Nomadic Life, Month Two: Singapore, Bali, Cambodia

Nomadic Life posts are more personal recaps of what life is really like when you live like a moving target. From personal challenges and triumphs to upcoming travel plans, here’s an insider look into my life out of a suitcase. 

We have a week left in Singapore, which blows my mind.

The last month of nomadic life has been full of movement and there’s no hint of slowing down. With all the upcoming travel plans I have swimming in my head right now, from trips to the consulate to overnight train schedules, here’s what (little) I can remember from the last month.

It’s possible to have a luxury vacation without opening a vein.

Bali. The name itself evokes visions of paradise and luxury. A literal dream destination for many US citizens. And while I’ve never been much of a beach person, for some reason I got stuck on the idea of a perfect holiday in Bali and I could not shake it. Even when our original flight was canceled due to volcanic activity and we had to rebook at 3AM on a total different airline, I was going to Bali.

But on the flight, I started to panic a little (and only partly about the dangerous volcanic ash cloud). We had managed to book affordable accommodation, but I had no idea what the prices on the ground were going to be like. I remembered cringing on Santorini, another idyllic couples destination, as we paid New York style prices. Was the sting of high prices going to sap all the magic and romance out of our trip?

But almost immediately, I saw that my fears were unfounded. Could you spend a ridiculous amount of money in Bali? Sure. But we didn’t even consider our budget too much during our vacation and we still had money left over. We went to get massages TWICE. On our last evening we went to a fancy French restaurant (and had the entire place to ourselves) and then spent our remaining Indonesian rupiahs on booze at duty free!

If you’re traveling throughout Southeast Asia, Bali is definitely going to be on the expensive end but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I imagined. It’s incredibly easy to feel like you’re getting a luxury vacation on a mid-range budget. For US citizens, the biggest expense is going to be getting there.

Travel is less of an adventure when you can Tweet, FaceTime, and just generally wifi your way through it.

The Internet is a blessing and I would never wish it away. But in the middle of a frustrating situation with my US bank, I found it amusing how the Internet makes creative problem solving easier.

When my bank was unable to process a request I made through the website, I tried to call the international number. It didn’t work. I tried to reach them via Twitter, where customer service was responsive but overall unhelpful. In desperation, I reached out to my parents. I got on FaceTime with them, had my mom call my bank, and stayed on FaceTime with my dad in case she needed any information from me. And everything was fixed in three minutes.

How would I have fixed a bank problem fifteen years ago? Fifty? A hundred? So yes, maybe our level of connectivity has made travel less of an adventure – but it worked out well for me this time!

You can spend a lot of time thinking about the future without actually planning it.

Practically, this means getting on a flight and realizing about halfway through that you’re not sure you have everything you need for the visa on arrival and dealing with your panic by writing an extensive blog post to warn people to be better prepared than you could ever be. I knew I was going to Cambodia and I knew that there were visa procedures… But seriously, you don’t want to be that person who’s on the subway to the airport, praying that the blog post you read about there being an photo booth for visa pictures in terminal 2 is still accurate.

But there’s more to this than just the logistics.

I thought being based in one location for two, three months at a time would really allow for slow travel. Get to know a place, move more leisurely, not feel rushed in planning future trips. Instead, I feel like I’m constantly searching for flights, researching transportation options, and scrolling through accommodation.

It’s a lot of hours spent in front of the computer screen, absorbed in the future.

I am going to eight countries in the next three months and the amount of planning is overwhelming to the point that I sometimes avoid it. Or, I spend hours and hours researching without making any actual decisions. I just spent two hours staring at my computer screen, sifting through accommodation in Bangkok to come up with a list of six possible hotels that all cost the same, all have the same amenities, and are all within about three blocks of each other. And I still haven’t booked one of them.

And I’m not traveling alone, so sometimes this affects my travel partner as well. We don’t always have the same travel plans and if I get too caught up with daydreaming about trips and not actually talking about them, it can create a lot of confusion. And even when we’re going on a trip together we have to be careful not to get mired in the planning process. I’m finding that too many options can really suck the joy out of trip planning, which – in the age of information oversaturation — is a clear and present danger. I definitely feel like I’m learning a lot about how to juggle day-to-day life and future plans, though it’s still a process. Better communication and swifter decision-making is making it easier.

You start to miss the taste of home.

At first I missed cheese. Then donuts. Then pasta (with cheese). And then the holidays hit and my cravings only grew.

For me, more than any other holiday, Christmas has a taste. Maybe it’s because my family has so many Christmas traditions centered around food. My sister recently sent a picture of her son curled up reading a book and drinking a mug of Russian tea, a family recipe we traditionally only make at Christmas time. We have set menus for our holiday meals, dishes that we don’t make any other time of the year. One year my mom and I made twenty-one different kinds of Christmas cookies. I’ve thought about trying to recreate some of my favorite holiday food and drinks here in Singapore so that I don’t miss out completely. But do you know how much a Starbucks peppermint mocha costs here in Singapore? Seven dollars. Kinda sucks the joy out of my holiday spirit.

Now I’ve started to make a list of all the places I intend to hit up the handful of days I’m home. So far there are two ice cream shops, a burrito place, three bars, and every single slice of dollar pizza I come across.

Traveling with a girl friend is awesome.

I haven’t traveled with a female friend in over five years. It’s just hard to get schedules to match up, you know? Especially with people you enjoy traveling with.

But by a crazy coincidence, a friend from college and I ended up spending three days exploring Siem Reap and Angkor Wat together. From getting massages and zipping around on a motorbike to exploring Angkor and eating bugs (her, not me), it was so much fun to experience Siem Reap with a friend. And also, pedicures.

So what’s up next?

There’s more from this last month. There’s more I’m still processing and thinking about. But I’ve also got to find that balance between what’s happening now and what’s coming up. Because in a week we leave Singapore for three weeks of adventuring through Laos and Vietnam. Because I just used all the points on my Southwest card to book eight flights for January and February and the only thing I’ve planned about those trips is that I will be eating all the tacos. Because in February I’ve got to get from Mexico City to Belize City and my Spanish skills can barely get me to a bathroom.

So yeah. Here’s to hoping I can keep up with the pace of my own life!

So here’s the deal. I used points from my Southwest card to book some awesome flights. I’ll be flying into Mexico City at the end of January and flying out of Belize City three weeks later. I have no plans and no idea about how I’m going to get from one place to another. If you have any suggestions or any tips, let me know! 

Until then, we’re about to go adventuring for three weeks through Bangkok, Laos, and Vietnam. There will be overnight trains and motorbiking and street food and really exciting things I don’t even know are coming up! The best stuff goes up on Snapchat: wayfarersbook.