A Month Of Retreat

This month was my meditation retreat. Outside of those three off-the-grid silent weeks, I just did errands, wrote, and got tattoos in Chiang Mai. You’ll see this stay-in-place do-very-little period clearly reflected in the numbers:

Cities This Month: 2; Total So Far: 158

Countries This Month: 2; Total So Far: 46

Countries I Ate Avocado Toast In This Month: 0; Total So Far: 40

Miles Walked This Month: 81.6; Total So Far: 3,738.6

Well That Was Hard and Spiritually Awakening

Last month marked the end of my fast-paced world travel - and this month began my two months of spiritual retreats. In Chiang Mai, I lived in a mountain temple for three weeks at a vipassana meditation center. It was physically grueling and emotionally devastating - the hardest and most intense thing I’ve ever done. But those 130+ hours of meditation also seemed to have fundamentally reset my mind-body connection and significantly healed my nervous system. In the final sleepless 72-hour stretch of the retreat, I had what I now know to be a Kundalini spiritual awakening - a three hour period where I lost control of my body and it was moved through a series of intense asanas I’ve never learned and am generally incapable of. Read on for a full summary of what I’ve been up to this month:

• I started this month with a day and a half in Luang Prabang! in Laos. I took a tiny hike up Mount Phou Si to get panoramic views of the rivers, checked out the local museums, shopped, and mostly caught up on writing. It’s a charming small city and, if anything, too quiet. I’d often find myself walking down streets full of shops and restaurants - but be the only person or car on the road. It felt like a gorgeous ghost town.

• I then caught a flight to Chiang Mai - the second largest city in Thailand. I’ve been here maybe a dozen times and absolutely love it. This time, though, I wasn’t coming as a tourist. I was coming to stay for over a month, go to a 3 week silent Vipassana meditation retreat, relax, and catch up on odds and ends. My first few days in Chiang Mai were quiet. I bought a desk at a co-working space for the month; there, I stayed up late to finish the first draft of my book and work on the blog. I got a few tattoos that were already designed and bought white clothing for my retreat. Outside of browse the Sunday walking market, I did nothing touristy or exciting.

• I did grab dinner with a Brazilian friend from high school exchange who lives in Chiang Mai. Mostly, we laughed about how awful we were at 18 years old. (And we were often awful.) There’s a certain kind of magic to being able to acknowledge past faults and growth with someone - a humility and a freedom from shame and pride. It was probably good for me to have such a safe reminder that I’m deeply far from perfect as the last thing I did before my retreat.

• On June 5th, I put on a full white outfit and got a taxi north of the city to Doi Suthep - the famous mountain temple where I’d be living for 3 weeks. (By far, the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I left the US last May. The next longest I’ve stayed anywhere is a week.) There, I found bare-bones accommodation: a room with an uncomfortable bed too short for me and two cushions on the floor for meditating. All the chairs were plastic - and were almost exclusively in the cafeteria. After all, one of the rules of the retreat was no overly comfortable furniture.

• If you aren’t familiar with Vipassana meditation, it’s known as wisdom meditation. It’s purpose is two-fold: to more fully integrate/connect mind and body - and simultaneously create more space between your spirit and mind/body so that you can observe what is unfolding in both as a non-reactive observer. The belief is that wisdom and freedom from suffering arise naturally from the practice. The specific form of meditation at this retreat was equal parts of a six-point walking meditation (heel up, foot up, foot forward, lower foot, balls of the foot down, foot down) followed by a breath awareness meditation with a 28 point body scan. During both, as sensations (physical or mental) arise, you just name them, stay still, and return to walking or scanning through the body. While I’ve meditated daily for over four years, I rarely do Vipassana meditation. It’s never been a style that felt natural for me. After 130 hours of practice at this retreat, it still doesn’t.

• Vipassana retreats are silent - so outside of a daily check in with a monk or meditation coach, you can’t talk with anyone. At this retreat, you couldn’t read, write, listen to music, watch videos, drink alcohol, smoke, do any drugs or eat solid foods after noon. The goal is to create an environment where it’s just you, your mind, and your body - completely in disturbed.

