A MONTH OF RICH PERSONAL GROWTH

Right when I sent my last update, I hit my first wave of things going wrong and strange experiences. Most memorable for me was, at my first hostel this month, a pigeon got caught in a glue mouse trap under the kitchen oven and had been stuck there all day. I heard it when I went to cook dinner, got it out with some dish detergent and tried to clean the glue off of it for two and half hours. I found a French woman who was willing to take it home with her to see if it could heal, so I passed it off. I found out the next morning it had died on route.

While my trip has continued to be full of wonderful, awe-inspiring experiences, this month was also full of things that didn’t go as I had planned, things that caused me discomfort, and situations when I was stuck with others when I wanted to be alone. It timed well because I had recently found myself praying for opportunities to learn to surrender control, had begun practicing tonglen meditation (where you breath in feelings of suffering of others), and had been working on good wishes for challenging people. The practices and what I was encountering seemed to converge. I began trying to lean into my discomfort whenever the opportunity struck to see what was really going on in my body and if I could still find love and compassion in the moment. That exploration has been rich in growth for me.

It’s helped me to foster my intuition for what cues from the universe say to dive in, to dive deep and grow, or to leave. I still have a lot of room to grow here, but I’m feeling the beginning of a deep trust that if I stop trying to control the world around me, it will give me all the information I need on how to move forward with what’s happening.

I’m going to try to write up one of these summaries every month - though I’ll definitely keep working on my format as I go (so please give me feedback if there’re things you want to hear more or less about). 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.

I’m going to start all my summaries with some summary numbers of what I’ve been up to.

Cities This Month: 13; Total So Far: 26

Countries This Month: 7; Total So Far: 9

Countries I Ate Avocado Toast In This Month: 3; Total So Far: 5

Miles Walked This Month: 360.3; Total So Far: 747.2

This month was far less alone - AND NO LESS BRILLIANT

Month one for me was largely solo - but that changed quite a bit in month two. I stayed with two friends, spent time with two other friends, and had a few tiny romances as I went. (I haven’t had the blockbuster, whirlwind, hostel romance that I kind of hope to have . . . But I’m sure it’ll come when I’m ready).

What’s been a big focus for me has been to monitor how I change when I’m around people I know - in what ways I conform, revert, or please. This journey for me has been so full of growth in compassion, equanimity, and presence - and most days of solo travel I find myself in a really peaceful, joy-filled state. I notice that my progress backslides when I’m with familiar acquaintances - particularly in finding ways to stay busy, numbed, or in an overexcited state. A major question for me in the last couple of years has been if I should try to continue to grow around the familiar or move and build from scratch; the answer hasn’t come to me yet and I’m not rushing it. It’s something increasingly in the back of my mind as I go, though: Should I stick to my plan and go back to the US for my MSW or move abroad for school instead?

Again, I spent time in a couple of places that I would love to come back and spend months in.

• London now sits at the top of my list of places to potentially move to; I fell a bit in love with and in the city. For being a city of 9 million, it remarkably rarely feels overwhelming or too crowded, and the city drips culture - from art to theater to fashion to film to education - leaving something for everyone.

• Genova found its way into my heart through my stomach; I couldn’t get enough of its focaccia, farinata, and pesto. The small seaside villages were really only a bonus - though a very good one.

• Brussels captured me with its authentic lived energy; the art and local businesses were deeply quirky and counter-culture, and the city came alive each day after work as the plazas filled with locals grabbing a drink or two.

I know these are cities that I’ll be back in - and ones that made my list of places I’d consider moving to.

As I moved through France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and into the UK, I found things to fall in love with in every city I spent time in. I have longer (linked) recaps of each, but I’ll give my biggest takeaways below. I put asterisks next to the ones I will likely find reason to return to, exclamation marks next to the ones I got my fill of but found thoroughly charming and worth the trip, and left the cities that were a bit less remarkable to me without anything.

