Why One Man Didn’t Quit His Job to Travel The World
Kevin Porter isn’t sure how many countries he has been to, but he thinks it’s in the mid-forties. In many instances spending months or even years in one place; Africa, The French Alps, London, Dubai.
However, unlike the popular narrative suggests, he didn’t have to quit his job to do it. In fact, his career has only amplified his positive travel experiences. Adding an element of human connection through solving problems at a local level that would not be possible as a drifting backpacker.
Harvard
Kevin was first captivated by international travel when the Peace Corps gave a PTA sponsored presentation at his high school. One of the presenters said she had traveled to twenty-six different countries. This was inspiring for a then 16-year-old Porter whose world was a ten-mile radius around his Westford, Massachusetts home.
Porter is not a stereotypical free-spirited twenty-something backpacker. His clean-cut appearance and athletic build is complimented by an extremely intelligent, informed, articulate, and wise persona.
It was never his intention to go to Harvard; he actually applied to thirteen schools. Ultimately, he figured he would have been happy at any school. Driving him isn’t as much ambition as it is a love of learning, an unquenchable curiosity, and a craving for new and unfamiliar situations. As an extrovert, he loves investing himself in activities and staying engaged with the people around him. This quality is arguably the foundation for his success as a traveler.
Harvard was a rat race for most of his classmates who were going through intense corporate interview processes. “Harvard was such an amazing place, with an amazing community and unbelievable opportunities. I saw a lot of my classmates and friends missing out on aspects of that culture because they were so focused on the competitive job process.”
Like many of us, he was disillusioned by the financial crash of 2008. However, a cultural shift to more creative careers encouraged him to seek a different life.
Love At First Sight
His first solo immersive travel experience overseas was for a summer internship working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in South Korea. “My time in South Korea was really pivotal in creating and enforcing this idea that this is the kind of experience that I really wanted to nurture.”
Every weekend he took overnight trips to the far corners of the country. He went to the world’s largest mud festival in Boryeong. He hitchhiked throughout the night to get to an international beach rave; sleeping in the sand for the weekend.
Then at the end of the summer he blew his stipend from Harvard on a trip to an island off the coast. He ate horse meat sushi and made friends with complete strangers while hiking through the mountains.
This taste of freedom was all it took, Porter was hooked.
9 to 5 Hell
Studying International Relations and Comparative Politics, he initially was able to fight the magnetic pull of the Finance job that many of his Harvard classmates were drawn to.
Then he met a man who was a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and the CEO of a mortgage bank in Chicago. The man wanted to show Kevin this world. So after his junior year he went out and became the youngest licensed mortgage banker in the state of Illinois and succumbed to the dreaded 9 to 5.
That summer taught Porter an important lesson. Although he appreciated the opportunity, he absolutely did not want to work at a bank and wear a suit every day.
“One of the things that always rubbed me the wrong way was the ‘etiquette’ of the office. It seemed so pointless to me. The expectation is to stay until your boss leaves. You are just sitting at your desk for 14 hours a day, not even really doing that much. Just motivated by social decorum. Why not let people live their lives as long as they are being productive and getting their work done?”
Take Advantage of Transitions
Porter believes that it’s important to take a moment during big life transitions to have time and space to think. Whether it be after college or between jobs. This way we can be intentional about what we really want to do after that moment.
After graduating in 2010, Porter, his brother (a Naval Architect and Yacht Designer), and two other friends through-paddled the Northern Forest Canoe Trail.
It is a 740-mile wilderness waterway through upstate NY, New England, and Canada that retraces indigenous people’s seasonal migratory routes. They were the first group to complete the journey in kayaks. It took 55 days. There was over 50 miles of portaging (carrying gear and boats to get to the next waterway). However, by the end of the trip they had walked 165 total miles. First carrying their boats and then going back for their gear.
“I could not have imagined a better way to end my Harvard career. A a time when we are feeling such pressure socially and career-wise. We are constantly plugged-in to friends on the phone, social media, and email. To leave it behind and only be responsible for paddling a boat for 10 to 12 hours a day was a perfect way to decompress. We were outside, rejuvenated, self-reliant, and had no contact with anyone except for the people with us.”
Corruption
Before the journey, he decided that he was going to move to Kenya. He knew he wanted a totally different environment and was less concerned about what job would bring him over there.
Through the connections of a friend at Harvard, he landed a job as an infrastructure development consultant. On a Saturday in mid-August, he said goodbye to his family and friends and moved to Kenya. On Sunday he met the family he was going to be living with outside of Nairobi and by Monday morning he started his new job. By Monday afternoon he had already been exposed to so much corruption and unethical dealings that he knew he couldn’t stay.
