How Tomislav Extreme Budget Travels for Less Than $10 a Day

After my first independent trip overseas in 2005, I came home, quit my job, and prepared to travel the world. However, at home, I immediately felt alone. Few people supported me, most were confused by the idea, and even more tried to talk me out of it. Back then, quitting your job to travel the world made people think you were slightly crazy. Over a year ago, I created a community section of this site for us to mingle with, encourage, and advise each other so no one would have to feel that way. I wanted a place where people could turn to for support. Today we have over 3,300 members and over 10,000 posts!

Each month, we highlight one or two members on the forum. Today, I want to share with everyone who might not read the forums the story of one of our most active community members, Tomislav from Croatia. Tom has been traveling the world on an extreme budget ($10 USD a day) since 2008 through a variety of ingenious ways. While this level of austerity is not for everyone (including me), his spirit and philosophy is still amazing and I wanted to share it with you. Without further ado, here’s our interview:

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone about yourself.
Tomislav: My name is Tomislav Perko, I’m 30, and I come from Croatia. I started living my life only recently, by moving away from the usual “be born – go to school – get married – do the job that you don’t like – take credit out for 30 years – have a few kids – retire – and die” lifestyle. Recently, I published a book called 1,000 Days of Spring, which quickly turned into a bestseller in Croatia, and currently I’m back home, working on my second book.

You said you started traveling recently. What were you doing before? Why did you start traveling?
Before I started traveling, I was a stockbroker. Suit, tie, nice restaurants, a lot of money — that kind of lifestyle. But then the financial crisis came, and I lost everything. That’s when I discovered Couchsurfing — and by hearing first-hand stories from people that passed through my home and seeing a spark in their eyes, I thought to myself, maybe I should try it out myself.

And I did.

Did you always plan to travel on $10 USD a day?
The only thing that is a constant when talking about my travel plans is that I didn’t really plan anything. When I started traveling, I had almost no money, and the amount I spent on the road determined how long could I stay on the road. $10 USD was more than enough to cover some basic needs, and the best thing was that I really enjoyed traveling this way. I loved the challenge of figuring out where to sleep, how to get somewhere, what to eat.

In a way, being almost broke was the best thing that happened to me. While traveling on a low budget you appreciate the little things, such as hot meals, soft beds, and transportation, after a few hours of waiting in the sun. You are grateful for little things you are not thinking about when you can afford three meals a day, when your shelter has already been prearranged and you know a way to get to your destination. You are grateful for all the miracles that, inevitably, occur daily.

Where did you get the $10 USD figure? Did you research it? Why $10 USD and not $20 USD?
Well, I didn’t plan it to be $10 USD or any other amount, but when I traveled for a couple of months, looked back on my budget and did the calculation — it turned out that it was about that amount per day.

Of course, some days I spent $50 USD, or bought a plane ticket for $100+ USD, but then I spent few weeks or months volunteering and not having to spend anything. So at the end, it all levels out to $10 USD a day.

How do you specifically stay on budget when you travel?
When it comes to transportation, I mainly hitchhiked everywhere I went. It was fast, safe, reliable, and free. But the best thing was that you get an amazing story of how you got between point A and B, you talk with locals, and learn from them. I also walked a lot, used some public transportation in cheap countries, relocated a few cars, etc.

As for accommodation, I Couchsurfed most of the time — I already had plenty of experience from hosting few hundred people in my own place before I started traveling, so that helped a lot. You spend your time with him/her, they take you out with their friends, on family gatherings, and to see some amazing local spots you would probably miss out on.

When I didn’t Couchsurf, I camped, slept in parks or beside the road, volunteered, tried house sitting and home exchanges — there are so many alternatives to ho(s)tels. They require much more planning and energy, but they save you money and give you so much in return.

I bought food in supermarkets and cooked by myself or with my hosts, never drank in bars but in parks, even tried dumpster diving couple of times. You have to know that food is everywhere, and a lot of it is being thrown away — some say that over 40% of food produced is being thrown away. You just have to figure out a way to get to that food before they throw it. If that means standing in front of a pizza place in Machu Picchu and waiting for some folks to leave the table and leave few slices untouched — then you do that.

Is this a good idea? I mean, $10 USD a day is pretty cheap, and it’s not something I would do. It means you can’t walk into the Louvre, dine on good food in Italy, take a boat tour, or sign up for a jungle hike.
First of all, this type of traveling isn’t for everyone. I tried it, and I liked it. The thing is, I never traveled for the sake of seeing things. I was more into experiencing. So, instead of seeing the Louvre, eating in amazing restaurants in Italy, taking a boat tour, or going on a jungle hike, I was interested in talking with people, learning from them, and trying to live as a local. For that, you don’t need a lot of money.

Don’t get me wrong — it is more challenging and more limiting, but challenges and limitations are the things that push you into being in the moment, and doing everything in your power to get to something. That’s what I loved the most!

Have you worked or volunteered abroad?
I worked on a permaculture farm under the Himalayas, managed a guesthouse in Malawi, spent time in few orphanages, cleaned rooms and took care of 5 dogs and 14 cats in Ecuador. Volunteering is a great way to save money, take a break, and — what’s most important — learn about the place you are visiting and connect with people living there.