• By coincidence, I got to the center on the first day it re-opened after a ten day closure (the only closure it takes every year). I was the first one there, so for an hour I had the entire center to myself. Eleven other people checked in on the same day. Two left within 12 hours. Six were there for less than a week. One who had also scheduled the three week retreat left early on day 11. One finished the advanced program in thirteen days (a compressed version of the three week program, which she had already done). The other, a 21 year old from Brazil named Isabella, completed the three week program with me. Through the entire retreat, people would come and go - and the population would rise and fall between 12 and 25 people. But the entire time, no one had been there longer than Isabella and me.

• Some things were easier than I expected. I didn’t mind not eating after noon (or that the two meals we ate were small). Losing ten pounds of travel weight was a hope I had for the retreat, after all - and it happened. I didn’t mind not having music, tv, reading, or writing. For the most part, I didn’t mind the silence (though in the silence I had acute needs for connection, empathy and community arise when I was struggling). Some things were harder than I expected, though. The physical toll on my body was immense; every day felt like physical combat as I willed my body into tough positions in complete stillness. My knees and hips did not do well in the long periods of sitting and kneeling. My back (which has gotten worse in posture on the road) was struggling in all positions, and my ankle (which I rolled last month) was always bordering on new injury while sitting. I hurt everywhere all the time. I also had trouble sleeping every day - and ended up taking sleeping pills most days. I was always exhausted.

• But, the absolute worst thing and the thing I was least prepared for was that the vacuum in my mind created by the retreat would become so fully filled with the version of me that is my worst friend. My mind didn’t bring in worries or woes from outside the retreat; instead, it drummed up a constant run of my worst self talk. What was I thinking? How can I get through 21 days? I’m terrible at this. Everyone else is better. Everyone is judging me. Other people here don’t like me. I can’t do this. I’m not good enough at meditation. Each day, the anxiety seemed to get worse - especially after meditations that were particularly physically painful. By day 9, the anxiety was shifting to panic - and, for the first time in my life, I could sense I was bordering close to panic attacks.

• I had anticipated the retreat would be hard - but I thought the daily check in with the monk would release the pressure. I was wrong. There was only one monk running the retreat and he was the definition of cold empathy. No matter what you told him, his answer was some form of “No, no, no. Normal. Just keep meditating.” He often and heartily espoused the message of Buddhism that has always troubled me: All bad things are either from a lack of wisdom or from bad karma. You deserve this. Smile and push through. I left every interaction with him feeling worse - and by day three I stopped saying anything to him beyond “Fine” or “OK” to get through the check-ins quickly.

• Each day, in the check in, the monk would add new steps to the meditations or extend their lengths. He would, however, never give a glimpse at what was coming down the road. This small element of the unknown - the complete lack of control of what was coming the next day and the inability to plan for it - heightened my anxiety. My need for control to feel safe usually manifests is constant plan-making - contingency plans on contingency plans. His secrecy made that impossible for me - and instead I just had to sit with my need for control all day every day without the ability to use planning as a crutch.

• The first eleven days, I just did my best. I woke up at 5AM and went to the dharma talk - and ended each day with chanting and another dharma talk. I leaned into the pain, easing my body into relaxing into the positions. I stretched constantly and slowly gained flexibility - though the pain always remained acute. I labeled all my self-talk: Self-Loathing, Panic, Worry, Self-Doubt, Fear, Need for Control, Boredom, Exhaustion. Before I started every meditation round, I took a self-compassion break to try to be kind to myself. I got through 5 to 7 hours of meditation each day. I looked for signs that other people at the retreat were struggling - and there were MANY. I made as many interim goals as I could to break the 21 days into smaller, more manageable chunks. I tried to take walks in nature when I was in a big panic or make a cup of tea and enjoy the views. I took off my white clothes the minute I got into my room and put on a red beer-branded tank top to remind myself that I exist separate from the retreat. I was making it through each day - barely and with great physical and mental exhaustion. Almost every day felt like the hardest thing I’d ever done. (There were a few really good days of clarity and good meditations mixed in as well.)