Among other things, they were producing plagiarized consulting work and giving kick-backs to the Kenyan Ministry. Then during lunch, his boss casually admitted his involvement in real estate dealings with Somali Pirate organizations up the coast. “It just wasn’t an environment I wanted a part of.”
After a lengthy conversation with his intimidating and connected boss, he was able to quit by the end of the following week. It was a pretty serious jolt to the idea of the type of job he was looking for. That night, he sent emails to everyone he knew looking for new opportunities.
Rustic Pathways
A friend saw a job posting for an international management training program for Rustic Pathways; a Student Adventure and Service Travel Company. While still in Kenya, Kevin interviewed and got the job.
Currently, Rustic Pathways has more than 100 itineraries for students. 80% of which involve some amount of community service or community partnership. In 2015 alone, students completed a staggering 154,000 hours of community service with 256 different community partners.
Offering a variety of community efforts. Students help in efforts from securing affordable housing for poorly treated laborers to building aqueducts that bring clean water to remote villages. There are programs for aspiring doctors, environmentalists, educators, athletes, and even adrenaline junkies. All of which are immersive learning experiences that involve local politics, health, and social issues.
In the first year, Kevin was the Ghana country director. He lived and worked in Ghana for half the year finding communities to work with and ran student programs. Early into employment, the CEO approached him to do international sales recruiting for Rustic Pathway’s programs. After the CEO approved Kevin’s plan, he told him to hire eight people to visit 700 schools in 35 countries.
Kevin loved being in the classrooms. He enjoyed teaching about the opportunities for travel but also addressing current events and issues that he is passionate about. Issues like international refugee rights that he had dealt with first hand in South Korea. For students, the idea of engaging in the real world with issues they are studying in the classroom is empowering.
This first year ballooned Rustic Pathway’s international presence. After this success, Kevin took on the European market for two years. More than 20% of students are now from the international market, representing 68 different nationalities.
Service Complexity
Kevin wants people to know that there are ways of positively impacting the world while pursuing your passions. It’s not just a selfish activity.
“One of the things that I think is really important and what we try to imbue in our students is that there is a lot of complexity in the community service dialogue. For example, if you are an 18-year-old on a trip teaching English to kids in Peru for a few days, are you really having an impact? Maybe, but potentially you are having a negative impact. We need to think about that.”
Whenever they send a group of students into a community Kevin tries to think intentionally about the outcome of their decisions. He approaches each project with a great deal of humility. They are not experts and are not there to tell a community what their problems are. Instead, they find the stakeholders in the community, do needs assessments, and listen to the initiatives that community members would like to take on.
It is important to have local stakeholders invested and be clear about expectations. Also, it is important to put mechanisms in place to ensure their efforts are sustainable and the students are just a small piece of a larger initiative.
In Ghana he had a contract with one of the community partners for 26,000 pairs of TOMS shoes. They distributed them to children at local schools. “Superficially this sounds like an awesome idea,” says Porter. However, they never considered the impact on Northern Ghana’s shoe markets which put shoemakers and shoe salesmen out of work. “You have to be comfortable engaging in the complexity of development.”
Making Memories
He struggles to pinpoint his favorite place to travel. This is the longest period of silence in our entire conversation, but once he started it was apparent that he could talk for days on the subject.
“I love traveling in Oman. An area called Khasab with the most spectacular turquoise water surrounded by desert mountains where you can see the layer of rock. It has amazing snorkeling and scuba diving. You can sail around on traditional wooden boats used on the earliest Middle Eastern trade routes.”
“I love traveling in Burkina Faso. It is an amazing clash of old French colonialism with the outskirts of previous African kingdoms that were far more developed than a lot of American’s realize.”
“I love traveling in Laos. Sheltered behind the communist regime, it’s probably what Thailand felt like 30 to 40 years ago. Really underdeveloped. There are remote communities in picturesque jungle with amazing rivers.”
“I love spending time in Kenya. Traveling up the coast to the Lamu Archipelago. About 50 kilometers from the Somali border.”
“Lesotho is such an amazing country. It’s the highest elevated country in the world because its lowest point is the highest up. It has snowy peaks which most people don’t realize Africa has.”
Not Always Exotic
It may be surprising, but the United States has given him some of the most memorable travel experiences. Along with his kayaking journey, he did the classic American cross-country road trip and a 19-day rafting adventure in the Grand Canyon. According to Kevin, a lot of people think that they need to go somewhere completely exotic to have an interesting cross-cultural experience, but the U.S. has a lot to offer.