Mostly I found these volunteering opportunities on the spot, or I used WorkAway.

And when it comes to finding work, I sometimes (badly) played the guitar on the streets, or connected with people and asked them if they knew anyone that needs someone capable of working various jobs.

You seem like an adventurous guy. Tell us some crazy situations that you’ve run into on the road.
I would say these are my top three:

The craziest story is not from the road, but from the sea. I hitchhiked on a 13-meter yacht from Australia to Africa, without any sailing experience. It was probably the most and least adventurous journey I was ever on — the most when I talk about it now, after it happened, and the least when I was sailing for those 45 days. Nothing happening, just four of us on that small boat, sea and sky around us. Nothing else.

Then there was spending three days on the border of Iran and Pakistan with Iranian military officers, ending up staying in some dental laboratory with guys smoking opium all day long, crossing the border and being put in the bus with an armed escort and driven for 43 hours until reaching the capital, Islamabad.

And there was also driving all day long from Swaziland to north of Mozambique, singing with my driver to keep him awake, ending up in some small town where everyone is out in the middle of the night drinking, and spending the night under some old truck in my sleeping bag because it was raining.

Give us your most unique money-saving tip.
The Internet is your friend. There are so many ways to save money, and they are just a few clicks away. Find volunteering opportunities; accommodation via Couchsurfing, house sitting, or home exchanges; transportation via ride-sharing, car relocating, or boat hitchhiking… and realize that every dollar less spent is worth a few more days on the road.

All this seems like a lot of work. How much time did you spend arranging accommodation, finding rides, work shares, etc.?
A lot.

I repeat: traveling isn’t necessarily a vacation. Traveling, especially in this way, is a lot of work. People think doing this is just cocktails on some beautiful sandy beach, but the truth is sometimes quite the opposite — you are lonely, hungry, or sick, and you have to deal with it.

Same with looking for transportation, accommodation, and food. It’s easy to check the bus schedule and go to the terminal, but it can be hard to get out of the city to find a good hitchhiking spot, wait there for hours, talk with many drivers, look for Couchsurfing hosts, choose them wisely, find their homes in strange cities, etc.

It is a lot of work, no doubt about that. But, that work pays off. It definitely does. Every single day.

Do your family and friends support your travels? Did they always?
They do now, after many years, but it wasn’t always like that. I had to deal with the usual issues of my parents being worried, thinking I’m not using my life properly, etc. But with years they got used to it. I emailed my mum every day, no matter where I was (except from the Indian Ocean), we talk on Skype often, and when they saw me making a living out of my travels, being in the media, giving lectures to hundreds of people, they realized that this is my way, and now they are big supporters for me traveling.

But I know its still hard for them; it must be when your child goes away, especially when he/she wants to hitchhike and sleep beside the road. But in the end, they have to, or they should, understand your urge to explore and your path to happiness.

What advice would you give to new travelers?
Traveling is not the best thing in the world. It won’t solve all your problems; you can be lonely, hungry, freezing in your sleeping bag. It’s not something you have to do.

But if you want to, if you feel that desire to head into the unknown, then you have to know that it’s possible. I won’t say it’s easy, because you have to adjust your lifestyle to the road, but it can and will be rewarding, no matter what.

If I did it, I think anyone can.

Some quick questions: Window or aisle?

Aisle till I die!

Even though, I don’t really like airplanes. Or airports.

Big or small dorm?

I’ve only slept in a hostel dorm about 10 times in my life, and most of those times were when I was volunteering. But if I have to choose, I prefer small dorms.

Favorite country?

Not possible to asnwer, so I’ll give my favorite country on each continent.

• Europe: Spain
• Asia: India
• Oceania: Australia
• Africa: Malawi
• South America: Peru

Least favorite country?

Cannot think of any that I can put “least” in front of.

One item you can’t travel without?
My little sheep. This sheep is my important travel companion. Why? First of all, I got it as a present from a very dear friend of mine, who knows me best. Second of all, I am also a sheep (or Aries): stubborn, impulsive, and enthusiastic. So in a way, she reminds me of who I am. Third, she wants to send out a message. Basically, she is a sheep, but she doesn’t listen to the shepherd, or follow the herd. She does what she likes — she travels with a smile on her face! She wants more people to experience that way of life, without borders, without fear.

Having all that in mind, it was logical that she joins me on my travels. Every now and then she gets lost and travels solo. One summer she wandered around Portugal, Spain, and France, and one time she left me in Kuala Lumpur, I had no idea where. But she always comes back to her favorite travel companion!

****Tomislav definitely has his own style of traveling. It’s something I don’t think I’d do (camping isn’t really my thing and I love museums too much to skip them), but he shows us that where there is a will, there is way and

Tomislav definitely has his own style of traveling. It’s something I don’t think I’d do (camping isn’t really my thing and I love museums too much to skip them), but he shows us that where there is a will, there is way and it is possible to travel for very, very little money . He’s lived in exotic places for a day for less money than most people spend on lunch! Take a page from Tom’s book and make it happen. Even if you don’t want to travel like him, he shows us that with a little creativity, any trip can be possible.

