Welcome back!
The two longest trips I’ve taken away from home are my study abroad semester in Sevilla, Spain and my open-ended stay here in Buenos Aires. Some of my best friends came from my time in Sevilla, in fact one of them is coming to visit me and she arrives tomorrow. And no, she is not my girlfriend, but some travel snafus forced her arrival date back to the 14th. So what is the 5th and final thing long-term travel can teach you? How to cultivate amazing friendships.
From sleeping in the airport in Barcelona, to going crazy in Amsterdam, the friends you make while traveling will always share a certain kinship with you. Your experiences on the road will translate into unique stories that only you and your travel buddies are privy to. Davy and I will always remember all the trials and tribulations we went through in Europe biking, and Ben and I will always remember our Italian whirlwind tour.
With services and websites like Skype, Facebook, and CouchSurfing it’s easier than ever to stay in touch with other nomads. Talking with old friends always gets me pumped to travel again, especially if they’re going places I’ve never been before! In my opinion, someone who wants to travel is going to be more open by their very nature. Hostel-hopping peeps are some of the most easygoing people I’ve ever encountered. If you open yourself to other people, you’re bound to make some amazing chums!
You can find the first 4 parts of this post series here:
PS- Check out a traveler dispatch post I contributed over on TravelOjos, good blog to follow if you like Latin America!
After reaching the 5 month anniversary of my arrival in Buenos Aires last week, I sat down and examined some of my experiences down here. A common theme amongst my thoughts was figuring out this weird twilight world that I exist in between being a gringo and a porteño. My cultural awareness after living in another country for this long (outside of the study abroad bubble) has skyrocketed.
Any news I read online about Obama or current events in the US in general is reflected through the lens of Argentines when I hear it on the streets. It’s an odd sort of distortion, but it forces me to analyze the news with a more critical eye after hearing so many different viewpoints. I get to participate in all sorts of Argentine traditions that don’t exist or are very different in the US (asados = barbecues, maté = coffee, etc.).
I’ve also been fortunate to have a window into how people in other countries live through my English teaching. Family here in Argentina is very important. Most of my students were middle-aged professionals with children, and they loved to talk about them. I see adults walking with their elderly parents everyday, and family meals I’ve been invited to can stretch on for hours. It’s refreshing, and something I’m not used to coming from the go go GO culture of the states.
I’m only in the beginning of my travels, but already I can tell I’ll end up as a smorgasbord of different traditions and lifestyles. Few things bring me more joy than learning about distant peoples and traveling to new places, I love to explore. I’m getting giddy right now thinking about the plans I have for the next year…
Travel can seriously broaden your horizons if you’ll let it. I constantly find myself checking my assumptions because of my time here, examining it through the eyes of people outside the microcosm that is the United States. Give travel a chance and you’re sure to have a similar experience!
You can see the earlier posts from this series here:
If there’s one major misconception people have about long-term travel, it’s that it must be expensive. That’s simply not the case. There are endless ways to extend your travel dollar on the road, and if you want to keep your adventures going for a long time, it pays to be thrifty.
One of the most expensive elements of any trip is feeding yourself. Restaurants are expensive, and eating out every meal will deplete your travel funds very quickly. By sticking to local markets and restaurants that don’t cater to tourist dollars, you’ll be surprised how much further your money goes. In the picture above Davy and I are munching on some baguette and mystery meat sandwiches, which made up about 90% of our diet on our biking trip. Throw in fruit, and you’ve got 100%. We rarely ate at restaurants or slept in hostels; choosing instead to look for places to pitch our tent. Being frugal allowed us to stay in Europe for much longer than anticipated.
Living in Argentina now I’ve quickly discovered the difference between needs and wants. I have barely any of the creature comforts I took for granted back in the US, but I also quickly learned to do without. Simple living has been the key that has stretched my money down here, and I’ve seen friends leave after only a couple of months because they don’t budget or plan where their money should go.
Living abroad long-term on little money has been challenging, but these thrifty lessons will be invaluable whenever I return home. I’ve come to value experiences over things, and this thriftiness that has allowed me to thrive down here will definitely carry over to my lifestyle in the US.
See parts 1 and 2 of this series here:
From sleeping in the airport in Barcelona, to going crazy in Amsterdam, the friends you make while traveling will always share a certain kinship with you. Your experiences on the road will translate into unique stories that only you and your travel buddies are privy to. Davy and I will always remember all the trials and tribulations we went through in Europe biking, and Ben and I will always remember our Italian whirlwind tour.
With services and websites like Skype, Facebook, and CouchSurfing it’s easier than ever to stay in touch with other nomads. Talking with old friends always gets me pumped to travel again, especially if they’re going places I’ve never been before! In my opinion, someone who wants to travel is going to be more open by their very nature. Hostel-hopping peeps are some of the most easygoing people I’ve ever encountered. If you open yourself to other people, you’re bound to make some amazing chums!