• What became clear through those first eleven days was that I’d come to a level of equanimity and peace with the outside world; I brought almost nothing emotional in with me. Instead, I was confronting myself - my compulsive need for control, my hyper vigilance, the constant tension in my body, my drama queen side, my assumption that others won’t see me as worthwhile, my perfectionism, my crippling fear and self-talk when I’m imperfect. I was looking at who I was when I had no one nearby to define myself by or to give me a sense of purpose. I was set to sit with the absolutely worst person I could for three weeks - myself. The version of myself who sits there and tells me absolutely everything that’s wrong with me. It was excruciating. And, it was only getting worse each day.

• I hit an inflection point on day eleven: a breaking point. I was at a wall where I was just not sure I could go on. I decided to break a soft rule and leave the center, walk up the temple and buy myself from fresh fruit. I also bought a second mango for Isabella - the other woman going through the program with me. I gave it to her at lunch and she gave me the biggest smile and showed me a tattooed mango on her arm. Offering that act of kindness and solidarity saved the meditation retreat for me.

• The next morning, the two of us broke silence. We took the morning off of mediation (the only break we took) and walked up to the temple and talked for three hours. We digested how hard the retreat was, how invalidating the monk was, and how much of a physical feat it was. Talking with Isabella released the pressure valve. I no longer felt as cripplingly alone. Self-compassion became more effective and I regained an ability to sit alongside my self-talk, panic and anxiety. Reminding myself that I had felt spiritually called to the retreat was suddenly able to ground me. I could tell myself I would be so proud of myself when I finished and that it would be personally and professionally enriching for me. I could imagine taking a picture with Isabella at the closing ceremony and found it inspiring. It was a rapid turnabout.

• It turned out, we chose to talk to each other on the perfect day. The next day, on day 13, the monk gave us his final slow drip of secret information about what was going to come. The last three days of the 21 day retreat would be confined to our room where we were not allowed to sleep, lie down, or shower. We were to meditate 12-20 hours a day and take silent rests in the middle. Food would be brought to our room. He gave us the option to go home on day 17 instead of finishing the program.

• Immediately, Isabella and I walked back up to the temple to process what we had just been told. We laughed about it and realized that we were going to try - that we weren’t going to come three days from finishing and then not finish. Processing the information and saying yes to finishing felt easier knowing we weren’t going to be alone.

• The three days after that went quickly and easily - because the meditation suddenly felt immediately important. Like we were training for the final round. And before we knew it, our 72 hour sleepless meditation marathon was set to begin.

• Unfortunately, I tweaked my back on day 16, and sitting meditation became excruciating. I decided to do my last 20-30 hours of sitting meditation during those three sleepless days sitting on my bed instead of cross-legged on the floor. It was that or go home.

• The first sleepless day actually went quickly and easily - with the overnight feeling a bit like a fun sleepover. The second day the physical pain became intense and I fell into an intense bout of dizziness around midnight that took two hours of sitting to pass. But on the first two days, I got through fine with 17-19 hours of meditation a day.

• Day three is when things got wonky. Sleep psychosis began. I realized I was processing my room as many spaces, confusing my memories as if they were happening in different locations. I was splitting myself in different people - imagining there were other people in the room doing the things I’d been doing. In some of my meditations, my mind split, with one going through the meditation and the other piece reflecting on the part of my mind going through the meditation. My sinus pressure got intense and my mind was so foggy that I struggled to focus or maintain a firm grounding in reality. I ended up settling on a lighter meditation schedule - thirty minutes on and thirty minutes off. That was manageable.

• Then, around 6PM, it got weird. I had an intense, focused meditation where I felt energy shifting through my body. I left it suddenly awake and alert - more aware and present in my body. My balance was suddenly better - and I could stand in positions I’ve never been able to.

• Then, at my 7PM round, it got weirder. During my sitting meditation, my body just started moving in ways that were breaking up my back tension - swirls and stretches and adjustments. It felt great and strange - a reunification of my mind and body and a relief of tension long stored in my back.

• Then at 8PM, it got far weirder. During my walking meditation, I lost control of my body. I began moving through a series of intense asanas - essentially violent stretching - for three hours. I went into poses and postures I’ve never learned and that I’m generally incapable of. Every so often, I’d try to rest, and my body would just revert back to the stretching. I watched my body move through the stretching for three hours without control, essentially wondering if I was dreaming or if I’d died. The stretching of my neck was so intense that I often casually wondered if it was going to break.