You can find Tomislav and all of his awesome adventures on Facebook, YouTube, TEDx, and his blog, tomislavperko.com.

Other Inspiring Stories

One of my favorite parts about this job is hearing people’s travel stories. They inspire me, but more importantly, they also inspire you. I travel a certain way, but there are many ways to fund your trips and travel the world. I hope these stories show you that there is more than one way to travel and that it is within your grasp to reach your travel goals. Here are more great contributors to the forums:

We all come from different places, but we all have one thing in common: we all want to travel more!

How to Turn Right at Machu Picchu and Find Atlantis

Earlier this year, I read the book Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams, about his quest to follow Hiram Bingham’s trail through Peru. It made me want to jump on a plane right then and there and gave me an insight to Peru I never knew before…and it gave a whole list of off the beaten path places to visit! After I read his new book, Meet me in Atlantis, I cold e-mailed Mark for an interview. He was hesitant at first, but I persisted and got to speak to him while he was in NYC! After fanboying out over his books and taking a few selfies, we got to the interview:

Nomadic Matt: Tell everybody about yourself. How did you get into travel writing?
Mark Adams: I grew up outside of Chicago and studied English in college. I went off to grad school thinking I was going to be an English professor, but after getting my master’s, I took a year off and tended bar. One night a friend of mine said she’d met the managing editor of Outside magazine and that she thought I should apply for their internship program. Working for a magazine had never really occurred to me; it seemed like something people did in the movies. But I bought a copy of Outside, loved it, applied for the internship, and got it.

After six months at Outside, I went to New York and got a job fact checking at GQ. The great thing about fact checking was that you went from nothing to working with some of the best writers in America. And then you had to take apart their stories, line by line, and examine the basic elements that make up a great story. It’s a lot like diagramming sentences. And then you get to eavesdrop on the conversation between the writer and his or her editor to see how they decide what’s working and what isn’t, how to “kill your darlings” as they say, and cut your prose to its essentials.

Nomadic Matt: How were you inspired to write your book Turn Right at Machu Picchu?
In 2009, I was working as an editor at National Geographic Adventure magazine and realized I was seeing pictures of Machu Picchu everywhere—on the cover of the magazine, in the office hallways, in the materials we sent out to potential advertisers. At that time Machu Picchu had roughly the same status for travel magazines as pre-scandal Tiger Woods did for Golf Digest. You could put it on the cover again and again and again and people didn’t care. They’d buy it every time because it was on their wish list. Everyone wanted to go!

I’d just published my first book, Mr. America, which got wonderful reviews and sold about twelve copies. I realized the 100th anniversary of Machu Picchu’s rediscovery was coming in 2011 and thought, “If I could just pull my act together and get this book reported and written in about 15 months, an anniversary would be a great tie-in when it comes time to promote this thing.” So I decided to retrace Hiram Bingham’s incredible 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition on which he located the ruins of Machu Picchu.

Nomadic Matt: Your wife is Peruvian. Did that play a part in wanting to write about the story?
Yes, but what really got me excited about seeing all the various sites was going back and reading Hiram Bingham’s original story about how he’d been enchanted by the idea of searching for the lost city of the Incas, a place known only from the 16th century chronicles of the Spanish conquistadors, a mysterious place called Vilcabamba.

The way Bingham told it—and Bingham was a great self-mythologizer—in 1911 he had departed from Cusco and, along the way, he stopped at a tiny riverside inn. The tavern owner there said, “You know, there are these interesting ruins up in the mountains if you want to check them out.” And Bingham supposedly was like, “No, no, I’ll get to them later.”

But Bingham goes up the next day and sees Machu Picchu completely overgrown by vegetation. Even with trees growing on top of the temples he could tell it was an incredible site. He takes measurements and drawings and stuff, and, crucially, snaps photographs to take back to the U.S..

Bingham eventually did find the city that experts now consider to have been Vilcabamba, but it was a bug-infested, ugly pile of stone ruins down in the Amazon. Bingham thought, “this couldn’t possibly be the romantic lost city of the Incas I’ve read about. Instead, it had to be this sort of majestic city I saw on the mountaintop.” And he spent much of the rest of his career trying to prove that (incorrectly, as it turned out).

Nomadic Matt: So what made you then decide to turn right at Machu Picchu and see all these other sites?
It was Bingham’s 1911 expedition that did it for me. Back then was the golden age of exploration, when explorers were becoming famous by racing to the South Pole and filling in the last blank spots on the world map. Bingham desperately wanted a chunk of that trend. Once I read his accounts and went through his papers at Yale, I knew that if the territory he’d traveled through was still anything like it had been back in 1911 that this was going to be a great trip.

The part of Peru he’d walked through was one of the most amazing and varied places on earth and aside from the modern Machu Picchu tourism apparatus, it had barely changed in the hundred years since he’d been there!