• Nice gave me a taste for the French Riviera - with it steep cliffs and rocky beaches. For me, the best part was the views to and from on buses or trains.

• Milan had a public cemetery that was like a sculpture museum beautifully celebrating life and death. Seeing the graves and memorials of people who were likely wildly successful in their day but are now unknown reminded me of how small we are in the grand scope of all things and the importance of humility. Milan also had plenty of ducklings.

• Zurich* can feel too perfect - but that doesn’t make it any less delightful. It’s a city beautifully integrated into nature, particularly the enormous and clear blue Lake Zurich which functions as an urban beach. I mentioned to my Parisian friend that it may be the only city my parents could live in - to which she replied “anyone could live in Zurich.” It’s true - the only thing to complain about is that there’s nothing to complain about.

• Geneva offers some of the most shockingly diverse neighborhood architecture I’ve ever encountered; it’s equally jarring and charming.

• Lyon* is just beautiful - a city that threads the needle of stately without becoming showy or ostentatious. Plus, it’s the gastronomical capital of France - which is no small feat! (To be fair, as a vegan, I preferred the food of Marseille.)

• I got some much needed existential hope in Rotterdam!. Most of the city was bombed during WW2 and has been rebuilt since. It can be equally heartbreaking and inspiring - a reminder that people are resilient and come back after societal collapse. It also gives a glimpse into how Europe would build a city from scratch today; it’s spacious, tall, and extremely livable.

• Amsterdam! served exactly what I was expecting - breathtaking canals, the red light district, and tons of shops selling weed or shrooms. The city can shift from class to trash in a block - and both are worth experiencing.

• I heard Luxembourg* described both as an urban oasis and a golden cage. I could see it being either because it certainly doesn’t cater to every lifestyle - but it does offer an urban center beautifully integrated into nature with stunning views. It was probably the most tranquil city I’ve been to.

• I got to finally meet an old coworker who I’ve been close to for years in person in Paris, and had a joyful glimpse into her life. I’m not sold on Paris as one of the best places to visit - but I do think it has some of the most stunning public gardens in the world, and that’s where I spent most of my time.

I continue to be amazed by how much culture and architecture can change within a few hours train / bus ride - both within and between countries. But what I often spend more time reflecting on is how much the people have in common regardless of the local culture, terrain, weather, language, or architecture. The way I travel has certainly evolved as I’ve gone accordingly; at first, I definitely lived a bit more as a tourist - paying to go into more museums and buildings. Increasingly, I find myself most moved by sitting somewhere public and savoring a common space, and watching people go about their lives. I find the beauty in feeling connection to myself, shared humanity, nature, and my spirituality.

In August, I’ll be in: London, Brighton, Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Oxford, Hinton-Waldrist, Cambridge, Norwich, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Cork.

IT continues to be A LEARNING PROCESS

I’m still adjusting to life on the road - and I suspect I will be for quite some time. It’s a new experience - not being a full tourist but not being a local. When I’m not feeling well or I’m down, I don’t have any standard comforts to reach to. If I need physical affection, I can’t call an old friend for a hug. I have no regular haunts or deeply built in habits; every city I go, I’m essentially constructing a mini life that I know will vanish within a few days. That can all be exhausting - and it can strangely be difficult to recharge without any familiar comforts. While I think every struggle is well worth it, some days can be deeply not great. In no real order, here are some thoughts, meaningful experiences, and adjustments I’ve had in my second month.

• If I’m going to be out and about all day, I use a bathroom whenever I have a chance. There’s not much I enjoy less than being stuck needing a bathroom but having none nearby.

• It’s important to deal with self-pity quickly. If I have a string of things cause me discomfort, I can find myself falling into self-pity. I’ve also found if I let the self-pity take hold, it can cripple my capacity to just deal with whatever is happening and meet my needs. My typical way is to use a self-compassion break - acknowledge I’m in discomfort and exaggerating it, remember that most humans fall into self-pity and I’m not alone, and then offer kindness for my discomfort.

