Months Ten and Eleven in Numbers

In the middle of months ten and eleven, my niece joined me for an incredible three week road trip around New Zealand. I fell quite behind on the blog during our journey, so I decided to combine two months into one write up. (It’s really long because of that.) Here’s what I got up to in February and March 2023:

Cities These Months: 24; Total So Far: 133

Countries These Months: 5; Total So Far: 41

Countries I Ate Avocado Toast In These Months: 4; Total So Far: 36

Miles Walked These Months: 458.1; Total So Far: 3,293.1

Exhaustion Creeps In

I mentioned in my last update that I didn’t feel ready to leave the US when I restarted my journey again in January. I was yearning for the comforts and routines of having a home base - and was sad to be leaving my known support network. That sensation has continued since (although it was interrupted by having family come to me). While a rapid, solo road life was incredibly needs responsive in 2022, I have found my existing way of traveling started to burn me out in 2023.

At times, I thought about cutting my trip short - beginning earlier than expected on building out the next version of my life in Philadelphia. But something inside me told me it was important to finish this journey for myself - that I needed a bit more alone time before going home. The combination has left me constantly changing plans and styles of travel. I’ve now abandoned most of my soft goals (like for number of countries visited or miles walked) in order to try find a new balance that is restorative. I’ve always been a bit of a dogmatic, obsessive completionist, so changing course has been neither smooth nor easy - and it’s still very much in progress.

Months ten and eleven included a three week trip through India, a long weekend in Singapore, a three week road trip with my oldest niece in New Zealand, and two weeks in Taiwan. They were action-packed (particularly New Zealand), so this summary of what I’ve been up to is very long. Here’s what I’ve been up to as I’ve been adjusting my plans and travel style. Within my summaries of where I’ve been below, I’ve used my regular marking schema. I put asterisks next to the cities 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.

• February started off with a frantic run onto a train. From Delhi, five of us in my hostel were all going to Agra at the same time, so we decided to make the trip together. Unfortunately, we underestimated how long it would take us to get to the train station. It turns out Uber in Delhi takes much longer to confirm a ride than back home - so we weren’t able to leave our hostel until about 30 minutes after we tried to book. From there, traffic was worse than expected (and, in Delhi, expectations are already essentially standstill), which left us getting to the train station about five minutes before departure. We ended up barging to the front of the queue for the security check, earning lots of scowls in our process, and boarded the train about a minute before it left. The lesson was well learned to leave more wiggle room for transit days in India.

• Once we got to Agra, we had our first go at negotiating taxi fare at a train station - which can be hard because usually they are in some way unionized and set high prices. We ended up making a secret deal with a rickshaw driver who had all five of us sit in his rikshaw (three in back, one on each side of him with a leg dangling out to the road). I hadn’t had such a cramped, exciting transit ride since I was a high school student in Thailand.

• We went to Agra! to see the Taj Mahal - one of the five must-see destinations of my trip. (The last, Angkor Wat, I will visit in May). The Taj Mahal exceeded my expectations - and awed me at every angle. It was, I think, the single most beautiful building I’ve seen. The rest of Agra is incredibly local - so I mostly sat on a roof deck admiring the Taj Mahal for my entire stay. Taking a few breaks to walk though Agra, though, is when I became accustomed to the number of farm animals in Indian cities. Beyond the abundance of stray cows throughout the country (abandoned because they can’t be slaughtered), we passed water buffaloes, pigs, goats, and chickens. Bear in mind that Agra is a major city, so these animals are just walking the same roads being used by congested traffic. It adds a bit of a delightful, surreal element to the bustle of India.

• I was lucky because the hostel mates I took the train with turned out to be chill, mindful friends who all preferred hikes and meditation to partying. One of them - Dane, a Brazilian who had been on the road for two years - proved to be a particular source of inspiration for me. She was on the road indefinitely, so she had long been tackling the fatigue that comes from moving too far, too fast. She had just done a ten day vipassana meditation retreat and was on her way to a 26 day yoga teacher training retreat. After talking excitedly with her about the experiences, I copied her playbook and scheduled the same retreats. I cut about two months out of my planned travel time and am now ending my journey with a 21 day meditation retreat in June in Chiang Mai (Thailand) followed by the same 26 day yoga teacher training in July in Rishikesh (India). I think at this point, the retreats are what I’m most excited about for the rest of my trip.

• After Agra, I finished India’s golden triangle of tourism by heading to Jaipur. I booked myself a hotel room (at around $6 a night) to give myself a few days of needed alone time. I went out to a local restaurant on my first night and a nice Indian guy ended up sitting across from me because the restaurant was otherwise full. We spoke in fractured English for half an hour and he ended up buying my meal - a really kind show of hospitality. Sometimes, on the road, I can become a bit cold to the idea of spontaneously meeting locals because aggressive salespeople so dominate my time and energy; I can become jaded and convince myself that I’m only seen as money on legs and that everyone is trying to sell me something. But moments like this one are always remarkably helpful in toning down my standoffishness and staying kind and open to strangers.

• Jaipur was where I began to soften my attachment to walking endlessly in cities and to going to the most popular sites. I tried to walk everywhere in Jaipur - but at the end of every day I was grumpy. Between the heat, the traffic, and the endless noise, walking was just unpleasant; this unpleasantness was sometimes even punctuated by passing areas where chickens were actively being slaughtered. But, because I can be stuck in my ways, I kept walking well past the period I had already become grumpy. Both of my days there, by time I finally acquiesced to the discomfort and hired a rickshaw, I was already disassociated and miserable. Finally, by the end of the three days in Jaipur, I had begun to internalize that, in my journey through Asia, I will often have to sacrifice walking in favor of other forms of transit to keep myself happy. You can see this change reflected in my miles walked count (which will now certainly not meet my soft goal of 5,000 miles).

