Let’s rewind to 2008 for a minute. The world was in shambles, thanks to the recession. This inspired me to make a bold decision to move to Australia on a whim and get a work visa. Life had just given me an abundance of time, and I planned to make the most of it. It was the best and most difficult year of my life, which I’ve written about here and here. (This wasn’t my first epic trip, but the one that set the course for my current vagabond life.)
Earlier this year, I went back to Australia for the first time since I left in the fall of 2009. My last memory of Sydney was hugging my friend Ste goodbye outside a hostel. (Ste and I went to university together when I studied abroad in England.) He had just moved back to Sydney so it seemed like a perfect reunion with him and the city.
Sydney was still as beautiful as I remembered. It was nice to be able to afford to eat out this time. I’ve come a long way career-wise. I’m freelancing fulltime. While I’m not wealthy, I am financial stable unlike 2008 Anna who once asked for a refund when she was overcharged five cents for an apple because she needed those five cents to buy a bus pass.
I’ve spent the last few months mulling over how I’ve changed since that life-shattering decision to move across the world 11-years ago. What have I learned? How have I grown? What lessons can I take away from this? One of the most profound realizations is how different my life would have been if I had not gotten on that plane to Australia.
After months of thought, I’ve summed up my 11 most insightful lessons from over a decade of (almost) nonstop travel and focusing more on the things I can still learn from 2008 Anna.
1. Courage is contagious.
Everything I do scares me, but I do it anyways. I’ve always lived by the mantra that the things that scare you are the things you need to do the most. If I don’t have the courage, I invite people or surround myself with people more courageous than myself. I’m that girl who texts you on a random Thursday asking if you want to go to Mongolia or run a half marathon. (Both are true stories.) I also try to befriend people who send similar texts to ask me to climb Kilimanjaro. Sometimes, I simply invite myself to Muay Thai lessons or road trips around Australia (see lesson 10).
2. Be where you are.
When I moved to Australia, I had my friends make music mixes for the long flight. My friend Miles included “Waiting for my Real Life to Begin” By Colin Hay. A line from the chorus always sticks with me, “Just be here now, Forget about the past.” It’s still one of my favorite travel songs to this day.
We spent so much of our lives lost in our heads reliving the past or anxious about the future. (I’m guilty as well.) A few years ago, I was sitting on the side of a lake in the Himalayas in India while running a photo trip. The wind started to blow, and I felt like the mountains were laughing at me. “You silly girl. Forget about that stupid boy in London. Be where you are.” To this day, I tell myself the same thing on a daily basis. (See lesson nine for the boy story.)
3. The timing will never be right.
In Bolivia, I met a British family who sold their house to travel with their two teenage daughters for a year. When I interviewed the mother for my blog, she said “The timing will never be right, you just have to go.” That is exactly how I feel about all my travels and most of my life decisions. I line up everything the best I can (quit my job when my lease ends, etc.) but then, you just have to do the thing you want to do—traveling, changing jobs or moving to a new house, etc.
4. The people make the place.
When I tell people from England where I studied abroad, they always have a look of horror on their face. “Why would they send an exchange student to Middlesbrough?” they gasp! Middlesbrough is an industrial town in northern England between York and Newcastle. It’s not postcard perfect like Oxford, but the people made up for it. (It was slightly ghetto and had terrible weather.) My first night in town I ended up at a pub where I met one of my best friends – a girl with pink hair named Fran, who I just want to visit a few weeks ago. (We’ve been friends for over 15 years!)
I also lived in Birmingham, Alabama for five years, and it’s still one of my favorite places due to the people. I’m not a person who sits still for long so it’s a BIG deal if I live somewhere for five years!
5. Let other people’s regrets be your inspiration.
In my 38 years on this planet, I’ve watched so many people talk and talk about the things they want to do but never get around to actually doing them. Life or TV shows got in the way. I refuse to be that person. I don’t sit still, and I’ve always let other people’s regrets be my guide. When people ask about my travels, there’s often a story they tell of the chance they had to travel and why it never happened. Whatever you do, don’t allow people to project their fears on you. (When you choose an unconventional life, this happens a lot. ) Life’s too short to have regrets.