When I started to plan my own expedition, I realized there were no roads to most of these places. It’s days and days of walking, so just like Bingham I needed to hire mules, mule tenders, and a cook. Once I went down to Cusco and met my guide, John Leivers, I knew this trip had the foundation of a great story: it had characters, action, adventure, and, importantly, things that could go wrong. Remember, at the start of the book I’d never slept in a tent before.

Nomadic Matt: Why do think everyone focuses on Machu Picchu and not all of these other sites?
Because Machu Picchu is so spectacular. It’s like stepping inside a natural cathedral. Not just the buildings themselves but their locations, the way they’re nested in this sort of cradle of surrounding mountains, and the way the Urubamba River wraps around Machu Picchu in a sort of omega shape. The way the fog disperses in the morning. The Incas knew exactly what they were doing when they picked that spot. It’s got to be one of the most beautiful sites on earth.

Nomadic Matt: Are the other sites not like that?
They are very interesting, and some of them are in spectacular settings, but a place like the real Vilcabamba in the jungle is very hard to get to. Unlike Machu Picchu, there’s no hotel. Most of these places have nowhere to stay, no café or anything like that. It took us three days to get to Vilcabamba on foot. As John Leivers says in the book, that kind of travel has largely fallen out of fashion because people are, for better or for worse, into this sort of “Instagram travel” where we go someplace mostly to get an awesome picture and show it off for bragging rights.

Nomadic Matt: You know, as much as I live on the internet, there are some times I’m just like, “We don’t have to photograph every meal. Let’s just eat!” Could those other sites be built up?
They could be, and the Peruvian government is trying to figure it out. They’re talking about building a cable car up to the ruins of Choquequirao, which is known as Machu Picchu’s sister city. But a place like Choquequirao is still pretty far out. You have to hike down and up a canyon that’s akin to the Grand Canyon.

I think over time the other sites will become more popular. People are always looking for a less crowded experience. They’ll figure out the experience at Choquequirao is still like Machu Picchu was like 25 years ago. It’s still a very dirty, sweaty, bring-your-own-backpack-and-camping-gear kind of trip. It’s the sort of place you’ll see a lot of Germans with a lot of big backpacks, and in my experience, if you get someplace and see a lot of backpacking Germans, you’re probably someplace that hasn’t really been discovered yet.

Nomadic Matt: So let’s talk about your new book, Meet Me in Atlantis. How do you go from Machu Picchu to this?
While I was doing Machu Picchu I came across a story in the New York Times from 1911, a front page story with the headline “German Discovers Atlantis in Africa.” It was about how some German explorer had gone to what I think was what we now call Zimbabwe, and used the clues that the philosopher Plato had written about in his Atlantis story to find what he thought was the original lost city.

Around the same time that I started thinking about Machu Picchu, I was working for National Geographic Adventure on the day that Google Earth came out. We started getting all these excited emails from people saying, “I’ve found Atlantis!” They all thought it was this sort of grid pattern in the southern Caribbean; if you zoomed in, there was a little tic-tac-toe thing down there. It turned out to be signals from ships’ sonars or something like that, which Google later erased, leading to new conspiracy theories, as is often the case with Atlantis. It made me realize that there were a lot of people out there who still think they can find Atlantis.

Around that time I was writing a magazine story about great philosophers and had to read a lot of Plato, who is the only source for the Atlantis tale. I realized there’s an awful lot of detail in this thing. There are descriptions of the city, buildings, distances, and names of places that may or may not be the same as similarly named places today, like when he mentions Gades, which is now Cádiz in Spain. The idea of searching for the truth became irresistible to me.

Nomadic Matt: Why do you think the Atlantis myth persists so much?
For starters, it is such a great story. As someone once said, it’s basically Star Wars in sandals. You have this evil empire, ruled by kings that used to be virtuous and became debased, and they go up against scrappy little Athens, and suddenly this indomitable force of Atlantis is overcome in a day and night by an earthquake and flood. This sophisticated island nation disappears from the face of the earth.

The other reason is that if Atlantis is real and somebody does find it, that’s like finding King Tut’s tomb times ten. You’ll instantly be one of the most famous explorers of all time. Your name will live forever.

Nomadic Matt: You also think it could be this idea that we were once better than ourselves?
Nostalgia for a great lost golden age runs deep. It might even be in our wiring because it’s so common. Everything from the Garden of Eden to Shangri-la is a sort of human longing to go back to that original lost place.

Another important thing to remember is that Plato was writing about Atlantis when written history was a new technology. For more than 2,000 years everyone assumed that The Odyssey and The Iliad were made up stories, but now many experts believe that they were based on real events. So the question is, how much of the Atlantis story that Plato tells did he intend to be fictional and how much of it did he intend to be taken at face value?

He may be telling stories for purposes we don’t fully understand. The Atlantis story, at least the first part, comes at the beginning of the work called Timaeus, which is Plato’s attempt to explain the nature of the cosmos, to explain how the universe worked, arguably the most important topic that could possibly be discussed. A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick it at the beginning of what may have been his most ambitious work strikes me, at the very least, as a little weird.

