Why Travel?

Why eat? Because it’s essential to your body! So why travel, because it’s essential to living, to growing, to your mind. It can give you insights to the world, to other people as well as yourself that sitting in a cubicle or reading a book won’t give you.

If life is all about experiences then travel is the ultimate experience rich medium. Exotic locations, different people, continuously changing situations and challenges face you.

You learn, or is it, relearn to appreciate things. Simple things start giving you pleasure again; like eating a new fruit, seeing a waterfall, walking through a forest, hearing a foreign language and getting up for sunrise.

In truth you can have many of these pleasures at home but the business of life and time has the effect of closing ourselves and our senses to these things. When you travel many of these senses reawake. You feel alive, you start to be creative, you deal with problems and you get along with people, most of them anyway.

There are some experiences that you can’t have at home or are just simple better when you go traveling. These include exploring other cultures, learning a foreign language, studying meditation with an Indian guru (maybe in New York or London) and this is just the tip of one gigantic iceberg.

Some experiences I had so far whilst traveling.

• 17 day trek in Nepal – changed my view of trekking and reconnected me with my inner child that fantasized about climbing icy peaks and walking across the Antarctic.
• Disastrous climb of Adam’s peak – taught me many valuable lessons about getting prepared for trekking and big challenges.
• 2 day white water rafting in Nepal
• Teaching English in a Jungle Refugee camp in Thailand – an amazing experience that taught me how resilient people can be.
• Climbing Santa Maria, Guatemala, to witness a mini explosion of her side cone, which sent a plume of smoke about a kilometer into the air – simply awesome!
• Gate crashing a Halloween Party at an Intercontinental in Columbia, when we weren’t even suppose to be in the country
• Being freaked out in Burma (Myanmar) by the terrible political situation there.
• Two weeks of hedonistic indulgence in Goa

This is why I want to break free from work and go traveling again. This time with a view of making money to sustain it and to experiment with different styles of traveling.

Intro - Why I'm writing this blog

Perhaps it's a middle age crisis, the big FOUR OH is coming very soon, in fact too soon. This time next year I'll be there.

Perhaps, I haven't grown up and there's still some rebel left in me. I don't want my life and work to be a job that's 'OK'. I want more travel; I want to meet people doing radical things, who have new ideas and are working them; I want my own radical ideas to work and I want some of that entrepreneurial spirit -- like in 'the Dead Poet's Society' I want that 'cease the day mentality.

Am I too old for all this stuff, definitely not! Am I scared, definitely!

So I want to start living my life as I want it to be. I want freedom from work, which doesn't mean I don't want to work but I want to be doing my own work, something I can put my heart into.

I want to increase my passive income, which at present is vertically zero ($35 per month) to a point where I can travel or learn something new and not worry about money.

I want each day to be the most important day for me. At the moment, my mind drifts from fantasies to worries and is largely unproductive.

I've had always wanted this freedom but I haven't done much about it. Now I feel is the time to make changes. To do, instead of think and dream about it.

As this crisis sweeps my mind, I've turned to books and the internet for help.

So far I have read;

The Four Hour Working Week Tim Ferriss -- initial view, very attractive and some parts are very practical. I have stopped reading the news and this small change has saved me a lot of time. I haven't got my head about the 'muses' (businesses that generate cash but become fully automated) yet but it is something I would like to try. Outsourcing life, seems very radical to me, I didn't realise the extent this has gone, until I read FHWW.

I have partly read

E Myth Mastery - Michael E. Gerber

This book combines the Story of Sarah with the principles of Entrepreneurial ship. You have to read a bit to find out the practical tips. The story of Sarah adds an emotional dimension to the advice I guess.

Useful bits so far

Get use to being a leader - say it to yourself and notice how you feel. He gives this advice, as many people feel pompous or silly calling themselves 'leaders'.

Stopping - as the name suggests, this is literally stopping yourself when you're busy doing something and observing your thoughts. I found exercise this very interesting and insight. I'm not sure at the moment what to do with the observations.

Get your 'vision' sorted out first before starting a business plan.

Interesting website

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/01/07/the-power-of-less-leo-babauta-zen-habits/

This is not Tim Ferriss but it's on his website. An interesting approach to changing habits

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/

A bit about me.

I'm 39, male and working as an English Teacher in the Far East. I have dreams of being a photographer, travel writer and entrepreneur. I live with my girlfriend and we currently don't plan to have children.