I teach media. I always tell my university students: “Create, create, CREATE. Produce something everyday, even if it sucks… to you. There are no excuses for why you can’t do something when they’re a thousand people who find a way. So, get up, move and and make.”
The worst thing for a media person? To be disconnected. And I have been disconnected. A week into my latest overseas trip, my MacBook stopped working properly. I know, poor me. There are people in the world who have never seen a MacBook up close. Though... as a university professor who was in the last 2 weeks of the spring semester, frazzled-browed, bun-in-hair, correction-pen-in-teeth and needing to get final grades out, I needed my 15-inch bestie to pay attention to me. My computer refused, and darkened its face for another week of silent treatment.
This produced a morning into night spent in a dimly-lit Athens internet cafe surrounded by 25 pre-teen boys smoking cigarettes while I, the lone adult in the space save the guy grinding away at the coffee bar, graded college papers. Me, not him. Be forewarned, these are some of the perils of digital nomadism. When traveling through and occupying spaces where mammoth Apple stores do not abound as they would in cities like London, Paris and New York, while in smaller less economically titanous regions, you may pay less for your almond milk latte, but you also may not have access to Apple retailers. Rather you will have to make due with authorized resellers. Be especially prepared to hit a hard wall, technologically, when in parts of Asia, Africa and South and Central America. Just when you thought slow WI-FI would be your only villain; so, too, can a broken Mac or iPhone.
What did we ever do before our favorite tech gadget became our best friend only to turn hideous foe?
As a result of not being able to use my computer properly for weeks whilst moving on from Greece to Indonesia to Thailand with a 4-night stint in Paris, I returned to NYC with a boatload of work. But… well hey, mama, likes to work. So, following my own advice, as I begin to throw myself into the catch-up game, in a moment of nostalgia, I found myself inspired to put together a little ode to Greece for reigniting my passion to create.
My hope is that it doesn’t suck. Too much.
Becoming A Digital Butterfly
Steve Jobs once said: “Your time is limited. So, don’t waste it living somebody else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let other people’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
This quote didn’t fully resonate with me until I recently began following my heart and walking my own path. I did everything that society says you should do. I went to college, graduated and made solid plans to move onto law school. However, a few months after graduation, I decided that I didn’t want to go to law school. As a reaction to my decision, my mother sternly advised: “These days a college degree is equivalent to a high school diploma; you need even more education now if you want to be successful.” Panicked, I quickly heeded her advice and began looking at other graduate programs. While searching, I started working a steady stream of short term jobs by way of a temp agency, going to graduate school fairs and trying to figure out my next professional move. Once again, I came to the final decision that I did not want to go to graduate school. Instead, I got a full time corporate job.
While working in the corporate world, I soon became depressed. I felt miserable and was incredibly unfulfilled. My daily duties required that I basically become a robot. In June of 2017, desperately in need of a creative outlet and with a desire to develop my love for photography, I started a travel Instagram account. I called it@the.destined.gypsy and I immediately followed the account by creating a personal travel blog. My aim was to inspire myself and others to travel and live their best lives. Writing has always been my first love. I wanted to challenge myself to pursue my creative passions and prove to myself I could be more than a robot in a tailored women’s business suit. With that aim, in June, I went on two trips: the 1st was to Tulum, Mexico and the 2nd was to Negril, Jamaica!
I was still working at my corporate job, Monday through Friday, 40-45 hours a week. I had no time for myself. I had no time for my writing and no time to meditate. I had let self-care go down by the wayside. At the time, I was in therapy twice a week to treat my borderline personality disorder and had fallen into a total state of emotional depression. In short, I was far from my best self. I was spiraling downhill, working at a job I hated and simply existing in my life that was passing me by. In October, a new friend, Catrin, introduced me to “The Limitless Girls.” They are a group of empowered millennial women who work online. Without hesitation, I decided to join this amazing group of digital nomads from around the world. Among these amazing millennials, were women stretched throughout New York, parts of Europe, Canada and Australia. We had and have so much in common and we are all craving the same thing: Professional Freedom.