Nomadic Matt: Since people can’t go to Atlantis like they can Machu Picchu, this book is much less a travel book than the other. What do you want people to take away from this story?
Well, that raises the question of what a travel book is. Hemingway’s novels in Spain? In Patagonia? A Rick Steves book? The Viking Cruises catalog? The thing I always tell people when they ask me how I became a travel writer is that I never became a travel writer—I just became a writer, or to use a term that is overused these days, a storyteller. Everything I write is a nonfiction story with plot development and characters that change in some way during the events conveyed; many of those stories just happen to take place in interesting locales. There are actually more travel details in the Atlantis book in terms of airports and hotels and restaurants than in the Machu Picchu book, but the thing I want readers to take away from Meet Me in Atlantis is the same thing I hope they take away from anything I write: I want to temporarily immerse them in another world, to make them think “wow, I had no idea.”

Nomadic Matt: Touche! What are your three pieces of advice for all the travelers out there?
I would say:

1. Learn to pack better. I traveled to six countries over five weeks while reporting the Atlantis book and thought I was doing pretty well. Then I went to Madagascar with some guys who were serious ultra-endurance types who specialize in minimizing their loads, including one guy who was an ex-Army Ranger whose pack was like Santa Claus’s bag of toys—he had everything in there. And it made me realize that I was still overpacking. Now I go with a large daypack, period, and it simplifies everything.
2. Put your phone down and talk to someone. If you’re traveling just for photo ops, you’re better off going to a Sears Portrait Studio and using their prop backgrounds. You’ll save a lot of money and everyone you went to high school will be impressed. “Wow, when did you go to the moon?” I think there are parts of your brain that only open when you travel, and if you spend all your time trying to document your own awesomeness, you completely miss a rare opportunity to explore new regions within your own mind.
3. Buy a good fleece jacket. Tuck the body into one arm to make a pillow. Get a window seat on your long flight. Sleep.

*****
Turn Right at Machu Picchu was one of my travel books of the year and, as an Atlantis myth lover , I enjoyed that book too. My grandmother was very into Atlantis, Ancient Aliens, crystal skulls, and the like so when I was younger she would always talk about them with me. Having grown up with an intense fascination with this stuff, I found the science and research behind proving/disproving the myth fascinating (my take: I think Atlantis existed as an advanced society by contemporary standards in Spain). Mark is a captivating writer and both his books were delights to read. Next year, I’m heading to Peru and plan to visit some of the off the beaten path Inca sites mentioned in his book. Time to put on my own Indiana Jones hat!

P.S. – If you want more reading suggestions, come join the free community book club and get 3-5 recommended travel books sent to you once a month! You can click here to sign up.

Why Going Home Does Not Mean Failure

Posted: 08/12/2013 | August 12th, 2013

“You’re going home?” I asked her as we sat in the hostel’s common room.

“Yeah, I really miss my boyfriend and family. This long-term travel thing just isn’t for me. I’ve cut my trip short and will be going home in a few weeks.”

“Wow!” I replied. “Well, it’s important to do what makes you happy. At the very least, traveling taught you something about what you do and do not like. That’s a win.”

And, with that, we moved on with the conversation.

She, like many others I’ve met on the road, headed back home, not in defeat, but victorious, content in the knowledge they discovered more about themselves.

When I began my travels, a million and one fears and worst-case scenarios went through my mind. What if I can’t make it? What if I can’t find friends? What if I get so lost I can’t find my way back? What if I get sick? What if I run out of money?

What if, what if, what if!

Thanks to the many emails I get, I know those thoughts go through the minds of others too.

Many of those “what ifs” keep people from going on the road. We can become so paralyzed by our fear of failure that we forget that all those fears don’t matter because no matter what happens, we can always come home.

It’s OK to say, “You know what? I miss my home, I miss my friends, I hate hostels, and it turns out my idea of travel involves moving from one luxury resort to the next.”

The most important thing is that you tried and you learned.

I had no idea long-term travel would work for me. My original trip was only for a year, and I could have decided to come home three months in.

But here I am, seven years later, still in love with travel. I would have never known if I didn’t ignore my fears and try.

We can give in to fear, the “what ifs,” and the worry, and instead stay safe at home. Or you can head out the door and try.

Who cares if you decide to cut your trip short? Who cares if you think “this life isn’t for me?” You travel for yourself. You do this for you.

When I decided last year that after over six years of almost constantly being on the move, it was time to settle down and create roots somewhere, a lot of people emailed me, expressing sadness that I had “given up” traveling.

But times — and people — change. I had nothing to prove by continuing to travel when my desires lay elsewhere. Travel is a personal experience and at the end of the day, how you feel about it is the only thing that matters. I still believe life on the road is amazing — but sometimes I want to head off that road for a while and sit in front of my TV watching a movie.

So if you’ve been thinking about traveling but worry you can’t make it a full year around the world or that you might not have the skills to travel, I say to you: Who cares? You can always head home if you want.

So what if you can’t make it? What if others think that? I say it doesn’t matter.

Because returning home is not a failure.

Travel teaches us about ourselves and makes us better people. Deciding to come home simply means travel taught you something about yourself you wouldn’t have known otherwise — that extended travel is not for you.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

Take a chance.