• I also learned my lesson on overdoing sites. Jaipur is a very famous city for tourists - and yet I found myself consistently underwhelmed by the sites. After each one, I would decide to do one more, thinking to myself that I must just not be going to the right place. By the end, I was harried, exhausted, and had seen little that awed me (although the world’s third longest wall was quite cool). And this came at the expense of doing the part of the city I was loving: relaxing in my lovely hotel and eating the truly amazing local food. With this, I began to loosen my attachment to seeing sites (which, at this point in my trip have been losing their allure) and focus on spending time relaxing and soaking in local culture.

• After Jaipur, I ended up changing plans. I had originally planned to meet my friend in Goa, who was going to be there on a work retreat, at the end of my India trip. After talking about it some, we realized the visit would add more stress than joy to both of our trips, so we decided to nix it. I found myself with a few extra days at hand - and I decided to spend them in Pushkar*, a small holy town well known among backpackers. I’m so, so glad I did because Pushkar ended up being my favorite place in India. Entirely vegetarian and dry, the city comes alive each night at sunset with music and prayers. I ended up staying four nights and let myself just relax; I took strolls along the lake every day and drank so much juice. Even though I ended up getting food poisoning, it ended up being an incredibly relaxing few days.

• The one awkward note in my trip to Pushkar was trying a tattoo. I stopped at a local artist who looked promising and talked to him about what I was hoping to get - and he told me he’d sketch it for me. When the day came, it turned that that instead of sketching it, he had placed two artistically distinct drawings he had found online next to each other, without even creating a smooth transition between them. Tactfully removing myself as a potential customer turned out to be challenging - in particular because this artist seemed to lack self awareness that this cut and paste design was a little below creative genius level. What made it even harder to navigate, though, was that he turned out to be my neighbor (literally the room next to me) and his shop was on my walking path to literally everywhere in the town. I bumped into him many times every day. It was good practice on communicating a firm but friendly “this is not for me.”

• After Pushkar, I went to Jodhpur! - my second favorite city I went to in India. I had been craving nature after spending too much time in large cities - and Jodhpur delivered it with a stunning mountainous desert backdrop. It was one of the only places in India I was able to walk comfortably - and it was a city I found consistently atmospheric. Its imposing cliffside fort was also the best I visited in India - well preserved and with sweeping views of the blue painted buildings around the city.

• I did learn another important lesson in Jodhpur. In my desire to have a private room, I ended up booking a cheap home stay that proved to be a mistake. The owners didn’t speak English and it was hard to find - which created some unnecessary discomfort when I arrived. I found myself walking around narrow back alleys in the dark asking strangers if they knew where UGS Guest House was for 40 minutes - until I got lucky and one of the strangers happened to be able to help. In addition, I actually needed some hotel / hostel assistance to plan my transit to my next destination, and they couldn’t provide it. It helped me realize that the value of privacy for me (even when I yearn for it) has a clear bound in convenience and comfort - and that I should be a bit more cautious when selecting where I’m staying. To be clear, the owners were lovely people and it wasn’t terrible - it was just an unnecessary detraction from enjoying the city.

• Because the hostel owners weren’t able to help me schedule a private bus to Udaipur, I ended up taking a local public bus for my first time in India. At the station, it was easy to buy a ticket - but there wasn’t any signage in English for me to identify the right bus. So, I ended up just asking strangers at the bus station for help, and hopping in a bus hoping it was the right one. About thirty minutes into watching the blue dot on Google Maps, it did turn out to be the right bus (thankfully). I was lucky to have gotten on at the first stop because I got a seat; even though it was uncomfortable, it was much better than the dozens of people who had to stand (sometimes for hours). The bus took seven hours (in a drive that could take four) and only stopped once for the bathroom at hour four. Once I needed to pee around around hour two and a half, the ride became a bit painful because the roads are super bumpy and the buses are so old they don’t run smoothly. On a fun note, food was available at hop-on hop-off points, though, because local vendors would walk by the windows offering food or drinks, and you’d exchange cash for goods rapidly through the window. The whole ride was slow and unpleasant (with delicious samosas) - but those are usually enriching experiences for patience and mindfulness. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. I got off at the earliest possible moment in Udaipur.

• My experience in Udaipur was dominated by falling for two puppies outside of my hostel. I bumped into the first eating candy, covered in burs, and looking so incredibly frail I thought it was likely to die soon. I soon met his brother, a more well fed and energetic black and brown pup, as well as their sweet mom. It turned out there had been a litter of seven and they were the only ones left - and they were both malnourished. I ended up making them some simple food (lentils, peanuts, potatoes, rice) and leaving them food and water each day, often feeding them by hand because they actually wanted me to give them trash food instead. They pulled at my heart strings all three days and I left too attached, worrying about what would happen to them. I never checked back in with the hostel owner, and I don’t think I want to know if they survived. It was a lesson in grace. I can’t control anyone’s outcome - but I can always offer love, kindness, and affection. We can never know how powerful those gifts are.

• Udaipur!, India’s City of Lakes, was my third favorite spot in India. A smaller city, it’s still chaotic but not as overwhelming as most of the cities I’d been to. Centered and surrounded by beautiful lakes, Udaipur has a creative energy, including galleries, tailors, and other small boutiques. In the scale of Indian cities, I think Udaipur may register as cute and quaint, even relatively relaxing.

• I did make another walking mistake in Udaipur. On the first night, I really didn’t want to do anything, but I convinced myself I should go to the most famous sunset point, which was an hour away. The walk was chaotic and unpleasant - and when I got there, it turned out the temple viewpoint had already closed for the day. And instead of counting my losses and getting a rickshaw home, I walked for another 30 minutes fruitlessly searching for a sunset spot, failed, and then grumpily walked home. Again, I can be thick-headed and dogmatic. A slow learner to sometimes just choose my own comfort, especially when it costs money and there’s a free option.

