“If [we] can make it there, [we’ll] make it anywhere!”
Applying Sinatra logic to our lives, we’re going to make a brand new start of it, outside New York. But before we get to re-establishing a career- and rent-centric life, we’re going to travel around the world a little bit while we can. At least, that’s the plan!
The Decision
Since leaving the UK almost three years ago, when our Masters degrees (and visas) were drawing to a close, we agreed that the top experience we both next wanted out of life was another chance to live (and work) abroad. While we received job offers to teach English in China, our visas were repeatedly denied. So, in a fit of dysphoria and looming poverty, we moved to New York where we knew we could find employment while considering our next move.
Through networking and research, we quickly deduced that finding employment that interested us in foreign locations would be significantly more difficult than our once-idealistic selves had assumed. So we made a decision; if we can’t guarantee ourselves career opportunities abroad, then we can at least guarantee ourselves travel opportunities abroad. Hence, the saving had begun!
When our lease renewal agreement arrived for our signatures in February, we took a look at our cumulative savings — composed of packed lunches, non-luxury gym memberships, and ghastly Megabus tickets — and decided that, yes, we can do this. √ No, we will not renew our lease for June 2017 – June 2018.
The Plan
In order to maximize the contents of our bank accounts, which are by no means grand since we we’ve been paying rent in Manhattan from 24 months, we’ve had to plan our travel very precisely. We’ve also had to schedule around a few weddings of loved ones, move-out dates, and monsoon season. Now that we’ve completed making our arrangements through December, we can get to the fun travel planning part and relax with a couple more weeks of eating out of our parents’ fridges.
Our mini world tour itinerary…
Journey 1: Europe & Morocco
First stop at the end of July, we’ll jet off to Great Britain for a whirlwind reunion of our favorite people and places in London. From there, we’ll get to appreciate the wonder of British train transportation as we head north to a small village along Hadrian’s Wall called Haltwhistle. We stayed at the lovely Twice Brewed Inn there in 2014 and we’re making a return visit to walk the countryside and relax in the cozy pub interior. More importantly, we’re hoping to run into Ol’ Melvin, the local inebriated taxi driver who takes you on a roller coaster ride from the train station, careening around steep drop offs and sheep. Such fun!
Then it’s up to Edinburgh for a friend’s birthday, a hen party, and then just a bit further up the coast to St Andrews for a wedding. Following this much anticipated matrimonial shindig, we’re headed for a month of relaxation and accelerated touring in Portugal and Spain. Actually, it’s better characterized as a month of tapas consuming and accelerated Spanish learning (we hope). Before we get our Spanish game on, we’ll spend a few days in Porto, visit the Douro River Valley, and be super on trend in Lisbon (according to BuzzFeed’s “Where should you and your mom and your girlfriend and your aunt holiday this summer?” quiz).
In Spain, we’re planning to spend time in Seville for the architecture, Bilbao for the pintxos, San Sebastian for the beaches, Pamplona for the non-bull running history, and Madrid for the culture. And to make this trip more affordable, given the relative strength of the Euro to the US dollar, we’re renting Airbnbs in every city. Not only are these cheaper than most centrally located hotels, but many of them include kitchen access allowing us to eat-in frequently and do laundry on the premises, so we don’t lose precious vacation hours at the laundromat learning the proper Spanish etiquette for washing machine piracy.
In early September, we’ll get to travel to Morocco for a week, thanks to some wicked cheap Ryanair flights from Madrid to Fes. Of course, we may change our tune when Ryanair tells us that our heads are oversized and we’ll have to pay extra to check them in the storage hold…Either way, we’re excited to ramble this walled city and journey on to Casablanca where we fully intend to visit Rick’s Cafe and make lame movie references the whole time. We’ll fly back to London for a few more days of familiar faces and places before this leg of our trip concludes.
Journey 2: Asia
We’ll fly back to the States to switch our bags of lovely wedding attire and sophisticated Euro-wear for our embarrassing matching backpacks full of forgettable t-shirts and Deet for Asia, then set off for Japan. We’ll spend several days in Tokyo before heading over to Kochi to visit Brian’s brother and then roll on to Osaka with day trips planned to Kobe and Kyoto.
Next, we’ll blow our budget on just a few days in luxe Hong Kong to soak in the madness (and food!) there. Heading to Vietnam, we’ll make stops in Hanoi, the less touristy northern portion of Halong Bay, Da Nang, and then on to Ho Chi Minh City, where we’ll tour the Mekong Delta, hopefully steeped in all the culture and natural beauty that we have longed to see (before it is dammed by CERTAIN neighbors upstream — the area’s biodiversity clock is ticking, people).
From there, it’s a jaunt to Laos, and the UNESCO heritage site of Luang Prabang, home of stunning jungles and Buddhist temples. We’re really not sure what to expect in Laos and are excited not to do a lot of research in preparation, but rather to just soak the place in. Our only plan is to avoid any unexploded ordnances. Basically just trying to make our travel insurance worth it.
Next up: Cambodia, specifically Siem Reap, for the ancient labyrinth of Angkor Wat. We’re not sure if three and half days will be sufficient to appreciate the capital of the former Khmer kingdom, but years of New York power walking has trained us well. Provided no one gets Dengue fever, we’ll be heading back to India at this point in our trip.