Because the path back will always be there, but the path forward might not.

So travel and learn something about yourself.

Even if what you learn is you’d rather be home.

13 Reasons Why I Fell in Love with Japan

Last month, I toured Japan for three weeks with G Adventures. As you know, I was very excited. I had high expectations for a country that I had for years dreamed about seeing. And when you have high expectations, you can be easily disappointed. But Japan didn’t disappoint — it exceeded my expectations. I loved Japan! Loved it beyond anything I expected. The food, the people, the architecture, the culture — it was bliss. Just how much did I love it? Let me count the ways:

Temples and Zen Gardens

The temples of Japan are beautiful. The bells, the Zen gardens, the bamboo, and the torii gates really do instill a sense of peace and serenity. I’m going to create one of these for my future home.

Sushi

Sushi was one of the things I was most looking forward to eating while in Japan. After all, Japan is the birthplace of sushi. Even the worst sushi I had was still as good as the average sushi I’ve had elsewhere in the world. The sushi trains (those little conveyer-belt sushi shops) even had great toro (high-quality tuna)! And the best sushi? The Michelin star, drain-your-wallet kind? So good, it makes you cry tears of joy. The flavor, the soft texture, the moist rice — heaven.

Politeness
I couldn’t get over how amazingly polite everyone was. People went out of their way to be helpful. While getting lost looking for my Couchsurfing host, a guy walked me all the way to the address to make sure I got there. A security card who spoke no English just walked me to the ATM because he couldn’t explain the directions. There was always an offer of helpfulness at the slightest indication of confusion. There was always an apologetic “sorry” — even the signs, when letting people know something was not allowed, began with “sorry.” There is simply a courtesy and helpfulness that permeates the soul of Japan.

Friendliness

The woman who ran out of her house to talk to our tour group. The man who let everyone take 1,000 pictures of his dog. The college students to whom I gave English lessons. The owner of the noodle shop who spoke no English but wanted to have a fake game of baseball with me when I told him I was American. The old couple who just smiled at me while I ate at their sushi restaurant and gave me a thumbs up every time I said oishii (“delicious” in Japanese). The man who helped me place my order in Japanese and was shocked when I knew the names of fish in Japanese. Everyone was just helpful and genuinely friendly.

Boyfriend/Girlfriend “Service”
While in Osaka, my Couchsurfing host took me to the nightlife area and we did a little people-watching. There on the street were young men and women dressed in bad pop-star outfits chasing down rich men and women in order to be their “friend for the night.” And I don’t mean in a hooker way. They are simply paid for their company (and even bought stuff!). Weird, right? How come no one pays me to hang out with them? Apparently, they earn up to $1,000 USD for this per night, and there’s no expectation of sex at all! This makes the list for one reason: it’s fascinating. Talk about something that is culturally Japanese! I could sit there on the street with some popcorn and watch as girls and boys dressed like anime characters chase after sugar daddies and mamas who might buy them drinks or bad outfits.

Bullet Trains

Bullet trains cut nine-hour journeys down to 2.5 hours. That’s what more of the world needs. Spacious, clean, fast, and semi-perfect — they just need Wi-Fi and electrical outlets.

Sidewalk Vending Machines

You are never more than 10 feet from a vending machine in Japan. Everywhere you look, two or three machines are lined up to give you everything you need — beer, sake, water, tea — to quench your thirst. Even on tiny, small-town streets without a soul in sight, you would see the glow of one of these machines. Now, if only they had food vending machines!

Crazy Fashion
I love the crazy and wacky outfits people wear in Japan:

Multipurpose Train Stations

When is a train station not just a train station? When it’s a Japanese train station. In Japan, train stations aren’t just for trains, they’re also for malls, supermarkets, huge restaurant areas, and office buildings. Talk about using space effectively.

Service
Asian countries always have much better hotel service than in the West, but Japan takes it to another level. I left my bags out one day and they were brought to my room. Towels brought up just because they thought I might need extra. At the traditional hotels, my bed mat was set up at dinner and taken away while I had breakfast. Hotel owners wave you good-bye. Everything is done with a bow. Everyone is helpful. American hospitality is great, but even we could learn a thing or ten from the Japanese.

Japanese Onsens

I’m not a fan of bathhouses. Sitting around naked with a bunch of people isn’t my thing. I gave the Japanese onsens a try, but there were just too many naked men for me. However, I did venture out when they opened first thing in the morning to have them to myself. I have to admit: sitting in a hot bath with a little waterfall near you is pretty damn relaxing. I want one in my house…when I get a house.

Sake

Japanese rice wine is one of my favorite alcoholic drinks. The smooth taste, the fine finish, the fruity flavoring — mmmmm. It makes for the perfect accompaniment to Japanese food. Sake in Japan doesn’t taste better than anywhere else in the world; there’s just more of the good stuff (a fact I took full advantage of!). I especially enjoyed how you could get free sake samples at stores!

High-Tech Toilets

Leave it to the Japanese to turn a simple toilet into a technological marvel. There you sit down on a warm seat, while music is playing, and (sorry for getting graphic) have a jet of water come and wash you from the front or back. It’s pretty awesome.