• From Udaipur to Mumbai, I took a 16 hour private night bus. I was lucky because a woman from my hostel was also going to Mumbai so we decided to go together. She was Austrian and had also been traveling for about a year; unlike me, though, she was traveling indefinitely and had sold all of her belonging before leaving. Literally everything she owned was in her backpack. Amazing! We made the mistake of walking to the street where the bus was set to pass us at night; it was a mistake because once it’s dark, the stray dogs of Udaipur can form packs get aggressive. After one lunged at me and started following us, a local was nice enough to walk with us and help to shoo the dog away. We did get to the stop safely and were able to flag down the right bus and hop on quickly. We both had lie flat beds, which was lovely - but the bus didn’t end up stopping for a bathroom for 8 hours. I woke up around 3:30 AM needing to pee and just lied there miserably for about four hours. India definitely included some serious bladder training for me.

• The bus dropped us off on the outskirts of Mumbai - and we were both set to find our way into the city without any data on our phones. A rickshaw driver was helpful enough to tell us where the train station was and get us there - and at the train station, a local woman helped us to buy our tickets and get us on the right train. (She even bought our tickets, really showing us that there are good, kind people out there). The train to subway to train journey for me to get to my hostel was slightly stressful - but also kind of fun. The local trains in Mumbai are all open door, exposed to the wind entirely, which makes for a cool journey.

• I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed Mumbai. The city is a cramped heat trap; I literally had a nasty salt line on the back of my pants from sweating my way through the city. I found the free and low cost attractions underwhelming, and just generally didn’t enjoy myself. I did enjoy catching a ferry to the Elephanta Islands (ancient carved cave temples), though; it got me out of the city and, on the ferries, flocks of birds fly along because passengers leave chips in their hands for the birds to dive and eat. Beyond that, I enjoyed drinking an absolute fuck ton of fresh sugar cane juice (12 cents a cup) and found the old Victorian colonial section of Mumbai to be architecturally stunning. Mumbai could be an incredible place for a bougie, expensive holiday. I did not have such a budget, though, so by time I was ready to fly to Singapore, I was more than eager to leave.

• Singapore* is the most livable city I have experienced. Everything is so clean you could eat off of it, the public transit is absolutely incredible, and everything feels easy. It provides an intensely multicultural, multinational, and multi language view of Asia - and in many ways feels like a city of the future. I just loved exploring it - and found myself thinking it may be a city I one day live in.

• I did have a bit of a romantic binge in Singapore. Coming off a dry spell in India and going into a three week road trip with my niece, I kind of let loose. Amidst that, I met up again with the slightly older couple I had met in Cairo again, secretly hoping they may give me a gay, throuple Crazy Rich Asians weekend. Sadly, that whimsical fantasy did not manifest. While they did treat me to my Singapore avocado toast and showed me around their city, there were no yacht parties or elaborate weddings for me to report. Maybe next time. I’ll keep trying.

• After Singapore, I flew to New Zealand to meet up with my niece for our 16 day road trip. Because we didn’t explore by city, my normal style of city write up didn’t quite work for the blog. Instead I wrote up the campervan lessons we learned on the road as well as our itineraries for the North! and South! Islands.

• New Zealand began with a bit of an accommodation hiccup. I had been planning to stay with my niece and her boyfriend but found out the day before that it wasn’t feasible. It was late to book a hostel - and there was only one left in the city. It was the shittiest hostel in Auckland and I not so low-key hated it. So, I set myself on a mission to find a lovely boy to stay with. I managed to have a three day romance with a rich, French-born Kiwi with a gorgeous apartment. We got day drunk off of excellent New Zealand Sauvignon blanc each morning (his treat, of course) and had a lovely time together. Unfortunately, while he did a little bit invite me to sail around the world with him, I was not invited to stay the night even once. I was doomed to my shitty hostel each night where I barely got any sleep. Each day was a wild swing from the unexpected extravagances of road life to the occasional high discomfort

• I also got to meet up with my niece, Taylor, in Auckland; she’s 27 and just way fucking cooler than me. We mostly drank amazing wine and wandered around the city. We got really lucky and happened into an incredible wine boutique straight away. We hung out in the shop with the owner for two hours chatting and drinking wine. He introduced us to New Zealand and talked us through where to go on our road trip. He also recommended, I think, the best Sauvignon blanc we had on our trip. It was such a lovely start to our journey. (Beyond that, Auckland mostly felt like a dense suburb. Nice, sterile, with subpar food)

• After three nights in Auckland, Taylor and I picked up our campervan to start the roadtrip. The receptionist was a curt, unfriendly woman who spoke quickly and gave us no tips or tricks. When we said we wanted to double check the car’s damage report and generally inspect it, she just left and moved onto the next customer. It became clear quickly on inspection how little we knew about van life - and that it presented a steep but exciting learning curve. We’d learn more slowly that the curt, unfriendly woman also gave us a bunch of wrong information, including telling us the van’s water tank was full and that we could plug in a toaster or an electric water kettle while freedom camping.

• Butter, as we named our van, would prove to be full of secrets and struggles. A troubled soul, really. There were small adjustments: the blinkers and windshield wipers were reversed, so we kept accidentally wiping the windshields. Or the seat height created the illusion we were always closer to what we could see looking down then we were. Then there were medium but fixable issues. The van had no Bluetooth connection or USB outlets, so we had found out we had to make some purchases to charge devices and play music. Or that Butter had a constant rattling noise and sounded like a dying dinosaur whenever we turned it on. Or that the water pump had the sporadic flow of an old man with a prostrate issue. And then of course there were the more concerning elements. Butter could go all of eight miles an hour up hills - and would begin to smell like burning rubber. It got maybe 10 miles to the gallon on a good day. Its windshield wipers were perhaps original and essentially didn’t work, and the blackout curtains liked to unlatch and fall down at inopportune moments, obstructing our views. Through Butter’s struggles, we grew to love it and wished it a peaceful retirement (in the very near future we hope). It got us through our trip without ever breaking down - and that’s more than we can say for many travelers.