On the recommendation of a few friends, we’re visiting the backwaters and rolling tea plantations of Kerala, on the southwest tip of India. Sophie is especially excited about the food here, and that at our subsequent destination, Chennai, as south Indian cuisine is meant to be spectacular. Prepare thyselves for much food porn. After the south, we’ll go explore the colonial relics in Kolkata before heading to Bagdogra to join a tour of Darjeeling and Sikkim, the former Buddhist mountain kingdom that was annexed by India in 1959.
In Darjeeling, we’ll get to tour a tea plantation or two and enjoy the ambience of this hill station, and then drive to Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim. We’ll try to catch a glimpse of the world’s third largest peak at Tiger Hill and soak in this area with its geographical and cultural similarities to Tibet, that is, before it was crushed, censored, and deflowered by authoritarianism.
While we plan to backpack throughout this trip, we’ve started purchasing additional checked bags for flights starting in India because, having seen the multitude of colors and creations in Indian markets before, we know we’ll crack and start shopping at this point in our journey.
Leaving India, our next stop will be Bangkok for a brief visit, as this city is a major hub for cheap flights across Asia. While here, we really want to get massages and we really don’t want to get into a Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason situation. Our last destination before catching our return flight out of Tokyo will be Seoul, assuming it is still standing by November. We’re sure we’ll have a great time here on the basis that the hotels we looked at all have really fun and adorable names like Monkey Love Heart Hotel and Kissy Friendship B&B. This is sound logic, right?
Journey 3: The Wild West
To combat our post adventure, homeless, unemployed blues, Brian’s mom graciously gave us her timeshare credit which we’re using to rent a condo in St. George, Utah with some friends just after Thanksgiving. We’re anxious to appreciate many national parks in the area before Zinke personally destroys them, such as Zion, Bears Ears, and the Grand Canyon. To cut down on costs, as we’ll still have no income at this point, we’re planning on driving from the St Louis area and camping along the way. On the other hand, we might have a wealth of redeemable points at Hotels.com by then for when Sophie realizes that camping involves bugs.
The Future
Then, dear friends, depending on how many samosas we bought, we will attempt moving to Argentina, making the necessary stops in Colombia and Chile along the way, to get a sense that we’re making the right choice in relocating to South America.
But before all this, we had to do the absolute worst thing known to mankind. Move.
The Move
It’s surprisingly humbling to pack up everything you own. Will our entire studio fit into a small minivan? Maybe. Let’s throw some more personal belongings away. Now does it fit? Maybe taking a picture will help us determine. Nope, still not sure. Then, you ask yourself two things:
- Why my stuff so blurry? Maybe I should invest in clearer stuff. Or glasses.
- Why is 50% of what I own cleaning supplies when my place isn’t even that clean?
After selling your furniture (which isn’t even actually yours to begin with) to Old Ron the kindly, but hard bargaining upstairs neighbor (who cannot speak a sentence that contains less than sixty words, two anecdotes about meeting an important West African leader, and an exhortation on the busyness of New York City) and to Geronium, the ‘smashing!’ upper-west-sider, fake-British grad student pursuing studies in ‘non-binary theoretical feminist-literature studies’ studies, and discarding the free Italian books from your apartment basement (The Lover of Armando and The Lover of Armando’s Lover’s Cousin) — let’s be honest I wasn’t going to read them–then it’s finally time to consider packing your stuff for real. Woah, that was an Old Ron style sentence. Now you understand our pain.
Unfortunately, one in our pair has a terrible aversion to packing and moving. So, we’re going to follow a simple plan.
Step One: Throw away everything you don’t like (or donate it to a scam called ‘Goodwill’).
Step Two: Wrap everything you do like in old clothes, then change your mind about whether you like it and then just jam everything in a box or bag forcefully.
Step Three: Ask yourself one simple question. Do you really need that? The answer is always ‘No’.
Finally, when the hysterical partner is on the brink of a meltdown, take stock of the situation. It’s been two plus years now in New York. That means over two years of chaos, noise, lack of affordable housing and (accessible) groceries (#fooddesert). To keep us looking forward, we’ve composed the below list of things we will absolutely not miss.
1. The noise. Especially in our neighborhood: sirens, 3am domestic disputes about someone’s hair, gunshots, low-flying aircraft, outrageously loud music enhanced by the brick amphitheater that is our street, 3am disputes about the noise of neighbors’ domestic disputes, children shrieking gleefully at midnight on a school night, etc.
2. The cost. We don’t just mean the drain on your pocketbook. The constant emotional strain of worrying, “Will this be the addled, semi-homeless person that finally stabs me?” Not to mention the tax burden, Good God. Where else in the world can one pay 45% tax so that those in the adjacent public housing units can get the latest iPhone? Similarly, you can’t help but notice the lack of other services that persist… but hey… as Tituss so eloquently remarks:
3. The ‘tude. The attitude of New Yorkers is pretty appalling, but since we’ve never met someone actually from New York in New York, hard to say what the attitude really is. Nevertheless, all the transplants are pretty ‘busy’ and will step over (or right on) dying old ladies to get on the subway. They will also walk directly into you while looking at their phone and scoff because you didn’t get out of their way. Sidewalk walking in New York is an aggressive, competitive affair that is likely to raise your blood pressure and persuade even the most ardent pacifist to carry some kind of blunt object for bludgeoning.
All in all, this trip and life shake-up are pretty badly needed for us both and we’re hoping this is one of the better decisions we’ve ever made. Regardless, the flight’s booked so — brave or stupid — here we go!
-Sophie & Brian
P.S. Mucho gracias giphy.com for providing gifs for our internal monologues.
idaknowwheretogo (I don't know where to go!) 