As I watched the sunrise over Mt. Fuji toward the end of my trip, I dreaded leaving Japan. Japan exceeded all of my expectations, and I only scratched its surface. What wonders did I miss? What other secrets does Japan have to offer? From Hokkaido to Okinawa, my mind darted to all the sights on my list I didn’t get to see. I already long to go back. Within a day of leaving, I had withdrawal. Like a bullet train, Japan had sped to the top of my favorite countries list.

I’ll be back soon. And when I do, this list will surely get longer.

Finding a Map for Saturday: 10 Years Later

IN 2006, few weeks after I returned from my first round the world trip, I was eating lunch with a friend. “Have you seen A Map for Saturday?” she asked me. “No, what is it?” I responded. “It’s the world’s best travel movie. I think you can go to the website and buy it directly. It’s a documentary.”

I went home, ordered it online, and popped the CD into my computer. The movie follows the 11 month trip of Brook Silva Braga from when he quits his job to when he returns home. It was – and still is – the best movie I’ve ever seen about long term travel. No film has captured the ups, downs, and life of a backpacker so beautifully. It nails the why of backpacking. From the desire to experience something new, to the lulls in the road, to the five minute friends who become our life long buddies, to the desire to run away again when we get home – this movie gets it all. Since that first viewing, I’ve shared this movie with friends, gifted it to travelers, and have lost track of how often I’ve watched it.

The movie was released exactly ten years ago and so today I sit down with Brook (who I now call a friend) to talk about the movie that remains on the top of everyone’s best movie list and the impact it’s had. (It’s still watched today. A friend of mine just posted about it on his Facebook feed!)

Nomadic Matt: As a refresher, tell everyone about yourself!
Brook: Well, I’m a guy who quit his job to travel the world for a year — which, obviously, a lot of people have done. But I also brought along a video camera and made a documentary about backpacking culture called A Map for Saturday. I met travelers in Australia, Asia, Europe, and South America and tried to capture what it was like for all of us out on the road.

I got home broke, moved into my parents’ house, and edited the footage together. Then — in a stroke of great luck — MTV bought it! I think the fact I had traveled alone for a year gave the film a kind of authenticity. And I was also fortunate to have a background in TV (I had been a producer with HBO Sports beforehand).

Backpacking had trained me to live cheaply, so I was able to take the MTV money and travel on and off for several more years. I went overland across Africa north to south and China east to west. I made two more documentaries during those years and then settled into a somewhat more traditional life back in the US.

What made you decide to quit your job all those years ago?
When I was 24, HBO sent me to the Philippines to do a story on Manny Pacquiao. I added a short side trip to Thailand and met these two guys from Belfast on a round-the-world trip. The idea of that totally captivated me. I had never heard of such a thing. After a week of traveling with them, I decided I wanted to do a big trip too and that now was probably the best time. So I went back home and started planning. I left eight months later. (Matt says: Thailand is where I met backpackers who inspired me to do the same thing. There’s just something about that place!)

How did you save for your first trip?
I just stopped spending money. I never took a cab or went to a nice dinner and, when I went out it, was somewhere cheap. And, to be totally honest, I had a pretty good-paying job so with some hardcore scrimping I was able to get my savings up to the $20,000 I needed for the trip pretty quickly. I also had a bunch of airline miles from work travel and used them all — 140,000 points and miles — for a round-the-world ticket from Delta. That really helped make it affordable.

How did people react? Back in 2005, I was thinking about traveling too, and the idea of quitting your job was super alien. Most people in my life didn’t know what to make of it. What did people in your life say?
Yeah, I think the main response was confusion. I was a very driven 25-year-old, and people saw that as career ambition. I had been pretty successful for my age and worked hard to get there. So why was I walking away from that?

What they didn’t see was that my ambition was about living an exciting and full life, not just having a fancy job. So from my perspective, traveling the world was just an extension of that “ambition.”

But my parents were very supportive. They had both traveled a lot when they were young, and I think they thought I was a bit too career focused before I left.

What made you want to film your trip?
Well, making a documentary helped ease the sense that I was throwing away my career. I knew I would be in some really cool places; tying them together with one project was very exciting. I brainstormed lots of documentary ideas and never came up with anything great, so I ended up just filming my trip and the people I met, and that became the film.

Do you wish you did your first trip differently?
I really don’t. It was great. My current big-trip dreams are a bit different: I’d like to go to a series of places for a month and get to know each one before moving on.

So it’s the ten-year anniversary of A Map for Saturday. How are you feeling about it?
With time, all the rough edges have gotten worn off the trip and it’s just become a kind of magical memory. The days when I was lonely or bored or stuck in some new city and couldn’t find a room have all sort of vanished. I just remember it as this amazing ride, where I met so many people and stretched myself into becoming someone new.

It really was life changing in the sense that my life priorities were reordered. I became less career focused and left a path that would have been much more corporate. I can sort of picture a richer, fatter version of myself that would exist if I hadn’t taken that trip. And I think that shift in values even changed who I married: my wife is much more aligned with the new me than the old one.