• Our first couple of days on the road were slow, giving us time to adjust and learn the ropes. Taylor’s boyfriend joined us and we went to Hobbiton, the movie set for the shire, which was not kitschy at all and a really magical way to start the road trip. Then the next day we went to the Waitomo glow worms cave - a really cool cave covered in bioluminescent insects that light up the ceiling like a starry sky. We stopped at a Kiwi sanctuary and saw a couple of the country’s famous, flightless, nocturnal birds - and also got introduced to their super cool native parrot species. But mostly, those first two days, we adjusted. We got groceries, we figured out the charging situation and how to play music, we learned how to make and unmake the beds, and found out how to freedom camp (park wherever there’s a sign saying you can’t) and how to make reservations at the Department of Conversation (DOC) camping sites. We began to get our hands around campervan life - and we dropped off Taylor’s boyfriend at bus to go back to Auckland to begin our trip just the two of us.

• Our first day just the two of us we explored the Rotorua area. We camped in front of a beautiful lake, walked amongst California redwoods that had been planted in the area, explored a geothermal valley, and drank flat whites with oat milk. But mostly, we began to catch up because we hadn’t seen each other in person or been alone just the two of us in years. And we had a whole hell of a lot to catch up on.

• After Rotorua, we made the stunning drive down Route 1 around Lake Taupo, New Zealand’s largest lake, to get to Tongorio for our hike the next day. The Tongorio Alpine crossing is considered one of the best day hikes in the world - made even more famous because it was the setting of Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately for us, the weather during our hike was a bitterly rain cold and a dense fog that completely obscured the views at the peak. Fortunately for us, the fog did clear on the backend of the hike and we got incredible views of several alpine lakes and Lake Taupo, making it feel worth it at the end. We backtracked a little bit after the hike to set up camp on Lake Taupo, enjoying a sunset and then a morning coffee along the water.

• Occasionally on the road, I meet people who just inspire me. After our hike, we bumped into a retired couple in their 70s who had been sailing around the world for seven years and had just completed the same hike. I think in the US it can be easy to get it into our heads that adventure and youth ends at age XX. It’s so nice to see living proof that it’s bullshit - that life can always remain as exciting as you want it to be. That there is no rush to fit it all in before a certain age.

• In Taupo, Taylor and I started our then nightly routine of watching ABC’s 2011 classic Revenge while drinking wine or craft beer, and digesting the day. We seemed to always toast and say, unironically, “what a perfect day.” Ineveiteably, there’d be a pause, and then we’d both laugh and start saying “well . . . Except for [the shit weather for most of the hike.]” It was such a delight to hit the road with another person who thinks the best way to handle when things go wrong is to just find them funny.

• After Taupo, we took a light day. We had a relaxing morning along the lake, learned how to dump our wastewater, and drove four hours south to a beachfront freedom camping site (one hour away from Wellington). We took a long walk along the beach and watched the sunset. (And of course, for the second time, settled in to watch Revenge. This show deserves a reboot.)

• Our last day in the North Island was in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. It was also the only day where we had our share of communication issues, anxiety, and tension. I wanted to start the day in Zeelandia, a really cool ecosanctuary, but Taylor would have preferred to spend the whole day in the city. We did decide to start the day in Zeelandia, and we both loved it. An entirely fenced in, predator-free zone, the birds are free to come and go; it’s helped to restore the populations of native birds in the region. But I wanted to hike a bit more than Taylor, and through a bit of poor communication on my part, I tried to say I wanted to hike 30 minutes more and she came to understand I wanted to stay another two hours. By time we cleared it up, the hike was essentially over but there was an air of tension. We made our way toward the city and I suggested parking a bit on the outskirts and walking in - but Taylor wanted to find parking in the city proper. Finding a spot for Butter within center city proved a right little fiasco - which ended in Taylor trying to pull out of a parking spot she couldn’t get into and stressfully saying “I’m like an inch away form this very expensive car.” Thinking that she may have been stressed and exaggerating, I went up to find us maybe a third of an inch from said expensive car; all I could think was “I guess we live here now.” Well, Taylor did manage to get out of the spot and we immediately saw another camper van pull smoothly into a similarly tight spot - a dick move I still maintain was just taunting us. Once we got out of the parking lot, we settled on parking on the outskirts, which was easy. By time we parked, we were already laughing about the mess we had gotten ourselves into and the tension had broken. It was the closest we ever got to a travel fight - and it wasn’t bad at all. I’m so fortunate (though totally unsurprised) we were compatible travel buddies.

• Wellington proved easy to explore in four or five hours. Another city that feels like a dense suburb, Wellington is a little cooler than Auckland but still sterile, formulaic. We grabbed traditional savory pies and explored the free national museum, Te Papa; it had the best exhibit either of us had been to (an exploration around the nature of New Zealand), one of the strangest (a nearly nostalgic, heavily invested retelling of New Zealand’s involvement in World War One), and one of the most problematically underfunded (a section on aboriginals that explained nothing but had a stolen house we couldn’t take pictures of). We then grabbed some craft beer and hiked to the city’s main lookout point, where we took a nap before our 2AM ferry ride.

• When we got to the port around 1AM, the staff members were just as tired and grumpy as we were. To say they were unhelpful might be understating it, but to say they were outright rude might be too far. All of our interactions were tense and uncomfortable. As we began to describe any such unpleasant interaction (of which we had a few along the journey), we’d often recount it like “we tried to check in but they just told us we have a small penis.” The ferry was delayed by an hour - but, thankfully, it did make the journey. We managed to secure enough seats to lie flat and nap - which was a little restless because the group from the UK next to us would not stop chatting loudly all night.

• Our first day in the South Island was one of my favorites of the trip. We drove to a rec center first to shower, and Taylor napped while I swam. We parked at a freedom camping spot at a parking lot in the center of Renwick, rented bikes, and biked 10 miles around the Marlborough wine region. We stopped at five vineyard tasting rooms, one brewery, and had brick oven pizza. By the end of the day, we were more than a little tipsy and carrying six bottles of wine we had purchased. The weather had been perfect for a day of wine tasting - hot and sunny. Unfortunately, that was also the day our fridge broke - causing us to lose all of our perishable food in the heat. Double unfortunately, that morning we had bought a week’s worth of groceries because we weren’t sure how easy it would be to find a good grocery store for the rest of our journey. But of course, even with the $50 loss and the loss of a working fridge, the day ended with a toast saying “today was a perfect day.” (And, I think, five episodes of Revenge.)

