3 Mind-Blowing Things You Learn After Saying Fck It & Traveling
By: Michele Aldrich
Tags: Travel, Wanderlust, Travel Writing, Travel Tips, Traveling

I set out on my journey overseas with no set itinerary, time period and only with a carry-on and backpack filled with Apple products and yoga pants

If you have ever dreamed of dropping everything and putting your life as you know it on pause to go travel, you should do it. There is never going to be the absolute perfect time and if you are waiting for the travel gods to whisper down to you “it’s tiiiiime”, this is never going to happen.

It takes some diligent planning, saving some cash, increasing your online skills, researching, getting over your worries, and the ability to part with not only things but people and pets. You will have to force yourself to be strong, and believe in yourself that this is going to be a great chapter in your life.

I’m currently writing this while I’m living in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam after donating everything I owned 4 months ago in Denver, Colorado. I travel now for up to 60 days in new countries, out of a backpack and a carry-on mostly filled up with Apple products and yoga pants. I decided to pack my bags after feeling bored in my daily life and city, and knowing that I never wanted my life to be like the Jones’ down the street which was the path that I seemed to be on.

I do not have a set duration of time of how long I will be traveling, and no mapped out itinerary. Call this my pre-mid-life crisis. I’m sure that’s a thing by now.

After being on my newest trip in life, here’s what I have discovered:

1. The 80/20 Rule applies to everything in this world, even traveling

2. You get to know yourself (maybe too well) while traveling solo. What you do when nobody is watching and who you surround yourself matters offline and online.

3. It doesn’t matter where you move to, you will make life however you choose

The 80/20 Rule is legit on everything, even travel

When I started on my fitness journey years ago, I soon realized that no matter how much I worked out it wouldn’t matter in my body transformation if I didn’t have my nutrition in check. I learned that nutrition impacts 80% of the results.

In business, I learned that 80% of my income comes from a few different tasks including creating content, sales copy and marketing.

In travel, I learned that living in beautiful developing countries comes with 80%-wonderful and 20%-oh-shit.

I started off the planning of my trip by attempting to set up a *home* before I took off. Meaning I wanted to set up a place where I felt stability. I have a bizarre personality type where I need to feel a stable home environment, while also feeling I could leave at any moment’s notice if necessary. Sure, you can send me your therapist’s contact…

Bali, Indonesia — where I decided my new “home” was going to be from my cozy apartment in Denver, Colorado

I chose Bali, Indonesia because I saw probably one too many YouTuber vlogs describing their amazing life in Bali. After their influence and being sold hard, I managed to get my one year multi-entry visa surprisingly pretty easy and decided before ever setting a foot in the country that I was staying put for a year in Bali. *Foot Stomp*

Instead of the calm beautiful natural world of Bali that I was expecting, on the day of my arrival I was driven through the city to my accommodations and experienced something a bit different. It took around an hour and a half from the airport — only because we were backed up in traffic jams consisting of a tremendous amount of motor scooters on very narrow roads. I realized wow, there’s a lot going on here in Bali. Looking back now, I think I must have been expecting some magical deserted beautiful island that the travel gods had made specifically for me and about 20 other cool tourists. smh.

The vlogs that I watched did have a lot of accuracies, and I soon discovered the gorgeous country of Indonesia and everything there was to offer. However, there are certainly some “Holy S*** Balls” experiences when living in this developing country that don’t get mentioned and took me a bit by surprise. What I also didn’t know at the time was that Bali was actually preparing me for Ho Chi Minh, but that’s a story for another day.

The 20%-oh-shit that the Vlogs didn’t really highlight was the reckless traffic where many tourists die or are in serious accidents often, undrinkable water, a crazy amount of stray dogs, high probability of food-borne illnesses that you can not prevent, subpar healthcare, mosquitos, ATM skimmings, methanol drinks that can kill you, and creepy crawlers everywhere.

But you’re easily able to brush all of those things aside when have a beautiful beach two minutes from your home, $3 margaritas, delicious smoothie bowls, a whole bunch of “eye candy”, sweet smiling locals, $400/month rent with a maid, and wifi everywhere.

So you can understand why I came to the conclusion that living in this country went along with the 80/20 rule. 80% incredible, and then that other 20% takes a little flexibility. But that’s how life always is. You take in the salt with the sugar. I plan on returning to Bali soon because I love it, despite it’s “things”.

Make sure to do your research thoroughly on the countries that you are getting ready to either visit or live in. But most importantly, lower your expectations and be open to embracing the great while understanding there will be a need to be flexible in a first world country mindset.