“The U.S. is a massive country the size of Europe, think about the cultural differences that exist there and those same cultural differences are present here. Also, the variety of landscapes that we have. A lot of people put the burden on places they need to spend a ton of money to get to, that’s definitely not the case.”
Quit Your Job, Travel The World
“For a lot of people, to quit our jobs and travel around the world would of course be awesome. But the reality is that people need to make money.” Kevin believes that this idea misses the entire point. A recent piece in the The New Yorker called “Why I Quit My Job to Travel The World” perfectly captures the irony and hilarity of this mantra which permeates throughout our culture.
We need an income to achieve our short and long-term goals, but Kevin believes there are amazing vehicles to pursue your passions if you just think creatively.
He admits that traveling indefinitely would not be satisfying, getting a lot of pleasure from overcoming professional challenges. It all comes back to his core desire to learn. “Certainly travel pushes you, but how about travel in a professional setting?”
Living like a local has been one of the most rewarding aspects of his journey. “When you spend more time in one place, especially working, it is really cool to break through the two-week barrier and you have to start functioning more like a local. Grocery shopping, cooking, and nurturing relationships.”
Travel Instincts
Developing travel instincts, judgement, and situational awareness is necessary as travel destinations become more remote. Kevin prides himself on his refined skills, but many times has learned the hard way.
He has been held up at gun point in Turkey, detained on false charges in Zambia, involved in a street fight in Burkina Faso, quarantined with Leptospirosis in Costa Rica, diagnosed with Malaria numerous times, had his toe-nails removed without anesthetic after bugs laid eggs underneath, survived on boiled goat stomach for weeks at a time, and was hospitalized more times than he can count.
“I could sit around and tell travel stories all day.” Kevin admits these are occasional by-products of travel, but it is a small price to pay for the amazing experiences that he has had. Choosing to engage with people instead of distrusting them.
“It’s all about attitude. I’ve had a lot of uncomfortable things happen to me over the years but the thing is you walk away from those situations with humor and satisfaction over navigating difficult situations and reinforcing your self-reliance. I’m all for travel that is going to push people’s comfort zones, but I know that level of tolerance varies.”
The Hometown Odd-Ball
Kevin believes that travelers seek a community of other travelers because it sometimes feels like family and friends back home struggle to understand their lifestyles. “You become the guy telling these travel stories and people thinking you are the odd-ball. It’s nice to be in a group of people with somewhat shared experiences.”
Extended travel often intimidates people. Skepticism arises from the fear of missing out on “life” back home. He finds it hard to miss big events, but has accepted that it is one of the sacrifices you have to make. For each missed event he stops to ask himself whether it makes sense for him to be away.
To Kevin, it’s all about striking a balance. “It’s not an all or nothing proposition. It’s always important to ask yourself, am I happy now? Is what I’m doing fulfilling? If the answer is no, then you need to ask what it is that you are going to change to pursue your happiness. There are careers that allow you to travel extensively, but not totally at the risk of having a relationship.”
This balance has shifted for him over time. Early in his career he traveled 11.5 months of the year which wasn’t the right balancing point for him. He never even had an apartment until last year.
“Balance is important because sometimes you see people that begin to resent their passion. They may feel it is pulling them away from other things like relationships or family. You can’t let that resentment and negativity seep in without having a serious dialogue with yourself about your balance for your happiness in all aspects of life.”
Reciprocal Friendships
To some people, traveling for long periods of time seems lonely. However, Kevin finds it interesting how you can concentrate relationship and friendship development when you are in really interesting settings and situations.
“When you are in a situation that is pushing your comfort zone, or making real-world decisions with people, they are generally more open to having a deeper dialogue. I have met and traveled with people for only a few days, but found it amazing how close we got due to really powerful shared experiences. Sitting with people around a fire in the Ghana bush under Baobob Trees, talking about where you are from and where you are headed. It seems more comfortable than a conversation you might strike up in NYC or Boston. When was the last time you were at a bar and immediately kicked off with ‘what’s your passion, what are you excited about, where do you want to go?’ Usually it’s a superficial conversation.”
Now Kevin has friends and contacts all over the world. People come stay at his house in Boston and he stays at their homes in various countries. Friends he made in his early days in Kenya have now traveled with him on four different continents. “You get so much more out of an experience if you are able to connect with the people.”
Have you dreamed of quitting your job to travel the world? Think like Kevin and maybe you don’t have to. Consider what talents you have to offer and avenues that would allow you to share them with the world. Comment below or email me at editor@theunconventionalist.com to let me know what you think! Visit theunconventionalist.com for more stories.