• Our second day in New Zealand’s South Island began our mad rush through its nature. We drove about six hours, stopping in Nelson (a charming beach town with good cafes) and Ma Pua (another charming beach town that had been recommended to us for fish and chips - and which also had the best little boutiques). We ended the day with a long, terrifying cliffside drive to get to Abel Tasman National Park; as Taylor liked to mimic from time to time, I sat in the passenger seat clutching my chair, gritting my teeth and trying hard to not backseat drive. I nearly succeeded - except for one blurt-out comment. The DOC camping site in Abel Tasman was beautiful, and we took a nice four mile hike to both a sweeping lookout point and a secluded beach. It was here in Abel Tasman, about two hours from any stores, we ran out of both propane and water. But of course, it was “another perfect day.”

• Our next two days were driving intensive, about six hours a day on our way to Wanaka. We made some beautiful pit stops, including the Pancake Rocks, Hokitika Gorge, Franz Josef Glacier, Bruce Bay, and the Blue Pools. It was on this long stretch we began refining our road trip style - figuring out which music we both liked (which was nostalgia heavy), moving from a years-due catch up to the casual banter and laughter of close friends, and figuring out what car snacks and drinks were best. (It was mostly Tim Tams, Coke Zeroes, and oat milk flat whites).

• We finally got to Wanaka right before sunset - the perfect hour to see the Wanaka Tree (which grows in the lake against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains). We found the town to be wildly charming and the lake breathtaking; it’s a town I fully expect to see Taylor spend much more time in. We had our first freedom camping mix-up though, and we nearly drove into someone’s driveway because we had convinced ourselves there was a creek side camping spot there. (There wasn’t). Instead, we found a budget creek side spot (about $6) about 10 minutes away.

• Wanaka had the best hike of our trip - Roy’s Peak. It’s a four mile relentless elevation gain hike up switch backs that offer expansive views of snow capped peaks, alpine lakes, and jagged mountains. It’s just incredible. Taylor and I hiked the last bit of it separately, though; she hadn’t eaten much for breakfast and she plopped down like a stubborn dog on a walk about 600 feet from the peak, refusing to go further. On my way back down to her, I happened to meet a couple from Philadelphia near the peak (identifiable by their Phillies hat). While we were chatting, I saw Taylor coming up holding both our backpacks; having stuffed down a peanut butter and banana sandwich, she was ready to climb to the peak.

• At the hike’s famous Instagram spot, we met a woman we will forever refer to as “drone bitch” This viewpoint is along an about 50 foot ridge, with the last spot being where most photos are taken. There was a woman standing at the edge (who had been there for as long as the people were visible to us) and a few other people standing around confused because there was a low-flying drone blocking the ridge. We started walking up the ridge and the woman started yelling at us because she was using the drone to take selfies. Confused and irritated by the woman taking up the entire ridge (and not just the photo spot), we gave her two minutes of a grace period before we just went back in and sat to take in the views. She kind of stomped off bitterly; it would seem the 10ish minutes she took the entire hiking trail viewpoint ridge to herself was not enough for her.

• After Roy’s Peak, we grabbed lunch and flat whites in Wanaka and drove to Te Anau. We drove along the Queenstown Crown Range Scenic Route. By far the most terrifying windy cliffside drive I had to drive, the road was absolutely gorgeous. I’m still a little surprised that Butter made the trip though. The smell of burning rubber it made along the way had us very concerned.

• We had planned on two nights in Te Anau as our base to go to Milford Sound (a famous fjord on the southern coast). Because the Milford Sound Road is particularly cliff-filled and windy, we booked a tour that included a round trip bus ride (to both give Butter a break, as well as ourselves). We also dropped Butter off at a mechanic who tried to fix the fridge; (they couldn’t, but we did get new windshield wipers and free parking for the day).

• Our bus tour and “luxury” cruise along the fjord was a good reminder of why we don’t usually do these kinds of group tours. We were about 30 years younger than the median age on the bus, and we were assigned seating near a particularly strange group at the back. This included a rowdy Australian man who asked if I liked Trump, and when I told him no, decided the social thing to do was to stand imposingly over me and tell me that the Australian view was that Trump was the world’s last chance to stop China. (It took a lot of willpower to not say “OK, Boomer.”) It also included a real cooky woman in front of us who needed to charge her phone, but instead of just asking Taylor if she had a charger, she moved her fingers slowly toward Taylor’s crotch - eventually grabbing her phone to see the charger type. (There was no consent for this motion.) By time the two hour bus trip was over and we made our way toward the cruise, we were very glad to be rid of them, at least for a while.

• The cruise seemed just as doomed for about the first 20 minutes - when we would find that there didn’t seem to be enough outdoor space for the number of people. Then, by good fortune, Taylor happened to hear a staff member signaling and saying “Do you want to see a seal?” The woman ushered Taylor to a small standing area behind the kitchen where only a few people were, all of them younger. Our luck turned around and we spent the next ninety minutes there in near privacy enjoying the stunning views, and then managed to sleep on the bus ride back to Te Anau.

• From Te Anau, we drove up to Queenstown to spend a day there at a Holiday Park. We were going to spend the day separately so that Taylor could paraglide - but it was canceled last minute because of unpredictable wind. So, we changed course quickly and did the biggest day hike of Queenstown - Ben Lommond - and enjoyed sweeping views of the Queenstown Lake and surrounding mountains. We spent the rest of the day exploring the small town, having a craft beer, a cup of local ice cream and then, as always, settling in to watch another few episodes of Revenge.

• On our way out of Queenstown the next day, we had one of our strangest driving experiences. I was about to enter a roundabout which was clear for me to go. Then, suddenly, the truck entering from the opposite side took a right turn in front me, choosing not to go around the roundabout but instead drive straight over the median garden, glaring at me as he went. I’m just glad he didn’t hit us.