• I’ve also found peace in leaning into the discomforts as moments for self-exploration or growth. When someone is doing something that bothers my peace (like playing music without headphones, loud snoring, smelly roommates, people who take up too much space on the bus . . . ), I can ask myself why that sensation causes me discomfort when others don’t, and why I don’t feel comfortable just asking them to stop or change behavior. I don’t have the comfort of being able to pay for an avoidant lifestyle right now - so there is no option of just paying to be in a more comfortable space. But I’m learning that leaning into whatever is being put in front of me in the moment is almost always ripe for growth, and usually I can find peace in any situation with enough work.

• That mindful state of leaning into discomfort has also pushed my meditation practice. I’ve always yearned to meditate in peace - largely because my PTSD hypervigilance makes it so uncomfortable to do it in noisy or busy spaces - and I almost never meditate with my eyes closed because as soon as they close my nervous system goes haywire. But I’ve found myself really leaning into it of late - meditating with my eyes closed in busy city sections, really exploring my hypervigilance with kindness. There’s a meditation phrase like “1 hour of loving kindness toward a challenging person is worth more than 100 towards those you already love.” I have found this to be true in all aspects of challenge - when hitting an obstacle while doing something I love, my deepest and fastest growth comes from diving right in. It’s taken me to a new level of feeling anchored in my nervous system and downregulating it when it becomes heightened.

• I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking through manageable versus oppressive adversity - what the line is between when the universe is telling me to dive in and when the universe is telling me to run away. I think one sure cue that it’s to dive in is if it’s in the midst of something that brings me joy. I think another sure cue is that the adversity is temporally bound - that it’s just something I’m hitting against and not a state I’ll have to live in. I spent a lot of time in oppressive adversity - forcing myself to stay in unfixable situations with the delusional surety that I could make it work. I think I’m coming to understand that if I can’t find long-term joy with something while radically accepting the truth of what is, then it’s not something I can stay in long term. If radical acceptance means I can’t be at peace in the situation over a sustained period, then it means I need to not stay.

• I’ve spent a good deal of time exploring my habit energies - particularly around eating and drinking, which have always been challenge areas for me. I think I’ve reached an intellectual understanding that I want to return to sobriety because I don’t think alcohol is a self-loving practice for myself - but I’m waiting for that wisdom to come from deep within so that it can take hold more securely. That place of wisdom feels close now, but I won’t rush it. My struggle with mindless eating and overeating has been slower moving; while I’ve found myself better at integrating mindful eating into my days, I still find myself falling into old habits of doing it mindlessly and quickly.

• My spirituality has continued to return and flourish, and my practice of prayer has become stronger. It’s still unnamed for me, usually falling into Buddhism or Christianity, but I feel no urgency to name it. I just grow an increasing comfort with the idea that there are energies at play far bigger and more powerful than me, and an understanding that my life becomes easier if I just listen to and move with them.

• I did change my hygiene routine again and at least rinse off most days, though I usually still wear the same shirt and socks two days in a row.

• I got to wash my clothes in washing machines twice this month. Not gonna lie, that was a real delight. It’s not that hard to hand wash clothes, but it’s so much easier to shove them in a machine. It’s nice how stripping my life back to more bare bones has really helped me to foster gratitude for things I used to take for granted.

• A lesson I keep learning is to not “muscle through it.” If my body, the weather, or anything else is giving me a clear sign to stop, pause or change course - the best thing to do is listen. Each time I’ve just surrendered control and not tried to muscle through or change the situation, I’ve been rewarded for that decision in some way. A good example was getting caught in the rain in Milan while walking to my hostel - which was expected to continue for hours. I just parked myself with cover and decided to wait it out - and sure enough it cleared up well enough to walk peacefully in about 30 minutes. I was only slightly delayed, infinitely more comfortable, and didn’t risk any damage to my things. I’m sure I would have been equally at peace if I had had to wait for two hours for it to stop.

