Month Six of Remote Year: Vietnam
The halfway point in a year that blows all others out of the water.
Technically, my sixth month of travel hasn’t just been in Vietnam. Korea and Japan were in there as well. I wrote a bit about Korea in my last post, and still stand by how awesome I thought Seoul was. But Japan…that country brought things to a whole new level.
I’ve wanted to visit Japan for quite some time and see sights that I’d only ever seen in photos. Our time was split between Tokyo and Kyoto, about 4 days in each, and to be perfectly honest — it was one of the best trips I’ve ever done. From the cities themselves to the nature hikes to the food to the people I traveled with, it really couldn’t have been much better. I’ll most certainly be back, and for a lot longer.
After about 3 weeks of consistent travel, I finally landed in my home for the month: Hanoi, Vietnam. I set my bar pretty low for the city to manage expectations and mentally anticipated it to be similar to the life I’d had in Morocco 3 months earlier. All of that changed as soon as I walked out of the airport into the hot, humid air and couldn’t help but smile. I was immediately in love. My apartment is incredible, the streets are full of life and energy, the weather is sublime, the countryside only a few hours from the city blew me away, and the food…oh man the food. I never really dove into Vietnamese culture before arriving here, but now I can’t believe I never familiarized myself with it before. Also, I’m a pro at chopsticks now—I never want to use forks again.
There are 3 other groups that began their travels before mine started in June. One of them wrapped up the same month that I began, and the other two are close to finishing. For a while I worked on tracking down those members’ thoughts on the program, their experiences and their feedback. One thing that I kept seeing was the 6 month review, just like the 100 days checkpoint. Admittedly I thought it was cliché at first, but for a variety of reasons the last month has been intense and unexpectedly emotionally reflective. So this feels appropriate.
We’re living in an absurd social, and psychological, experiment.
Let’s be honest: how many people do you know that’d say “yes” to giving up their entire structured life, live out of a single suitcase and change homes to new countries for an entire year? Not many. I know lots aspire to, and dream of the opportunity, but most never take the first step. Which, as I’m more than aware, is entirely understandable. What results from the people that do, however, is a strange mix between The Real World and The Amazing Race. It takes a specific kind of person to commit to this level of crazy.
Almost everything is documented in some form: whether it’s on social media through Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook, written and recapped in posts like these across personal blogs, recorded for the obligatory monthly recap videos that fuel all kinds of nostalgia, or shared by the Remote Year company themselves. It’s almost impossible to do anything that doesn’t catch someone’s attention and ends up being reverberated throughout the group. Oftentimes they’re hilarious moments, but sometimes they’re just not. So in one form or another, we’re all forced to relive moments that occasionally, we’d rather forget.
We’re being asked to reveal, and grow into, our true selves.
When you strip away the material possessions, the stable lifestyle, the apartment you’ve decorated just so, the neighborhood and bars you’ve become “the regular” at, the hobbies, the relationship drama that dates back years, and ultimately the people who know you best, you’re left with one thing: yourself.
I know I have character flaws, I do things that annoy others, and I don’t get along with everyone (though it’s a very specific type of person). I’ve shared deeply personal stories with specific individuals here that I’ve only ever told 5 people in my life before Remote Year. This was a big risk for me, but it was immensely worth it and a massive personal growth moment. But through the course of this extreme experiment where everyone is around one another almost constantly, others’ true selves start shining. And that’s when you know who is that kindred spirit you can never imagine living your life without, and who is someone you’d be perfectly okay never interacting with again.
Knowing this doesn’t make anything better or worse, and it doesn’t define people as inherently good or bad. It just means that you’ve found others on this planet that you most likely never would’ve crossed paths with before, who are now going to be individuals that are part of the rest of your life.
By being asked to embrace the unknown every single day, nothing is out of the question.
Every day is my own to create—it’s liberating as all hell. Generally, I wake up when I want, I go to work when I want, I take adventures when I feel like it, and I engage with who I please. There are still the days where I have to stick to a set schedule, but those days are still mostly under my control. This drastic change in behavior has permeated just about everything in my life. I plan far, far less than I used to and I let things be what they want to be. It’s also allowed me to accept and understand that I can handle any challenge that comes my way, because ultimately it all works out.
Spontaneity brought me to Istanbul last month on a whim where friends and I bought tickets the day before our departure. It then changed all of my travel plans for after Korea when my roommate convinced me that going to Japan right after Seoul would be a brilliant decision. Turns out he couldn’t have been more right. Finding a place to stay on the day of travel, randomly popping in and out of neighborhoods and buying travel tickets on a whim is incredibly liberating and allows for so much flexibility. When you trust that most of the time everything works out, it usually does.
Our entire lives are in overdrive. That’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying.
Take the average relationship you’ve had back home and think about how long it took you to feel comfortable with this person. For them to know you incredibly well and vice versa. To know your ticks, your bad habits and be able to read you without having to say a word. Now compress that entire timeline into a couple months. Then add on your career expectations, your personal growth goals, your need to maintain connections back home, and your travel ambitions. Things that are normally unfolded, discovered and understood over the course of years are now happening in months-long timelines.
I might not have physically changed as much as was anticipated in my visit back home in September (despite considerable weight loss and a couple new tattoos), but internally I’m an incredibly different person. My views have evolved, my life priorities have shifted and most importantly, I’ve learned. How to be a better human, how to speak up and how to be there for others. I’ve also learned a ton of things professionally, but that’ll be part of another post.
This lifestyle isn’t for everyone. But for some, it’s everything.
Not everyone that started this journey in June is still part of our group. We’ve had many people leave over the last few months, which has caused a mixed set of emotions. And also a considerate amount of debate amongst those that remain. Some of us have begun to talk about our plans after RY has finished: go home, go back to the job we had, move cities, continue traveling, leave it all up in the air. There are several responses for this one.
As ambiguous as every day can feel, Remote Year as a concept is a pretty structured one—you know your itinerary, you know how long you’ll be there for, and you know who you’ll be traveling with (for the most part). So there’s comfort in that and that works for a lot of people. For others, not so much. I’ve maintained relationships with a few people who have left the program and listened to why leaving was the right move for them.
I’m well-traveled: that’s no secret. Before RY I’d traveled to 30 countries and 25 US states. By the time I’m finished with the program at the end of May 2017, I’ll hit at least 15 more countries. In 6 months I’ll have hit all 7 continents. Many of these trips have been solo adventures, while others were with lovely travel partners. So why stay with the group if 2/3 of what’s offered is something I could very easily do on my own? Great question. In short: I’m currently figuring this one out. Right now, my answer is the community—I enjoy many of these people. But I also really enjoy some of those that have left and am thinking about how I can keep them as part of my life moving forwards.
Joining Remote Year was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made—but it wasn’t a decision I could’ve made alone. To the friends and mentors back home that helped push me to what was so obviously the right thing to do: thank you. You played a significant role in making me the happiest I’ve ever been and pushed me to do what was right for my life. Regardless of how it might’ve affected you. I owe you one.
And for those of you reading this that are looking to join, or have been accepted to, a future Remote Year itinerary: prepare yourselves. Whether you stay with the group the whole way through, or duck out early (which happens and is fine too), you’re in for a wild ride.