• From Queenstown, we drove to Mount Cook, New Zealand’s tallest mountain. We made a few alpine lake stops en route, and then did an easy seven mile hike to the Hooker Lake viewpoint (an ice filled lake with unobstructed views of Mount Cook). When we got there, it was cloudy and all views were blocked, but the clouds cleared almost exactly when we got to the lake. Absolutely perfect luck.

• At the DOC campsite, we were parked next to an endearing lesbian couple who had taken a year off to travel around the world together. They were legit #CoupleGoals - just so sweet. We didn’t spend much time with them, though, because Taylor had two friends from Seattle at the same site. We split two bottles of wine among the four of us and shared our wildest stories from campervan life, gut laughing for hours. It was a beautiful way to relive and recap our journey.

• Then, suddenly, our last day was upon was. For the first time all trip, we woke up to catch the sunrise, taking a small hike up to a glacier viewpoint. While the colors were nice, what was memorable about it was that, for the first time, a wild kea flew up to us. This gorgeous bird just sat on a nearby rock, modeling for photos against the red sky.

• From Mount Cook, we drove to Christchurch - where we had to drop off the van in the morning. En route, we stopped at one more lake and grabbed one more flat white, listening to a nostalgic stream of light rock along the way. It felt a bit shocking that the trip was ending, and also that Butter had successfully made the drive without breaking down. We got to Christchurch in the late afternoon and explored its downtown, had a last tasting of New Zealand wine, and grabbed our last dinner at a really cool food market. We found what was probably our shittiest freedom camping spot all trip (which I’m still thinking may have been a parking lot used for drug dealing), watched the last episode of Revenge Season 1, and went to bed early because Taylor had to be at the airport at 4AM.

• I brought Taylor off at the airport the next day and then parked in a hotel parking lot to catch a few more hours of sleep. I dropped off the van, managing to get a refund of one day rental fees for the issues we had, and went to my hostel in downtown Christchurch. I had two more nights in the city but I did almost no new exploration. I was exhausted from our go-go-go trip and needed to rest. I also found myself lonely. Like when I left the US in January, it was hard to be alone again after spending time with such a close connection. I found myself yearning for a nearby support network. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a night of sappy romance movies, a bottle of wine, and a few regrettable texts to lovers past. I’m far from perfect.

• Lonely turned out to be a really bad mind-space to fly to Taiwan - a country I absolutely adore but also one I got engaged in three years ago. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the combination left me vulnerable going into that leg of my trip. Worse, Taylor and I were so busy I’d stopped my daily practice of meditation and regular yoga, meaning that my routines of proactive self-care were missing. Writing this update a month later, I’m still bouncing back from a return of immature behaviors and bad coping mechanisms - which all came back to me as easily as riding a bike.

• It started off with a slow creep in Taipei*, a city I fell in love with immediately three years ago and which I hope to live for at least a couple of years at some point to study Mandarin. It’s an incredibly livable city that balances modern infrastructure with tradition - and has a rich creative scene. Because I’d already spent four weeks in Taipei, I really only lived in it like a local for these few days. I ate at my favorite haunts and walked through my favorite districts. I also entered a bit of a slut mode, which I can see now was fueled by a need for connection and not just for fun. (AKA, all the wrong, unhealthy reasons to have sex.) On my last morning, I had a tea date with a local boy with whom I had intense, natural passion. That tea date was the real beginning of a messy few weeks for me.

• From Taipei, I took the train to Hualien* - a small town on the east coast that is the gateway to Taroko National Park, Taiwan’s natural treasure and home to the largest marble gorge. On an impulse, the boy from Taipei (Dalan) decided to join me for the first night. We got a hotel room and spent a whirlwind 24 hours together, mostly in the room. In the moment, it felt rich in chemistry and safe. It took me weeks to realize that in my vulnerable, lonely state, I’d missed all my familiar red flags. He used a manipulative pity play right away to get me to invest in his well being, seemed to project all of his insecurities onto me, and had a controlling streak. I had mistaken passion and safety for anxiety and familiarity. Thoughtlessly, I found myself in an all too familiar dance - one I’ve played many times with many narcissists.

• After Dalan left, I met a group of vegans at the hostel. We ate great food in the city and hiked through the park together the next day. With them, I reclaimed the space where I got engaged for myself; to my surprise, though, there was little left to reclaim. I found myself remarkably passive and unemotional, finally, it seems, over my failed engagement. We spent late nights talking about love, sex, communicating our needs, non violent communication, and dealing with difficult people. It was a small moment of light, clarity and inspiration right before the chaotic spiral that was about to unfurl for me.

• After Hualien, I went to Kaosiung - a charming, livable city in Taiwan’s south that is a bit unmemorable as a tourist destination. Still feeling lonely, I had sex twice - only to find myself feeling hollow after and more lonely. This unfortunately coincided with a phone call from a dear friend who was struggling and needed to process an interaction with his ex - one that felt all too familiar and triggering for me as well. At the same time, Dalan was calling me twice a day, taking a lot of my time and proving to be remarkably needy for someone I just met.

• Without thinking about it, I found myself leaning on one of my oldest and worst coping mechanisms when this particular storm of loneliness, unworthiness, and the presence of a boy who demands to be the center of my world strikes: binge eating and binge drinking alone while desperately texting loved ones in a misguided search for connection. In my stupor, I had a surprisingly clear-headed realization I needed to stop investing in Dalan and communicated it; sadly, it was a conviction I lacked the surety to stand behind the next day when Dalan just pretended it hadn’t happened. I wish I could say this downward slide alone caused me to reevaluate what I was doing and change course - but it didn’t

• It was in these moments, though, that I realized I was finally once again craving romance - a more serious connection. While I didn’t know it at the time but would soon find out was that I wasn’t totally emotionally ready for it. Looking at it now, it’s clear to me that approaching romance with a stable sense of self, self-worth and self-compassion is going to be the last great obstacle for me when it comes to maintaing authenticity and a surety of self in the presence of others. I’m still too vulnerable to subverting who I am or what I want for the wrong, familiar kind of man.