I have accepted that I’m not meant to be one of “those people” in society. You know, the robots who wake up at the same time every day, clock into work at the same time, and just go through the motions of their lives. I am not going to be the person who accepts that their life is not their own, and that they belong to their job. The person who is miserable and working just to pay bills. The person that remains sedentary for years in a job s/he hates because “it pays well.” That existence isn’t for me, and I was never meant to be that person. I’ve always been a free spirit who loves to travel and explore the world and who is chasing a life with no limits. I want to live a life that is daring, full of beautiful adventures and with amazing stories to tell.
In early October of 2017, I launched The Destined Gypsy, and then I put in my 2-week notice at my job. In November, I flew to Bali, Indonesia, where I stayed for a month. I have never felt so free. I explored beautiful jungles, made furry monkey friends and learned to surf at the beach. While living my best life, for the first time I enjoyed working online with the Limitless Girls. While in Bali, work did not feel like work. My office was everywhere; the tables in the café of the surf camp where I was staying, the beach at sunset or even the rooftop bar at X-Bar in Canggu. All I needed to work was WIFI and my cellphone or laptop.
I’ve been working online for a few months now and can safely say, I love it! In addition to my work with the Limitless Girls, I also work online as a virtual assistant. I’m basically an online secretary. Being a location independent Boss Babe and working from anywhere has given my life my freedom and opportunities that I didn’t even know were possible. I wake up when I want; I schedule my own work hours; I travel as often as I want. When I was in Bali this past November I fell in love with the beauty of the country, the people and the culture. I am very excited to be taking another one-way flight there in May and changing my home base to Bali for the next six months to a year.
Thanks to my online business with the Limitless Girls, my virtual assisting, and my travel concierge business that I run from my website I can live life on my own terms. I am my own boss and exploring my passions. I have been growing as a photographer, growing my travel Instagram, my blog following and am finally chasing my dreams. Thanks to the opportunities as a digital nomad and deciding to make necessary changes in my life, I am happier than I have ever been, stronger than I have ever been, and I feel like my life is my own again. I don’t have to worry about being in the same place and doing the same thing years from now. My life has purpose, unlimited potential and happiness. I am fulfilled and doing everything that I love.
Joybell C said: “We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason you don’t have something better.”
It was tough making the decision to break out of society’s box and live my life for me, unapologetically. It is hard sometimes to choose the path less wandered. Many people may view the life of a digital nomad as unconventional because you don’t sit in an office, clock in and out every day, or have limited vacation days. But I’m thankful for my digitally nomadic life. Initially, there was opposition and there were critics. Thankfully my courage outweighed my fear of embarking on the unknown. Change can be scary, but I’ve realized that there is something even scarier than change, and that’s staying in the same place.
Why Travel?
It's 4am. My alarm clock is screaming and shaking my brain into semi-consciousness. For the 4th time this month. My eyelids lift as quickly as they drop back down again. My eyes remain tightly closed like a truculent child with his arms crossed, daring me to action. Though my will to rise is hollow and shaky, my mind is alert and steady. “My flight. My flight is in 3 hours.”
I force my eyes open and barely recognize the room I am in. The pictures on the walls do not belong to me. There isn’t the smell of fresh premade coffee in the coffeemaker because I don't have one here. The bedspread doesn’t have the soft scent of the non-hypoallergenic detergent I use at home. I roll over and spy my packed suitcase in the corner by the door. “Oh, yes. I am in Thailand.” The fog cupping my brain begins to lift willing my body to follow suit. “Body, I need to go to the airport,” I groan.
After 3 months on the road, I am about to catch a 22-hour flight back home. Somewhere between my ascension from my temporary bed in Chiang Mai to my collapse into my permanent one in New York, while rushing to catch my connecting flight in Guangzhou, China, I will lose the only coat I had to shield me the 11-degree Fahrenheit temperature that awaits me in NYC after departing the warm embrace of the 75-degree temperature in Thailand. I will almost pass out on my 2nd flight and need to be moved to a cooler section of the huge, packed Boeing aircraft. The airline will accidently reroute my suitcase, which holds my boots, to another country, causing me to step out of JFK in only sandals during the month of December. (I will receive it 2 days after my arrival home. One day before New Year’s Eve).