• It’s important to advocate for yourself, always, but with kindness. When I find someone is in some way violating my comfort or boundaries, I find the most effective way to get through it is to give myself a self-compassion break, doing some kindness meditation on them to understand that their behavior has nothing to do with me, then kindly ask if they can change behavior. I find if I don’t apply the kindness to myself then I won’t ask, and if I don’t apply the kindness to them, I’ll ask too sternly - and either can leave me stuck in unnecessary discomfort.

• I continue to plan less and less - and have a greater comfort in being happy that I’ll experience exactly what I experience. I still look up major sites and restaurants on the bus / train (usually), but nowadays I flag almost none of them. I leave most of my time for open-ended exploration - and that is usually where my best moments come.

• More deeply fostering my equanimity practice has really helped mellow my existential angst. I no longer have a deep, foreboding dread about the decay of American democracy or climate change (as examples). I have sadness for myself and others, but I’ve also accepted much of it is out of my control, and for everything I can’t change I send wishes. I’ve come to a level of peace that I’ll have to live an adaptive life and deal with these things as they come - all the while doing the things within my power to reinforce my values of love, non-harm, service and kindness.

• I spent quite a bit of time with a woman in Genova who would spend all day there just staring out at the sea with no other stimulation. It wasn’t a formal practice, or even intentional mindfulness. It reminded me that I don’t have to make an effort or force mindful attention on nature - and that I can just sit for as long as I want and be with it. It’s helped change the way I spend time in parks and nature since. It also left me less dogmatic about meditation and formal meditation - and helped to remember that there are many paths to grace.

• Little discomforts like having food stolen in shared kitchens or having bus schedules change have helped develop my skill of non-attachment - not being too tied to anything I have with me or to any plans I have. I find increasing grace in being able to just say “oh well” when something goes wrong and I have to pivot - without finding myself clinging to the thing that was just lost. I think this growth is a combination of increased mindfulness work in this area, faith that the universe is guiding me in the right direction, and also just leaning into what’s going on in me whenever I find myself grieving a hope for the future that is now gone.

• In the same vein, I’ve found it powerful to not be so dogmatic in plans that I become close minded to other options. As an example, usually, after my workouts, I head right home and shower - and there’s powerful habit energy there. But in Lyon, I worked out in a park, and I just felt compelled to explore it more. I ended up spending three hours wandering around in my workout clothes with my gear, eventually getting lunch just like that - and it was one of my best afternoons. I would’ve lost a lot of that opportunity if I had just stuck to my plan. I find that if I’m fixated on a certain plan, I fail to let my life unfurl naturally, or to notice my intuition as to what I want to do or explore.

• For the first time in a long time, I’m beginning to feel open to romance - even if I’m not actively seeking it out. This came in Brussels when I had a very emotional night exploring this area of myself with an old friend over wine - and something cracked open in me I didn’t expect to so quickly. I’ve even found myself exploring tiny romances here and there - not clinging to them or forcing them, but finding myself being open to them.

• Along the same line, I’ve found myself open to the potential of children again - something I didn’t expect. I spent four days with friends with children, and jumping into their houses was the first time from a level of deep awareness that I found myself thinking “I could really handle this if it happened. I’m emotionally together enough now to raise a child.” I still don’t think I want children, but if it happened I wouldn’t resist it now.

• Through a series of events (including seeing friends who moved here and chaos back home), I am more seriously considering moving to Europe sooner than I thought I’d want to (as in maybe only heading back to the States to close out my life and obligations). I think the more time and distance I have to my life back in the US, the more non-attachment I have to it, even the things I deeply love. At the same time, I feel increasingly level-headed about what living in the US would mean for me in the next ten years - and I doubt I have a lifetime left there; I have no desire to be a gay man in an authoritarian, right-wing America - and I see almost no evidence the tide in that direction is going to be stopped. This is still very much working under the surface, but I have the sense a tide is changing within me.

