsdf 15y agoOh, easy: 1) Wait for the marshmallow (it may be 15 minutes) 2) While you are waiting, distract yourself. 3) Presto: you are now happy and waiting for the marshmallow. You can read the article on the new yorker now (google newyorker marshmallow, article is called "the secret of self-control") but the key concept is "strategic allocation of attention". I'm not sure what his point is...in fact the whole article is a little bit haphazard. The concept is usually stated as "deferring pleasure", which is completely different from deferring happiness.
- wmat 15y agoSigh. Someone needs to write: "41 Life Lessons Learned by Marrying, Moving to Suburbia, and Raising a Family". That's what I did and I'm a happy guy.
- ido 15y agoSomeone needs to write Why not you?
- trb 15y agoI don't like the way this article, and many others like it, disregard peoples ability to be malicious. They portray all humans as good-natured, kind and helpful, and while this is true for the overwhelming majority, the small percentage to who this does not apply do exist. I personally would love to read some good advice on how to deal with people who actively try to harm you, as most advice available focusses on how to make friends and acquaintances.
- schiptsov 15y agoWell, it is good to have rich parents, no one argues. You can discover basics of the life in 8 years rather than in one year of visiting a public library. ^_^ Disclaimer: I have seen so many Enlightened Tourists after two weeks in Lhasa or a Hindu/Yogi Gurus after one months in Varanasi and especially Teachers Of Humanity with an obvious Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
- avstraliitski 15y agoBeing in India right now, I couldn't help but laugh at the disclaimer. Nicely worded :)
- dts 15y agoThese are pretty simple, not so preachy, and generally expected observations from someone working in a location independent profession while travelling the world and picking up new languages. This is also advice aimed almost directly at people in similar positions - those with higher education and almost zero financial or emotional attachment (ex. children, sick family memebers) to their original home. What I'm more interested in though is when the author realizes that being in different places every three months, no matter how much you "hack your experience" there only allows you access to a certain level of experiential depth. Love, trust, deep friendships, community - you just cant cultivate these things every three months while planning your next destination and as much friendliness, and kindness people in these places show you, its not the same as if you are someone planning to be a part of that place permanently.
- bignoggins 15y agoAs someone who is currently taking a gap year to travel and work on my startup, a lot of this rings true. Especially the part about speaking other languages rather than English. There are interesting conversations that I just can't participate in because I don't understand what people are saying. However, there are several hacks for this that I've found. - Don't stay at hotels, use airbnb. The hosts are almost always locals that speak decent English and want to get to know you, so that's enriched my experience tremendously. Disclaimer: I do NOT work for airbnb, but after seeing how it has enriched my travels it's definitely at the top of my list if I ever wanted to apply for a job again. - Go out of your way to meet other travelers. Usually, travelers like to keep to themselves. But there are districts in any city that are especially frequented by foreigners. Why restrict yourself to locals? Foreigners from a different country who are traveling are just as interesting for cultural exchange as the locals. They usually speak English fairly well and it's not uncommon to be engaged in an English conversation with a German, a Russian, a Chinese, and a French person at a bar. It's quite fascinating. While it is definitely less expensive to travel than one would think, it still does cost quite a bit if you want to travel to major cities and have a living standard which is at least close to western-standard. Staying with friends and using airbnb instead of hostel/hotel is the best way to keep costs down. After 3 months of traveling (Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and now Spain) I've spent an average of $4300/mo. I'm traveling with my wife so the per person cost is actually less. Could I get by with less by teaching English and staying in one place longer, etc? Yes, but as with everything, there is a tradeoff between time and money.
- rivo 15y agoI met a guy once who, at the time, had benen travelling for 7 years. His main advice was: Don't get married. You don't want to know how much people cheat on their sopouses.