I am a Traveler

Choosing to identify myself this way does not make me unique or special. Check any dating app and 97% of all profiles start their interests with “I am a traveler”. You too? Ho hum.

But what truly makes one a traveler? I don’t believe my travel life is superior to any others. This isn’t about comparison. Rather, as I navigate the world, interact with people, and present myself to new and old acquaintances, it is as a traveler that I have most closely identified myself. It helps to explain so much of who I am. More than anything else that makes me me.

I’m writing this as I sit on the floor of a packed airport about to board my first flight in a long stint — the first trip in the next new phase of my life. The moment I got into the Uber, I entered my familiar state. My senses are heightened. I am relaxed and present. Although adventures lie ahead of me, I’m not focused on what’s to come, but simply more receptive to experiencing every minute of the now. The daily doldrums of life dissipated and I am raw, present, and aware of so much more internally and externally. I’ve put on my traveler’s eyes, eased in to my traveler’s brain, and have opened up my traveler’s heart.

The first time I experienced this state was on my high school summer pilgrimage to Israel. I was excited to be traveling with my best friends, but I remember being so unbelievably free of all predispositions, expectations, and fears, as I touched foreign soil for the first time without parental oversight. I experienced awe in a profound way that would stick with me forever — The smells of the shuk, the glint of the sun on Jerusalem stone, and the sounds of the Orthodox davening at the Western Wall still live in my psyche.

From that moment on, every sight, sound, and smell were imprinted on me from every journey upon which I would embark. I know the smells of the fields burning in Northern Thailand in February. I can hear the Tibetan monks from the Jokhang temple in Lhasa and feel the yak butter lamps singe my nostrils. I can taste my first fish taco from the masterful Paraguito’s in Todo Santos. I will never forget how my heart almost burst through my chest when I stumbled upon St. Peter’s square for the first time, and still does to this day. I am a traveler.

Yet, being a traveler (and a human who seeks to live in the moment), means these memories and merely a reference to fuel my intention to consume more and more. I refuse to dwell in my imagination. Rather, to me, what truly defines my traveler identity is the never-ending drive for more. The new smell, sight, taste, sound, emotion, connection, and explosion of gratitude born of having designed a life that allows for such experiences. To me, being a traveler means that I have infinite capacity and appetite for more.

People often tell me that they envy my travel life. They wish they could travel more, or even at all. I don’t know how to respond to these comments. Why don’t you just do it? I recognize that I have an incredible amount of privilege that allows me to live my life. There are many people whose circumstances render such indulgences as impossible. At the same time I also believe that’s a part of the equation. If you believe that we write our own story in life, then a greater factor becomes the choices that we make along the way. If you wanted to become a traveler, for most, you could become a traveler.

Money and time seem to be the biggest excuses. Yet travel doesn’t have to be expensive. I encounter so many souls that eke their way through years of consistent nomadism, doing journeyman work and odd jobs because they are committed to, and passionate about, the lifestyle. They live close to subsistence and rely on their wits to endure. They made the choice to go all-in and I’ve rarely seen more content, adaptable, and resourceful people in the world. These modern bohemian itinerants exist across the globe, as an outwardly [secret] society that requires no membership other than a sense of wonder, curiosity, intention, and, creativity.

As for time, humans create so many constructs that mask our fear of instability / discomfort / the unknown to justify not traveling. “I have a family” — I can’t count the number of nomads I’ve met towing a toe-head on their hip as they walk the beaches of Bohemia. “My job only gives me two weeks vacation” — you chose that job and have become comfortable & accepting of the life it affords you. If you wanted to break free, you probably could. But that often involves risk, which puts the fear of Shiva into so many.

I’m not seeking to shame anyone for their choices. But I do aspire to help people see their choices so they can own them, which can free them to choose differently if they wish. For most people I encounter, not traveling is a result of choices throughout their life. They chose stability over insecurity. They chose safety over risk. They chose routine over spontaneity. And these are perfectly acceptable choices to make — I just don’t see the case for travel envy. If you really want to, in most cases you can.

Throughout my twenties, I had been traveling quite a bit, was working for a tour operator specializing in Southeast Asia, and had become a destination expert. The years following graduating college were a whirlwind and I barely had a moment, or the awareness, to really process where my life was headed. I was racking up experiences at an insane clip in parts of the world that had barely seen my kind.

In 1995 I was living and working in Boulder, Colorado, I was invited to the home of some of my wealthy clients in New York City. Real people of substance, accomplished, successful, well-traveled, international, and wildly interesting. The kind of people I was programmed to become in life, yet seemingly I was headed in a very different direction. I sat at the dinner in their massive Riverside Drive brownstone, surrounded by their impressive friends. I was very clearly the “which one of these things is not like the other?” at the table.

I had just returned from a scouting expedition to the Dani tribes in Irian Jaya, the Indonesian side of New Guinea. It was like traveling to the Stone Age — the span between us and the tribespeople was perhaps the greatest chasm of evolutionary development to ever exist in history. It was overwhelming, exciting, and one of those life moments that has stuck with me.

Ultimately the dinner conversation turned towards travel and I took center stage. I held the audience captive for the rest of the night. So many questions, so much curiosity and awe. By the end of the night the entire group were proposing to invest in my own travel company and traveling with me to Indonesia to have their own experience. For me, to sit with such an impressive group and to fervently hold their attention, and gain their patronage, validated my life choices and solidified my path forward.

It was at that moment I became aware that my identity was, and would forever be, as a traveler. That beyond all other pursuits in life, and the expectation of career / family / success that were imprinted on me, I gained the most satisfaction in possessing the passion, knowledge, and experiences I shared that night and many nights since.

I no longer work in the industry. I’ve spent the past 18-years raising my son and bouncing between careers and businesses. I’m decidedly not exceptionally wealthy. I certainly slowed down to adopt a more conventional life, yet Judah and I have managed to travel a good bit of the globe together.

I recently built a business that is mostly seasonal, affording me time to roam. And now that Judah is off to college, I’m doubling down. There’s so much more to see, smell, taste, connect and experience in places familiar, and new to me. So off I go, with a head full of steam, no predispositions, no expectations, no fears. I am a traveler.