• At 11PM, I regained control of my body when the stretching stopped. I was deeply confused - and also extremely physically sore and the most flexible I’ve ever been. I found myself in a state of uncertainty and anxiety. Whatever had happened had been good for my body - repairing injuries, removing tension, and leaving me more flexible. But I couldn’t explain what had happened - and was supposed to stay awake until 6:30AM when I had my check-in with the monk. Unsure if what happened was meant to happen, I was dedicated to finishing the retreat because I was worried the sudden magical progress could vanish if I didn’t. I returned to half-hearted meditation (thirty minutes on, thirty off, as best I could) as my anxiety over the incident grew steadily until 6:30AM, eventually blossoming as full blown panic around 5AM. It was awful - and exacerbated by the symptoms of sleep deprivation psychosis I’d been exhibiting.

• My hopes that the monk could explain what happened to me vanished immediately in our talk. He kind of just asked “Was it good?” And then said it sounded like I had had a good experience. After, I immediately fell asleep, hoping that I would wake up with more clarity.

• After a 6 hour nap, Isabella and I walked up to explore the temple together. Our final day was just to rest, so we had no obligations. Unfortunately, she had not had a similar experience - so she was not able to offer me any kind of solidarity on what had happened. I went to chanting one more time that night and fell asleep, sore and still confused.

• The next morning, we had our closing ceremony. There was another man there who had been there for ten days and asked me how the 21 days was. I told him what had happened and he told me he’d been having similar involuntary movements for 14 months. He told me to look up kundalini spiritual awakening - which is the process of chakra energy being released up the spine. He said once it starts, if the energy hits a physical block, it will take over your body and clear the path.

• In the week since, as the experience has sunk into my body, I’ve looked up Kundalini spiritual awakenings. I’ve read accounts and watched videos of people going through similar experiences. I’ve had continued occasional involuntary movements - though I’ve taken a brief break from meditation and yoga, so I haven’t done anything to induce another extended incident. It’s been wildly comforting to know that this is something that has happened to many people - and that is widely considered to be something very good.

• The answer of whether what happened feels good has started to emerge. I feel fundamentally different. I’m calmer, my body is less tense, I feel safer, my fears have lessened, my hyper vigilance is largely non-present. A lot of my stickiest and most problematic impulses - particularly around food, drinking, and romance - appear to have vanished overnight. I don’t have emotional cravings - and when I eat too much I notice quickly and stop. I’m having waves of emotional clearings that feel strange and freeing. I’ve read that once a kundalini spiritual awakening starts it can take years to finish - but that it always finishes. I don’t know what’s coming next, but I’m now convinced it’s meaningful, spiritual, and good. I’m hoping I can get more answers at my yoga teacher training this month.

• Isabella and I left the retreat together and June 25. We immediately got two hour massages and had lunch together - and then she flew to Greece. I’m so grateful the universe gave me a companion for this experience. I don’t think I would have gotten through all 21 days without her; and certainly, if I had finished without her, it would have been with significantly less grace and calm.

• I spent my last week in Chiang Mai doing nothing touristy. I relaxed, watched tv, caught up on the blog, did prep work for graduate school, shopped (a lot, including buying gifts), got a haircut, worked my way through my tattoo plan (which took like 24 hours under the needle), and had a few hookups (physical touch was needed after a month with none). For the first month of my trip, I had nothing alcoholic. The craving has been non-present - though I suspect I’ll still be a social drinker. It was busier and less relaxing than I’d hoped the week would be - but it was productive and closed out lots of logistics bits of my long journey.

I only have a month left now before I head back to the United States. I’m currently in Chiang Mai finishing out a final round of errands and writing - and then I transit through Bangkok to go to Rishikesh for my 26-day yoga teacher training. After that, I end my trip. I transit through Dubai for three days and I fly back to Philadelphia on August 4, cutting my trip three weeks shorter than I originally planned so that I can spend time with friends and family before I start my MSS.

