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I've done a few 3-4 month trips in the past. I was fortunate to be earning a good day rate as a freelancer before I left and I was young, with no responsibiliti
by aidos 12y ago
I've done a few 3-4 month trips in the past. I was fortunate to be earning a good day rate as a freelancer before I left and I was young, with no responsibilities and no need for a life plan. It was easy to quickly save up a little money, and travel can be really cheap, especially when you don't care about sleeping in a nice bed.
The first couple of times I travelled a lot. Too much. Moving on every day or two. Seeing the various famous sites to see along the way. It was a great adventure, but I didn't learn that much.
One day I was talking to someone on my daily train commute out of london and she was telling me about a friend of hers that was travelling the world by boat. I thought it sounded amazing, and I always wanted to sail, so I booked myself in to do a leg of the Clipper Ventures [0] yacht race - from Liverpool (England) to Brazil (took about 4 weeks).
When I arrived in Brazil I didn't have a plan at all. I booked in to learn Portuguese while stating with a local family. The 4 weeks I lived there changed the way I look at travelling. I learned about the local culture, made friends, and learned a lot about myself in the process.
In a lot of ways tourism is a much easier route than immersing yourself in a culture. Being totally alone in a country where you can't speak the language is pretty soul expanding.
I've only managed one (big) trip since then (with my now wife) through Central America. We stayed with a family in Nicaragua for a couple of weeks at the start to learn Spanish. We loved it. The hosts are always amazing (we ended up doing it a few times during the trip). Also, it's really cheap. I think we paid $100 / week for accommodation, food and school (for both of us).
So my main bit of advice would be, try to be a local, not a tourist. It's scary, but incredibly rewarding.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effh9W_xHSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effh9W_xHSg
- jeremyis 12y agoCurious - when you travel, how do you find families to live with? That sounds really fun. - On week 3 of a (hopefully) ~9mos trip, in Chiang Mai.
- jyz 12y agoCongrats! Chiang Mai seems more like an expat colony at this point, do you still think there's enough Thailand to see in Chiang Mai or do you suggest another destination if people were to go there for the first time now?
- vosper 12y ago(depending on how your travels have been) an expat colony can be a really nice thing to find sometimes.
- jeremyis 12y agoI've only been in CM for ~1 week and have spent most of the time working (or late night partying with Europeans / expat Americans). I spent 2 weeks in Bangkok before.... I think there is "authentic" Thai here and in Bangkok; there is still a strong majority of Thai's / SE Asians in CM and BKK. Certainly some areas of the city more-so than others. And you can find the places where they frequent... CM is a pretty cool and affordable place. The weather is much nicer than unbearably hot Bangkok, you can get a nice quality single AC room with a queen size bed for ~$20/night in the center of town. Authentic meals cost $2-$3 (the Western-style / tourist meals are more like $5-$10). It has pretty good wifi - much better than BKK. And they have a familiarity with dealing with Westerners; though, it is ironic that Thais are particularly bad at English. I hear the worst at English in SE Asia, despite it being the biggest ex-pat and tourist country. People are pretty friendly up here too.
- lucaspiller 12y ago> Curious - when you travel, how do you find families to live with? That sounds really fun. There is a whole industry around this. Take a look at http://www.homestay.com/ http://www.homestay.com/, it's like Airbnb except you book a family, not just an apartment.
- jeremyis 12y agoThanks!
- aidos 12y agoAs heliodor mentions below, language schools will sort you out. In Brazil I walked in and made gestures that I wanted to learn Portuguese (they refused to speak English, even though some of them could, a little). The conversation went on like that and eventually one of the staff took me on a bus to where I would stay with a family. I ended up with a relatively wealthy family, others at the same school were in totally different environments. One thing I hadn't accounted for was the paranoia of that situation. My host family were really nice, but early on we had a discussion about how much people earned in the UK (with the aide of a translation dictionary). The next night I heard them arguing, I could tell it was about money, I was fairly sure it was about me. I recorded a little snippet of it and when I played it for a friend later when I got back to the UK he said they were talking about footballer's salaries :) At the time it made me really self-conscious. It's tough when you're all alone and you don't have anyone to talk to in your native tongue. Leaves you entirely alone with your thoughts.
- jeremyis 12y agoThanks for the great reply. I want to end my trip by spending 3 months in Spain learning Spanish. I'm thinking of Valencia because I think it'll be fairly warm there even during winter months, it's somewhat central, I hear it's fun, and everyone speaks Spanish... Barcelona would be a really fun city to live in also but I think it'd be better to be surrounded 100% by the language I am learning instead of Catalan :-) Before now, I've only heard of living with a foreign family as a thing younger students do. I'm approaching 30... would it be weird to do at this age or is it normal?
- muzakthings 12y agoalso curious how you found families willing to host!
- heliodor 12y agoI believe in cases like his, where you take language lessons, the language school provides the opportunity to stay with a host family.