• Out of everything I have posted on this blog, the thing that has gone most viral was calling Paris filthy. I stand by thinking Paris is pretty gross - as well as exceptional - but what’s stuck with me is how negative things have such greater social appeal now than positive things. So many people aren’t moving toward peace, grace, or equanimity - but looking to have their outrage, anger, or angst inflamed. I find it sad and concerning, and was unhappy to see what I saw more of as a joke end up fanning that viral flame. I suspect I’ll be more cautious with my words in the future.

Each day is a learning process, and this kind of travel would be impossible without an open, inquisitive mind. I’m so deeply grateful that I’ve given myself this experience. It’s cracking open pieces of me I had no idea were there - and greatly sped up my personal growth work. I know traveling like this for the rest of my life would be an avoidant lifestyle for me because I do feel called to a larger purpose - to some career of service - and retiring young and traveling forever would avoid that. But - I needed this journey to get there. I’m so glad I listened to my intuition and just did this.

MY BUDGET IS HOLDING UP

I wrote about my budget here and so far it’s holding up well - though I’m officially about 4% ($200) over budget. I had a few cities (Milan, Amsterdam, Zurich, Geneva) that were over budget just on lodging and transit, and a couple of others that were butting up against budget on the same; I’ve also had a few heedless days. To be fair, my overspend is technically within my margin for error because I did set aside about 4% more money than required for my budget - but I’ll also try to make up for it once I leave the most expensive parts of Europe.

If this is your first update, my day-to-day budget in the Europe Schengen Region is $65, approximately $15 for transit, $25 for a hostel, and $25 (or the balance of the $65) for everything else. In most cities, I’ve been able to make the combination for transit to the city and lodging there work for less than $50 (with some exceptions like Milan, Zurich, Geneva, and Amsterdam); when that budget gets tight, an overnight bus greatly relieves it by combining the two. I’ve learned now that staying with friends doesn’t necessarily save money - because friends come with some social obligations that may run against budget. Even when you’re generally good at boundaries, it can be tough when the person is giving you free lodging.

I continue to get better about prioritizing my discretionary spend budget. Definitely, at the beginning, I had far more FOMO about experiences - and I often spent my funds because I felt like I “had” to try something. I find myself increasingly capable of asking myself “what will actually bring me joy from this money,” even if the answer falls outside the expected ways to spend money in new cities. I continue find living to this budget to be one of the best exercises I’ve ever done in what truly matters to me - and continues to help my gratitude practice flourish.

I also have another $10 a day budgeted toward fixed costs - like big flights, SIM cards, insurance, and other supplies. I haven’t been here enough days yet for my flight to Lisbon to get within that cost-per-day, but it should by the end of the third or early in the fourth month. Right now, my fixed costs per day are about $15 (largely my $600 flight only spread across 61 days so far).

MY PACKING LIST IS ALSO HOLDING UP . . . ISH

At the beginning of this trip, I published my packing list and wrote about why I included everything; in my month one summary, I gave a pretty detailed breakdown about what I missed, what seems like it was unnecessary, and what have been surprisingly helpful. I continue to track what I use every day so I know what has been used most and what hasn’t been used at all. The trends I noticed after month one haven’t changed at all - and the items I was thinking of mailing home, I’m still thinking of mailing home. I think it’s too early to deem if anything was a true mistake to bring because I haven’t been to enough parts of the world or enough climates yet to let some things get use. I probably will do my big mail back around month 9.

KNOW ANYONE ELSE WHO WOULD LIKE THIS?

I’m going to try to write up one of these summaries every month - though I’ll definitely keep working on my format as I go (so please give me feedback if there’re things you want to hear more or less about). If you think anyone else would enjoy these summaries, have them sign up for the mailing list with the submission box below.