When I sent my update last month, I hadn’t finished my city guides. They’re now completed, though I decided not to write one for Chiang Mai because I didn’t explore the city as a tourist this time. I’m including them below in case you want to know more about the destinations I was at last month:

• Malacca! - The historic city in western peninsular Malaysia known for its Dutch colonial quarter and Chinese district.

• Ipoh - The gateway to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia known for its cave temples.

• Ayutthaya* - The former capital of Siam and, 400 years ago, the world’s largest city. Now, an incredible historical park full of stone temples.

• Battambang* - A small city in western Cambodia with some really cool shit - a bamboo train, enormous fruit bats, and a cave where over 5 million bats fly out every night at sunset.

• Siem Reap* - The bohemian home of Angkor Wat.

• Don Det* - A beautiful, tranquil small island in the 4,000 islands archipelago of the Mekong in Southern Laos.

• Pakse! - The base city for driving around the Bolaven Plateau, a mountainous region in Southern Laos full of waterfalls and coffee plantations.

• Vientiane - Laos’ underwhelming capital.

• Luang Prabang! - Laos’ UNESCO world heritage city, a quiet colonial old town situated on a picturesque section of the Mekong.

If you think anyone else would enjoy these summaries, have them sign up for the mailing list here. I’m not going to include pictures in this summary. If you want to see pictures, click through to any of the city summaries, and follow our Instagram. Bear in mind, there may only be one more update at this point. I haven’t decided if I want to write about the last 3 weeks of my journey in the United States, or just let month 15 be my final update. It’s really almost over now.

LIFE ON the ROAD continues to be A LEARNING PROCESS

Each month, I use this section to expand on mental stirrings that have felt impactful. This month, I spent a lot of time in quiet reflection - but I wasn’t allowed to write. So, most things that I spent time reflecting on have vanished with the wind. Here are the few things that stuck with me, though.

• The monk had one analogy in the dharma talks that came up repeatedly and resonated deeply with me. It was of a farmer who planted seeds of an orange tree but was disappointed that it didn’t bear mangoes. He used it to talk about karma - about planting seeds in our life that will bear the kind of fruit later that we want. But he also used it to talk about our DNA - about our biological seed. About the pieces of us that come pre-coded - about not wishing to be a different fruit than we were born to be. The concept that part of happiness is coming to peace with who we are naturally still sits with me as powerful - that growth isn’t changing the fruit we bear but tending to our tree and making sure the fruit we were planted to grow does so beautifully. The idea works in both directions - plant the seeds of the fruit you want to bear, but once the seed has been planted and is bearing fruit, come to peace with it and tend to the tree.

• Another recurring theme of his dharma talks was of the importance of fun and light-heartedness. That even when life is heavy or serious, you don’t have to be heavy and serious while navigating it. I found this reminder helpful in my meditations when I was thick with anxiety and physical pain. I’d ask - is there a way I can explore this that is playful and creative? Whenever I could, the meditation would go much more smoothly.

• Along the same vein, I was reminded this month of the power of laughing at yourself. I developed mantras to get myself through the retreat that were light-hearted. One was “Oh, Drama Queen Devin is back.” Another was “Oh, hey welcome self-loathing / panic / anxiety / self-doubt / insecurity / need for control / fear. Welcome to the party. It’s super fun.” Another was “I lived in fucking Boston. I can do this.” It was reminder that even when the stirrings in my body feel serious, I don’t have to let them be serious. I can soften them around the edges with a playful rationality - and usually soften them enough to allow the hard feelings to sit alongside whatever else is going on.

• It was that playful laughing at myself nature that I had with my Brazilian friend when we talked about what trash people we were at 18. During that, I began feel bad for the current generations who will have a long digital trail of all their mistakes following them into adulthood. The exercise of growth and coming to terms with past mistakes is just so much easier when the memories have been allowed to fade some. The concept of non-self and the notion that we’re not just a permanent reflection of all our past decisions is challenging to hold alongside photos, messages, and posts suggesting otherwise.

