*and a couple hundred dollars
ive had some accounts on here where i detailed my situation more but long story short, i’m a brown queer who’s long overdue on leaving an extremely triggering living situation in a southern state with increasingly hostile policies and a personal 0% success rate on finding meaningful friendships, community, or work. i’ve already tried moving to a big liberal city before and while it was better on some ends, i still was unable to make any meaningful connections or enough money that would have made the working just to live in a shitty room at the mercy of random sublandlords worth continuing for me. i also had a traumatic experience where someone scammed me out of a large sum of money, and the worst part of that whole ordeal wasn’t even losing the money, it was the lack of emotional support afterwards.
anyways, after an antagonizingly long hiatus from society despite my best efforts to have even a crumb of a reason to keep hope and effort that i might find something that could give me a reason to keep going, i’ve decided that enough is enough, there’s almost a 100% chance i won’t find anyone likeminded enough here or an opportunity good enough to build towards freedom, and so i want to try vagabonding around before i give up entirely. i feel like i’ve tried every other possible option except meandering around the world so if i plan to call it quits i could at least do this and say hey i tried everything. i literally had 0$ for a while but i managed to sell an old guitar of mine which kickstarted this plan into fruition.
my question is have any of you ever done it without places to stay lined up, tons of savings (i have less than a grand), people to travel with, or a plan? i would love to hear from your experiences, particularly if you are a PoC.
i’ve been specifically thinking about getting a one way flight to portugal and then just very slowly make my way towards africa or asia from there. i’ve also thought maybe it would be smarter to stay in the country in hopes it could lead to more domestic opportunities, but it feels like the law would be more against me within the US. another option could be heading south through mexico to central and south america.
it’s funny because the thing i crave so badly is stability and familiarity and being able to rely on and help and be helped i really just want to live a normie life like id even be willing to go back to wage slaving if there were people that cared about me. this plan feels like the complete opposite lol but if i don’t do anything then i’m just guaranteed to get nothing
I’m not a POC so my experience is tainted by the privilege of not being harassed by pigs too much. However, I will say that aimless travel was the best thing I ever did to understand who I am and who I’m not. It teaches interdependence, humility, new skills, and the ability to adapt/endure. The simple kindnesses of strangers stick with me over a decade later and condition my approach to other strangers. They met my needs and I try to meet the needs of others as a result of really internalising how important that is. The ability to embrace the suck is something I refined in low-stress situations and now it’s invaluable in high-stress ones. I learned how strong I am from hard manual labour that I fell into by chance while travelling, as well as the personality traits which complement or contradict that individualism. I learned absurdity and the lived conditions of others in a way that I wouldn’t be able to from remaining in one place. My anti-imperialism mostly stems from seeing the impacts of empire on the people outside of it. My biocentrism comes largely from seeing how we degrade various environments that I wasn’t exposed to as a child, along with seeing actual productive ecosystems. I challenged every ingrained cultural belief about other people after meeting them and relying on them.
Doing this would entail a lot of risk and much more than I faced demographically. It wasn’t safe for me and I don’t know how it could be as safe for you. It was however the most important thing I’ve done to define myself and understand what I can contribute to the world. If you can ensure your safety through extensive planning, you’ll embrace the fire that refines you. That’s a centrally important task for any leftist, not exclusively achieved through travel but really helped by it. Especially if you’re old enough to really appreciate the experience- I started at 17 and wasn’t- it’s a chance to reinvent yourself and understand where you can fit in.
edit: And if you make your way to Colorado, you’re totally welcome to come hiking. An alternative to aimless travel is delving hard into naturalism which taught me a lot of the same lessons in different ways.