• From Kaosiung, I went to Tainan!, Taiwan’s oldest city. Its lantern lined alleys and colorful temples can feel like stepping back in time - incredibly atmospheric reminders of days past. While there, my texts and phone calls with Dalan became more turbulent as he demanded more of my time; he would become moody or cold when I was unavailable. I didn’t see it then, but I started having a familiar creep of deep unworthiness - a sense that I didn’t have value as a human because I wasn’t satisfying Dalan. The deep emptiness is, unfortunately, the hallmark sensation of my childhood - that my life only has as much value as the value I’m providing to others. It’s a sensation for me rife for emotional flashbacks and mindless behaviors. Once again in Tainan, I binge drank and binge ate while sending a flurry of messages to loved ones. Once again, a sad and desperate recurrence of my most immature self.

• I then went to Taichung - Taiwan’s largest city and the quietest metropolis I’ve ever spent time in. Like Kaohsiung, the city is deeply livable, kind of quirky, but forgettable as a tourist destination. I spent a day wandering through its cultural quarters and then took a day trip to Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan’s largest lake. I rented a bike and explored the 20 mile loop around the water, stopping for all the hiking points. On this leg of the trip, Dalan was staffing a long haul flight to Vancouver, so we hardly talked. A bit unsurprisingly, I was also much more at peace - and didn’t drink at all.

• I changed my itinerary slightly, cutting a night out of Taichung and adding one to Taipei to spend two nights with Dalan. Like in Hualien, the days went by in a haze. I once again mistook passion and safety for anxiety and familiarity. After a week of feeling a bit worthless, I finally felt like I could meet his needs (and that I, because of it, had worth as person). That is the classic narcissist-codependent dance. After this dose of feeling worthy, it would take me another two weeks to fully extricate myself from the toxic romance I was participating in. (It would only take me four days to communicate it clearly, but another 9 days after that for Dalan to stop pretending that the conversation hadn’t happened.)

• I then flew to Manila - a dense heat trap of a city with very little vegan food (and, in my opinion, not much for tourists to see). A friend that I had met in Vienna, David, picked me up at the airport (and even brought me banana chips), and dropped me off at my hostel. It was the middle of a heat wave (always around 100 before the humidity and concrete jungle heat traps kicked in) and my hostel only had fans. In my search for a bit of comfort, I fell to what was becoming familiar - a couple of drinks and a bag of chips. Old, familiar, bad habits creeping in.

• My memories of the last night of month eleven are hazy. I wanted to go dancing, so I went with David and his friend’s to one of Manila’s most famous gay clubs. Unfortunately, we had to reserve a table with a minimum spend - a minimum spend that was more than enough to get each of us blackout wasted. I certainly got my fair share of dancing - staying at the club from 11PM to 5AM - and then grabbed a taxi back to my hostel and ate a day’s worth of food from 7-11 before crashing around 6AM. It was fun - but also excessive. I’d say it was a mistake - but I actually think this night is what finally knocked some sense in to me that I needed to return to a routine of self-care. It helped me enter April with a sense of conviction that the creeping bad habits needed to be cut off. I’d be entering April with lots to take care of (including a dwindling sense of mindful presence because I hadn’t been meditating, at least five pounds of weight gain from all the excesses, and a boy I needed to stop talking to). But at least I was entering it knowing changes needed to be made.

As for what’s next on my journey, this month, I spend two weeks in the Philippines and then the rest of the month in Indonesia. It’s my last full month of solo travel as my friend Anne (who I traveled with last September) is meeting me in Singapore in May to explore Southeast Asia together for one month. (And after that, my retreats begin. I can’t believe the journey is dwindling.)

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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. Between getting sick in New Delhi, being on a go-go-go trip with my niece, and my misguided romance in Taiwan, I wasn’t very esoteric (or frankly as mindful) as I often am. I jotted maybe two notes down across both months. As I sat down to write up this (extremely long) summary, though, I began reflecting more intentionally on what’s happened across both months - and what lessons were stirring in the back of my mind. (Or more often, what lessons should have been stirring but I missed in the moment.)

I tend to think I swung too far away from big picture thinking these last two months; I dove too deeply into in-the-moment hedonism and pleasure chasing. My ideal balance is probably somewhere between this more carefree lifestyle my super serious brand of intellectualism. So far this month I’ve been striking a better balance.

Here’s what I’ve been processing as I wrote up this summary:

• The primary lesson for me these months is that it’s a very different process making a stable base in myself when I’m doing what I want and am not craving connection than it is when I’m pushing my boundaries and yearning for support. All of my growth the first 8 months was nestled in me fulfilling a wild dream - and in a desire to take space from my family and friends. My growth was building on the foundation of having everything I wanted. When I left the US this time, though, the base was different. I wasn’t craving adventure and I was craving a support network. I chose discomfort when I left - I chose to build on an unstable foundation. I chose to grow without a home when I wanted one, without peers when I wanted them. I didn’t realize when I left why I felt my journey was incomplete - but I can see now what growth is left. I’m learning how to find a base of stability in myself when nothing external to me is stabilizing. Looking back, I can see plainly what led me to go off the rails - and also why something inside of me told me so strongly that I needed to finish this journey.

• These months also gave me a series of hard lessons that I need to always be investing in enough comfort to keep me stabilized, especially when the thing that is destabilizing me is something I look to for comfort. Sometimes that looked like paying for a rickshaw when walking was free. Sometimes that meant paying for a massage when I wanted affectionate touch (instead of trying to make a new friend or lover). Sometimes that meant accepting that I wouldn’t explore everything in a new city and that I’d just let myself rest. These kinds of trade offs were masked for me in the first eight months because all the hardships were part and parcel to fulfilling a dream. This time around, all the hardships have just felt like hardships - and often seeing that dream through has felt more like a chore than a joy. As I said in the first bullet, this time I’m building stability on discomfort.