• Giving Isabella the mango reminded me of the healing power of offering a kind gesture. I was in a dark moment - and Isabella was in a bad place that morning. We had spent 11 days together but had never talked or met. Regardless, giving that mango pulled us both out of the dark place. Kindness has a way of healing both the giver and the receiver - and it’s often the most helpful in the moments it feels the least accessible. I ended up getting a matching mango tattoo to Isabella’s as a reminder of this message. Helpfully, it also serves as a reminder of seed of mango versus seed of orange.

• Every single day of the retreat, I thought about going home. My chest was so full of anxiety and panic that I was worried I was just introducing new trauma into my body; the retreat felt like an abusive relationship: it harmed me and then gave me the tools to feel better. But, the whole time something in my gut told me the universe had pushed me to the 21 day retreat - that there was a reason I was there. At the end of it, I had a kundalini spiritual awakening that may have fundamentally healed me in many ways. The whole process reminds me of the power of intuition - of trusting yourself when your gut says there’s a purpose and a reason - of maintaining faith. Often, our bodies will fight us tooth and nail during our most powerful and transformative experiences. Only faith in purpose, trust in intuition, and community can see us through those dark moments.

• The kundalini spiritual awakening has left me confused and astounded by the amount I don’t know. It was like something took over my body and did a factory reset - like there was some ancient wisdom either stored in my body or in the energy around me I suddenly had access to. I keep thinking about how deep that well of knowledge and unknown goes - how much there is that I don’t understand and never will. It’s been humbling.

• The retreat was silent and dopamine-deprived, so there were absolutely no crutches to rely on when physical and mental suffering arose. In the week since, I’ve been reminded of how potent skillful distraction is as a skill in emotional regulation. In moments of overwhelm, often the best thing to do is tak a break and distract your mind - watch a movie, read a book, play a game. While i think the deprivation of skillful distraction may have been good for those three weeks, I’m left thinking it’d be terrible as a lifestyle. Life needs pleasure - and our brains and bodies need ways to down-regulate. Sure, maybe three weeks of meditation can tamp down my anxiety - but so can thirty minutes of TV. And 99% of the time the latter is a much kinder way to respond to my body’s needs.

• I spent A LOT of the time of my retreat confronting my compulsive need for control when I’m feeling unsafe (which is, because of my PTSD, often). I don’t think I’d ever realized how deep that well went - and how far-reaching my death-grip of control will run. I spent a lot of time at the retreat thinking about ways that tendency has caused harm - from my unwillingness to let dogs run off leash to my overbearing “fix-the-relationship” mentality in relationships to ensure that they work out. When I left in January, I felt in my gut something needed to rise to the surface and be dealt with before I could safely date again. I think it was this need for control; I needed to more fully understand how my need for control can be oppressive in intimate or caregiving relationships so that I can watch out for it.

• Along the same lines, I learned the phrase “emotional monitoring” this month. It’s being constantly on guard for negative emotions of those around of - of trying to make sure they don’t happen and tamping them down once they do. It’s a compulsion that arises in people who were raised or had long-term intimate relationships with emotionally unpredictable and explosive people (which describes a lot of my childhood). It’s adaptive in those situations - when you truly need to be on guard for your safety. But in romance and friendship, it’s emotionally manipulative and controlling. It doesn’t allow the other person to exist fully, for their emotions to arise naturally, or for them to live the full breadth of life’s experience. It’s a way my need for control regularly manifests in intimacy - and it’s one I need to tamp down. I need to practice not emotionally monitoring - and just letting other people exist in whatever state they’re in.

• I got several of my tattoos from a man who used to be a monk. He was really talented - detail-oriented and methodical. He’d often say he went “slow but sure.” In truth, he wasn’t slow - but he was extremely focused and mindful, undistracted, present. This mentality and his way of being - slow but sure - struck me as a life philosophy we could all benefit from taking on more.

• The last tattoo I got with that man, I didn’t like his first design; it was too busy. We tattooed the sections that I did like - and then kind of designed it on the fly, literally drawing add-ons on my arm in pen. At one point I said something like “Well, ink it. If I don’t like it, I’ll have to like it.” And we belly laughed for like five minutes, repeating “If you don’t like it, you have to like it.” But I think there’s wisdom in this moment. There are certain things in life that become givens - things that happened or exist and can’t be changed. There are just some things you have to come to peace with - to learn to find equanimity, gratitude, or love with. Luckily, here, I actually love the on-the-fly design we came up with.

