THE SOLITARY PANDA

A Long Stroll To Nowhere

I’m taking a long fucking stroll to nowhere. It’s been over 6 months of funemployment and I’m still surviving. Thriving. But how do you move across the world with no money, no job, and survive? I know my circumstances are unique. Not everyone can just up and move across the world. Quit their jobs, sell their possessions. I flew to Asia with less than $1,000 to my name and no plans on when to return. Is it clueless? Is it stupid? Is it crazy? I got more funds since then but the need for funds to keep me afloat is daunting my sense of time and space. With November looming ahead, my student loans which are currently frozen, will begin again.

I can’t speak for others, but I can only provide my own experience. With no formal plans on my travel adventures, I found myself in situations that provided me the most optimal ways of living and traveling on the cheap.

Traveling on the Cheap

For four months, I’ve been living in Buddhist temples to study Mandarin Chinese, Buddhism, and practice meditation. This zen retreat program has been entirely free of charge and I’m grateful for the experience. It has been life changing and I can honestly say that I feel like a new woman. More on that later. Living under the monastery walls has kept me well fed, a budding vegetarian, and my basic needs taken care of, and then some. For four months, my spending has been next to none. Small monthly allowances were given, and I felt a sense of productivity, responsibility and minor volunteering that could carry over as skills in the “real world”.

On August 6th, having been associated with the temple, I got an opportunity to fly to Taiwan where I’m currently at, and attend an International Youth Seminar Buddhist conference at the headquarter monastery for the Buddhist organization that sponsored the zen retreat. The cost of the plane ticket was the only expense I needed to worry about which is a lot cheaper since I’m already in SE Asia. Some spending money for Taiwan was provided by the temple, as well as a scholarship grant of $300 from the conference (an unexpected surprise) that covered the cost of my plane ticket and then some. Yes, I’m bragging, but this experience has been entirely FREE.

Couchsurfing

For those who are unenlightened, couchsurfing is a website network that links travelers together for free accommodations and newfound friends. The idea of sleeping at a stranger’s home might sound weary to some, but the site is set up like a Facebook page for travelers. People can add comments about each other to review their experience and rate you as “positive” or “negative”. The more positive reviews you get, the more trustworthy you seem to others. The network also has an optional system for validating your identities. The opportunity to meet new people–strangers–means the opportunity for making friends.

While I have little personal experience with couchsurfing, I have met many avid couchsurfers who travel solely using this network and live by it as a valid nomad lifestyle. It is a great way to share cultures, make new friends, and travel cheaply.

Freelancing

Freelancing keeps me afloat and gives me enough funds to survive, though not enough to live on should I decide to go back to the decadent American lifestyle. My skills are already set and primed for a travel/nomad lifestyle. Everything I can do is online-based. From web design, social media, graphic design and writing, the myriad of options that I have are optimal for all sorts of projects. Now I just have to implement them, start working, build up my funds to travel sufficiently, and start moving again.

A Long Stroll to Nowhere

The longer I’m in Asia, the more the nomadic lifestyle appeals to me as a longer-term way of life. No permanent address, but “homebases” in the Philippines and Oregon, where my family lives, respectively. It’s a dynamic way to live. Where complacency and being static and “settling down” are scary concepts for me, the exact opposite is where my heart is. Home isn’t a place for me now, but a sense of contentedness in people and my changing surroundings.

I prefer slower travel. Staying in one place from six months to one year at a time. Hopping around and exploring each countries’ surroundings while finding a temporary base to live. Sometimes, I feel like a loser at life because I don’t have anything that I could call a “career” at this point, and my state of confusion over what to do with my life is constantly on my mind. But what I’m doing now is perfect, and at the end of the day, I still have a roof over my head and food to eat. I don’t aspire for material wealth, and poverty is a choice. My life is new and exciting every day, filled with good people and lots of laughter. I’m rarely alone, and rarely lonely. I can’t say I have much to complain about.