As for the movie itself, I end up watching it every couple years and I’m still proud of it. It still feels like it works as a story. Before I left on my trip, I rented the classic surfer-travel movie The Endless Summer, and I remember thinking it was both good and really dated, and I remember also thinking, “One day, the thing I’m about to make will be dated and that will be weird and bad.” But there’s something nice about the way it has aged. It represents that moment in time pretty well I think.

Did you think the movie would have such an impact as it did? It’s one of the best travel movies out there. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like it.
At the time, I had no idea if anyone would ever see it. If it hadn’t gotten the boost of airing on MTV and National Geographic, I doubt anyone would have known to illegally download it…I mean, stream it on Amazon Instant.

Not knowing if something will be seen is a great motivator for making it good. I spent a lot of time making a whole section on New Zealand that I completely cut. I knew if the entire film wasn’t good, no one would see any of it. So that made the editing process pretty ruthless — I was so focused on making the film succeed. And of course I worried it would suck.

But for years now, the response has been super positive. I’ve made other documentaries since, written a book, done a lot of TV, but A Map for Saturday is still the thing people email me and want to talk about.

Why do think people enjoy the movie so much?
I think because it was made a bit differently. I was just alone with a backpack, and so I started telling the story of what that felt like. Most travel content is afraid to be about the experience of traveling — it ends up being about attractions and destinations. And that’s like making a romantic comedy that focuses on the meal the couple is eating, rather than how they feel about being on the date. In A Map for Saturday, the locations are mainly backdrops to the action, rather than the focus of the story.

I wrote and edited most of the film while I was still living out of a backpack, and that gave me a perspective that I couldn’t have had even six months after returning home. My only real agenda was to be true to the experience even when that played against expectations. So if I was bored or tired, I was going to say so. I think being honest about the less romantic parts of travel ended up being one of the things backpackers related to.

Finally, I think the ultimate theme of the movie is the brevity of youth — and that’s a very powerful theme for a story. To use a cheesy phrase of the moment, you’re watching people “live their best life,” and as you watch the joy and surprises and disappointments involved in that, you can’t help but reflect on how you’re living your own life and how you might wish you were living it differently. Then the end of the trip comes as a kind of death that drives that theme home.

How have your travels changed over the years?
It’s been a while since I traveled for more than a month so the nature of the trips is different. You don’t get that feeling of living on the road. You don’t need to be quite as careful with your spending. I rarely travel alone now (it’s usually with my wife), and that naturally leads to meeting fewer people because you don’t have that desperate desire to not be alone. So, overall, the travel is easier, which is mainly a good thing, but sometimes harder travel can be more rewarding.

What have you noticed about how people travel these days?
The big change is technology. Everyone has a cell phone, and it’s much easier to navigate, to book places to stay. Just like at home, it’s also easier to lose yourself in technology and not engage with the place you’re in. You can just chat with friends on your phone rather than making new ones. People joke that every episode of Seinfeld would be 30 seconds long if only they had cell phones to solve their problems — that might be true of A Map for Saturday too, which is a bit sad, because getting out of problems is half the fun of traveling.

Do you still keep in touch with anyone from the movie? I always wonder what everyone got up to!
I do. Over the years I’ve met up with Jens, Sabrina, Christian, Ella, Kate, Lonnie — some multiple times. Most of them are married and/or have kids now. Facebook was just starting in 2005 so I didn’t often connect with people on it. At first that was good, because it forced us to actually write emails to each other, but over the years that has stopped and I’ve lost touch with a bunch of people.

You’re now married with a kid. How is married life treating you? And how has that changed your travels?
Married life and dad life are great! We just returned from our first big trip together–three weeks in London and Egypt–and it was amazing. Everything seems fresh and exciting when you bring a kid along. It’s like doing it for the first time in a way. And, then in Egypt, everyone loves kids, so strangers were constantly coming up to him. A guard in one of the pharaoh’s tombs got on the floor and they crawled around together for 15 minutes. It was nuts. Traveling with kids is obviously a challenge but it also creates all these experiences you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Long trips seem a lot more common nowadays. Why do you think that is?
I’m not convinced they’re more common; I think they may just be more visible. I saw this terrible editorial recently, criticizing the “trend” of people taking gap years in their late 20s. Those are the people who have always taken gap years! What 18-year-old actually has enough money to travel for a year?

If they are becoming more common, that’s a good thing. Long trips force you to live simply and have a lot of contact with local people, and I think that’s really valuable. I can’t count how many times over the years some professional or personal question has come up about a foreign place, and the fact I had spent time there allowed me to understand what was going on much better than someone who just read a story about it from their desk.

**

A Map for Saturday is now available on Amazon! Here’s the trailer (excuse the low quality. It’s ten years old!):

I highly recommend you watch this movie. Whenever I do a “best travel movie” list, this movie is always number one! Now that you can not only buy it but stream it from Amazon. You totally should. This movie makes me cry (in a good way) and always refuels my wanderlust. Just watching the trailer makes me want to get away!

I can’t recommend it enough.