The kundalini spiritual awakening for me was, I think, the fruit of many many years of intense self-work. It reminds me that there’s a huge gap between understanding something intellectually and understanding it in your body. I read once that it takes six months for something to convert from an intellectual understanding to being stored in your nervous system - but I have to wonder if the timeline is more arbitary. Maybe all intellectual discovery and faith-based work is just planting the right seeds - and we never know when or if they will bear fruit. But the more good seeds we plant, the more good fruit we’ll have later.

I’ve Officially Surpassed My Budget

If you’re wondering how much this is costing me - so far, for thirteen months in Europe, the Middle East, Christmas in the US, North Africa, India, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, I’ve spent $30,356. I wrote about my budget here - but I’ve now officially passed my $30,000 budget. As I’ve said the last few months, this is largely driven by New Zealand - which proved to be more than $2,000 over budget. I’m ending my trip a bit earlier than expected, which recovers some budget - but I’ve largely counteracted that by deciding to shop and buy presents in the last week. At the end of the day, I expect I’ll end up slightly under budget for all parts of my trip except New Zealand, so I think my total spend will be about $32,000 for the entire journey. It seems the $2,000 my parents gifted me for the trip was put to use after all.

My Minimalist Pack Went Well and Has Grown a Lot

I’ve now finished my serious travel on my minimalist (one overhead backpack) packing and it’s largely gone well. I left with one weeks’ worth of clothes (7 underwear, 6 socks 7 t-shirts, 2 shorts, 1 jeans), including some options for colder weather (1 thermal long sleeve, 1 rain coat), two pairs of sneakers, flip flops, one workout outfit, one swimsuit, a kneepad for yoga and workouts, my iPad, my Kindle, chargers, a dirty laundry bag, a few K95 masks, and a bag of toiletries (including an electric body groomer and a supply of inhalers). In my first month, I did pick up a few new items, including a puffer jacket (because it got really cold in North Africa), a new pair of pants (because my jeans were proving too baggy), two small bags (a fanny back and a drawstring to carry when I’m out and about), thin material shorts (for casual wear), new socks (because some of mine had holes) and a shawl of sorts (for cool but not cold weather). In month three, I also picked up a travel mug for coffee and wine.

Overall, there are a few changes I’d make to the pack if I had the opportunity to do it all again. I’d drop the thermal long sleeve in favor of only keeping a puffer jacket, swap out my shorts for lighter, thinner material shorts, and remove one pair of thick pants (in favor of something light and flowing for temples). I’d also have left my extra pair of shoes at home, now seeing that I didn’t need them, and have packed fewer t-shirts because those are easy to wear for many days and it’s fun to build up a shirt wardrobe while traveling. I wish I could have made more just-because-I-like-them purchases along the way.

I may be solidly a backpack traveler at this point - and am unlikely to return to using a rolling suitcase for long-term travel again anytime soon. The small backpack has just made it easier for me to walk where there aren’t many sidewalks, to move quickly, to get in buses or trains with my bag, to take motorcycles and scooters, and to explore with my luggage when necessary. Those conveniences all help keep the budget down. It took me a couple of months to get used to the added physical strain of the backpack - but I’m now thoroughly sold that it’s superior to a roller bag. It’s allowed me to be such a more nimble, flexible traveler.

Unfortunately, my period of light traveling has officially ended. I’ve now done a lot of shopping, both for myself and as presents. As a result, I bought a large duffel bag for all of the things I’ve purchased but am not going to use on the road. It’s heavy and inconvenient - because it doesn’t have shoulder straps; it was probably a mistake to buy it instead of a new large rolling suitcase. But - I only have to transit a few more times (tomorrow to Rishikesh, then to Dubai, then back to Philadelphia), so I think I can handle the inconvenience for four days of transit. Especially if I splurge and just buy taxis.

At some point when my energy stores are back up, I’ll post a bag 2.0 blog about more minimalist packing. I suspect this will come out in the long tail of posts I write once I’m back in the US reflecting on my time abroad and adding more resources like sample itineraries and transit advice.

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