6. You can’t judge people by their government.
I’m always drawn to the fringes of life and the places that aren’t easy to get to. I tend to visit places just before they open up to the world completely. The Burmese and the Cubans showed me that you cannot judge a country by its government. Sometimes, the people have no control over it or if they do, what they vote for doesn’t always happen. In my experience, the places with the harshest or strictest regimes have the kindest and nicest people, which are the things I remember the most from my adventures.
7. Traveling isn’t running.
I admit it. I was running at first – from the economy and adulthood. I found an email I wrote to my college friend Allen while I was living in Australia about my turbuluent experience. “I thought moving to the other side of the world would change my life. But, it changed nothing. The economy [it was 2008] is still bad. My car is still dead. I still can’t live anywhere longer than six months without getting bored. I’m not 20 anymore. I need to start a 401k. I guess I need to grow up. Although, car payments scare me – a lot.”
I did go back to America. I bought a car and paid it off in six months. The economy got better. I still can’t live anywhere longer than six months without getting bored. What I learned was that traveling always clears my head. Life just makes more sense 5,000 miles away from home because it strips away all the distractions, influences and societal rules that cloud my judgement. I’ve found that leaving often gives me the clarity I need to solve problems. The challenge is to use that clarity to find solutions and then, move forward.
8. A story doesn’t have to end well to be good.
The main reason I travel is for the stories. Perhaps, it’s the journalist in me. All I wanted was a good story. It just took me 20 years to realize that a story doesn’t have to end well to be a good one. Hence, why everyone loves my food poisoning ordeals or the next item on my list.
9. Travel flings never end well. (But, hopefully, they’ll get me a book deal.)
Travel flings are a highly addictive drug – there’s this intense connection that makes you feel like you’re living in a movie scene from the movie Before Sunset. You skip the games to get straight to the fun part but leave before it gets bad. It’s intoxicating, but there’s an expiration date. Like milk, things can sour terribly if you hang on for too long. Month or years of half-hearted transcontinental messages and the occasional visit are never as intense as the initial meeting and are merely tools manufactured by the self-esteem to be a mindless distraction.
Flings are also safe because there is no possibility of a future, and they are the perfect escape those who don’t know what they want. They are also dangerous because they provide a false sense of reality, an illusion of a person. There’s nothing worse than wasting time being in love with a memory.
If you keep a fling around for too long, you might just find yourself walking down the street in London in the snow at 6 a.m. with mascara smeared under your eyes trying to catch the first train into the city. (This may or may not be a true story of a boy I met in Thailand five-years prior who neglected to mention his girlfriend before to my London visit. I’ll save the rest of the details for the book deal.)
10. Life’s too short to work a job you hate just for the health insurance.
I have hated every single job I’ve had that came with good health insurance. I was a slave for years. Working those jobs (even part-time) kept me from going after the things I wanted. While I’m grateful for those jobs because I did meet some of the most amazing people in my life through them, I do not regret quitting. This quote by Maya Mendoza sums it up brutally: “No amount of security is worth the suffering of a mediocre life chained to a routine that has killed your dreams.” (I get all my annual medical check-ups in Thailand now! Blog post coming soon about going abroad for medical care!)
11 . The great paradox of life is the relationship between time and money.
Some of my best travel memories are the days when I was traveling slow and living cheap. One of my favorites was a road trip along the Great Ocean Road in Australia in early 2009 with two guys from Buffalo, New York. We slept in our rental car, snuck into RV parks to shower, ate peanut butter and drank beer on beaches. It was one of the most random and hilarious trips of my life. (One night, we went to sleep in an empty parking lot by the beach only to wake up in the middle of a bustling farmers market the next morning!) In 2008, I had more time than money so I traveled slower and cheaper. Now, the situation is reversed, but I’ve made a conscious choice to make the most of my time even if it means less money. Sure, I’d have more work if I lived in Austin full-time, but I’d rather spend my winters in warm places (Asia) writing grants for personal photo projects. If I had a normal full-time job in America, I couldn’t spend a month building furniture with my dad in his shop. While money is important, I am more careful with my time. I’ve learned to make the money while it’s there and take advantage of as many gaps of time as I can. I was reminded of this in Vietnam earlier this year on my adventure to the Cu Chi tunnels by public bus.
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