dirtbagway

These articles first appeared on a blog called The Dirtbag Way.

Mini-Retirements

02/03/2017 by John 2 Comments

I am back to a work schedule that more closely mirrors that of the majority of people in the United States: 5 days and 40+ hours a week. Fortunately, I get to do this while living on a subtropical island on the edge of Everglades National Park. I will be here until the end of April, recharging my road weary batteries and reloading the bank account before heading back to Spain for another mini-retirement.

Consider this:

Just taking a career break or sabbatical for six months would allow you to travel the equivalent of the average American’s 13 years of vacation time (at two weeks per year), and a one-year sabbatical would be equal to 26 years worth of travel and vacation.

Ryan Shauers in Big Travel, Small Budget: How to Travel More, Spend Less, and See the World

Life is short, and there is no guarantee any one of us will make it to that mythical day when we can use our hard-earned savings to take the trip of our dreams. Besides, even if we do, by the time retirement rolls around our bodies might not be in the optimal condition to get the most out of it. Myself and many others are by-passing the traditional route and spreading out retirement over the course of our lifetime, taking advantage of doing things now instead of waiting for a far-flung someday.

So ask yourself, what are you waiting for? What is 13 to 26 years worth of vacation worth to you?

These articles first appeared on a blog called The Dirtbag Way.

On The Curve

01/13/2017 by John Leave a Comment

Walkers on a curving dirt road

Life is rarely lived in a straight line, no matter how much we try and will it to do so. We travel on the imperceptible arc of a curve, unaware that our direction of travel has changed until one day we wake up to realize that the landscape around us is different than it was before. The little, often unconscious, decisions we make each day nudge us into these turns that over time alter the course our life takes. Decisions about exercise, what to eat, and how we spend our precious time shape who we are. Making these decisions conscious allows us to influence the trajectory of our life.

Sometimes, radical unforeseen events change our course in an immediate and often jarring way: a lover comes home and says goodbye, or someone close to us passes away unexpectedly. The ground below our feet appears to drop out from underneath us and we look around frantically, struggling to figure out which way to go next. After events such as these, it can take a while to find our footing and begin moving forward once more. But those seemingly insignificant choices we make throughout the day can put us back on the curve to a place of stability and calm.

Life is a journey. We see where we would like to go on the distant horizon, but there is no guarantee we will arrive there. There are unforeseen twists and turns and avenues to explore we cannot see until they are right before our eyes. If we arrive at the place we thought we wanted to be, we often realize it’s not quite what we thought it would be. The journey is really the thing anyway. The journey is the place, and each choice we make will determine what that place looks like. If we can learn to rest in the beauty and uncertainess of that, the twists and turns of life become the destination, leading us back to ourselves.

Based on a journal entry from 12.10.12

These articles first appeared on a blog called The Dirtbag Way.

The Quest for Balance

10/22/2016 by John Leave a Comment

“In German, homesickness and wanderlust are twinned words — heimweh, aching for home, and fernweh, aching to be away. In a sense there are two kinds of trips: leaving home and coming home.”

Nicholas Kulish
I Crossed the World

I suffer from heimweh and fernweh, the German words for homesickness and wanderlust. When I travel, I ache to be home, and when I am home, I ache to be away. It is one of those dualities in life that I have to make peace with.

I have been living in Winston-Salem the past three weeks in an apartment that will never truly be home to me. We are here while Mary works a travel nursing job at a local hospital. I was supposed to be spending two of these weeks working bicycle tours on the Outer Banks, but Hurricane Matthew changed my plans and gave me an unexpected period of being in one spot for more than a few days at a time.

Before arriving here, I was suffering from an acute case of heimweh. We had been on the move since mid-April and I was emotionally and physically tired. I wanted to be someplace I could call home.

Being here has been a reminder of how much I like having a home. I like getting into daily routines. I enjoy cooking for myself in a real kitchen instead of eating in restaurants or preparing meals with a camp stove. And I like being in one location long enough to begin to get the flavor of what it is like for the people who call it home on a more permanent basis.

Today, I leave again for a week of work in South Carolina, and though I can’t say I’ve yet begun to feel fernweh, I know I can succumb to wanderlust any time I’ve been somewhere for just a little too long. I’m still searching for the right balance between having a home and my compulsion to be on the move. I think I will know that I’ve reached that equilibrium when going away will feel like returning home and coming home will feel like embarking on a grand adventure.