• I spent a lot of time in India reflecting on what is truly necessary in life. I thought about things in the US that we think are necessary but aren’t (overhead showers, refrigerators, in-unit washer / dryer, AC, televisions, cars), things that make enormous differences in our lives but that we don’t think about (like potable running water or our interstate infrastructure) and what things we’ve normalized that actually prevent us from having needs met (like the culture of going it alone, or capitalism). India really shook up my sense of entitlement towards all sorts of comforts (and my defeatist acceptance of some discomforts) - and made me question which things may seem to be helping me but actually aren’t (as my phone often does, or my constant access to new television shows and movies). I think this sweeping questioning of what I expect in life has deepened my gratitude practice - and opened my mind to simpler ways of living.

• At a certain point in India, that gratitude started to shift to guilt. I generally was becoming more open minded to the idea that the ways of life I was seeing had enough, that they had all the resources needed to have a rich and rewarding life. But sometimes I came across abject issues of deep poverty that jarred me. At points, I felt crippled by the sense of unfairness that I have so many blessings that others don’t. Some days, it paralyzed me. It really tested my equanimity practice - because I had to find some kind of peace in order to enjoy my time. I listened to my guilt and promised myself that I will do more to make the world a fairer place on my return - but also gave myself grace that there’s only so much I can do, and that most of the pain in the world is out of my control. At the same time, I had to be firm that it’s immature and narcissistic to make others’ pain about myself -while also assuring myself that the existence of others’ pain need not diminish my own joy. That I can hold the good and the bad together - and honor my guilt through action without letting it cripple me.

• At some point in India, I felt a great resurgence in passion and productivity. I was writing a lot and excited about getting back to Philadelphia and starting my career in mental health. But that resurgence began to fade when I failed to adapt my lifestyle to create a stable base for myself - and especially when I started latching onto old bad habits to compensate for that discomfort. The more my unaddressed discomfort built on itself, the more I avoided writing or doing any kind of work. I even started to question my entire new life path and my move back to Philadelphia. I began to realize that maintaining my base of stability is not only crucial to some baseline wellness - but it’s necessary for me to be able to challenge myself and achieve my goals (at least in a way that’s satisfying and doesn’t include brute force). I need some baseline of comfort to be able to fulfill my higher order needs of being challenged or expressing my creativity. But also, it gave me a more felt knowledge that every good thing I do for myself has a ripple. That meeting my needs creates momentum for me to meet other needs - and vice versa; ignoring my needs can lead me to ignoring other needs. It has a lesson that I need to be more diligent that my lifestyle is needs responsive.

• Over the last ten months, I’ve been impressed with the resilience of my growth work. It’s shown it can stand strong with friends, with family, with work, and recently even in discomfort. What my dalliance with Dalan showed me though was that the great test of my self-worth and self-love will be in romance. It will be in finding a partner who isn’t toxic for me in familiar ways - and not losing myself in the romance. I expect this journey will start for me when I move back to Philly - so I have a few more months to prep.

• I wrote in my last update that I used to mistake over sharing with vulnerability. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on how many kinds of sharing (especially trauma dumping), when done without purpose and in intimate contexts, are inherently manipulative. I’ve caught myself sharing information these last couple of months that I didn’t need to and found I elicited a reaction I didn’t want (like pity or offers of support). Upon reflection, it should have been clear to me each time what would have happened if I shared whatever I did - and my casual lack of consideration showed an unkind disregard for the person I was talking to. It’s led to a large scale questioning of what my purpose is when I share something about myself - and a heightened intentionality around how much I reveal about myself. (I recognize the irony of burying this in an enormous blog post detailing an incredible number of intimidate details about myself. But these posts are essentially my travel journals, and their purpose is to tell my story. But in them, I also choose to leave out all sorts of bits and pieces).

On the whole, I think these two months were quite humbling for me. I’d been attaching to the idea that I’d made enormous strides in my personal growth and even coming to believe they were permanent. But I’m human and fallible. And these two months reminded me that growth is non-linear and no version of me is forever. That being a person that I can be proud of and that gives me senses of authenticity and integrity is a daily effort and requires vigilance. I dropped the ball from time to time these last two months. I stuck too rigidly to routines that had been working and missed when they stopped. I wasn’t paying attention to if my lifestyle was needs-responsive, and when it wasn’t my more immature parts began to creep back up. I do have pride that I picked it up fairly quickly (at least relative to my track record), though, and am already making big adjustments. Sometimes growth is in the bounce back.

I’m Very Over budget

If you’re wondering how much this is costing me - so far, for eleven months in Europe, the Middle East, Christmas in the US, North Africa, India, New Zealand and Taiwan, I’ve spent $24,723. I wrote about my budget here - but I’m now thoroughly and probably unrecoverably over budget - by about $2,600. New Zealand proved even more expensive than I expected it would be, but I don’t regret it at all. Those three weeks with my niece were invaluable, and I think if I had gone any cheaper I would have cheapened the experience.

I expect I’ll end up slightly under budget for all parts of my trip except New Zealand, so I think my worst case scenario will still be under $32,000 for the entire journey. It seems the $2,000 my parents gifted me for the trip will be put to use after all.

My Minimalist Pack Has Grown Some

I’m now three months into 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.

With these additions, my bag is definitely more tightly packed - but still able to fit in an overhead; I do have to take some of my heavier objects out and put them into my smaller bag, though, to stay under the 20 pound limit for budget airlines. Overall, I’m happy with this pack; it has gear for most weather, some quality of life supplies, and has not required extra baggage fees yet. If I could change one thing, I’d swap out one pair of pants for a lightweight set of pants better for hot weather. Overall, it’s definitely easier to pack light if you’re never bumping into cold weather.

With this new pack, it’s easier for me to walk where there aren’t many sidewalks, to move quickly, to get in buses or trains with my bag, and to explore with my luggage when necessary. 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.

At some point when my energy stores are back up, I’ll post a bag 2.0 blog about more minimalist packing. My energy reserves for the blog do continue to be low, though, so I’m not promising it anytime soon.

KNOW ANYONE ELSE WHO WOULD LIKE THIS?

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