So, why travel? Because we have to. Because distance and difference births creativity. Because as a media professor, producer and writer who purports daily the benefits of global connectivity in our advancing digital world, I still seek to touch, taste, feel and physically experience the food, languages, art, culture and people who exist in the cities and villages across our macrocosm. Because the annoyances of travel are eclipsed by the excitement of waking up someplace different and meeting someone new. Because work is stressful. Because, let’s face it, familiar faces and places can become tedious and stale. Because while in the midst of ultimate boredom with my routine, I searched online and found a great flight deal. Because I have never been to that city. Or that restaurant and museum. Because New York is thrilling and highly-cultured, but also ruthless and fast-paced. Because change is an essential ingredient for growth. Finally, because despite the grievances, travel is fun.
Full disclosure. Just over 2 years ago, after the turn of another significant natal decade, I considered myself to be a fairly accomplished person. Fuller disclosure. I didn't consider myself fulfilled, and had no clue of what was next in my life or in the world outside it. With both a Bachelors and a Master’s degree under my belt, almost 20 years of varied professional experience, a coterie of close friends near and far, the frightening return to the dating scene with my friends’ introduction to an astounding collection of dating apps after I had pulled the plug on a 4-year relationship, a mother whom I adore but whose medical care was eating away my life and joy while I took charge of her health issues as she battled and continues to battle dementia and slew of other ailments, carrying a backbreaking load of work stress along with a stirring desire to reward myself with a little self-care, I decided to get lost. So, in 2015, I booked a flight out. As simplistic as it might now seem, the only thing I promised myself was that I would try to return to the states a New Free Me. I would hit countries I had never been: new. Although, I would work while traveling, I would not work on certain days, period: free. And I would begin to devote time to healing and becoming more self-aware: me.
That is when the travel bug that had overtaken me years earlier, when I trapesed country-to-country through Europe on railcars in my 20’s, circled and came in for another kill. My need for personal fulfillment laced with the political situation in America and presidential shift in 2017 further beckoned my escape. Two years after my initial NFM sojourn and 8 new countries later, I had to ask myself, “Am I running away?"
Here’s the thing. Frequent travel is sometimes viewed as willful and self-indulgent. Routine sojourns are often seen less like journeys to liberation and more as one’s fleet from domestic responsibilities. Those who sneer at someone’s regular departures also secretly crave the same freedom and sense of adventure. The truth is that making the decision to travel is one of the most responsible things one can do for one’s self. It is a gift gilded in personal growth and not in tangible, material gain. And this is why its value will never erode. When we leave the place where and people with whom we spend most of our time, our consciousness awakens to all the things that had been suppressed by our chronic conformity. We relax. We expand. We become more aware of ourselves and those around us. We evolve more quickly. This heightened cognition especially helps when people are going through difficult times or life transitions. That said, home can be many places and many places can be home.
In November, I sat next to an American man from Oregon on a flight from Denpasar to Bangkok. We have since become close friends. Two months earlier, he quit his IT job, sold his house and 4 cars. He, his wife and 4-year old daughter are traveling the world for the next 1-3 years. He’s currently temporarily settled in Kuala Lumpur. In response to my text query: “Does Malaysia feel like home? Are you happy there?” He messaged back:
“I seem to be circling around happiness from different vectors: comfort, community, sense of belonging, et al. Like the more positive memories you have in a place, the more you have an affinity for that place, you know? I appreciate how traveling can challenge one’s notions of normal, how you get a chance to experience new things and overcome challenges, and how people from everywhere I’ve been, are at once different, but really largely the same; and largely kind. We are amiably sociable critters, us humans. So, home and happiness is basically where the dopamine hits, I guess.”
It comes down to this. Many people here and there might remain the same or be different, based on our perspective. But travel challenges and changes us. We begin to feel and see ourselves and others in a different light. Hence, we travel not to find or escape home but, most importantly, to come home to ourselves.
Journey to Art Space Santorini
Do you need a reason to more drink wine? No. I didn't think so.
As I begin to embark on another trip to Greece, recently I have been lost in memories of my visit to Art Space Winery in Kamari, Santorini this past October. The owner, Antonis, was kind enough to give me a private tour. When in Kamari, Santorini, you must stop in to say hi to Antonis and his impeccable wine crew. A journey through this beautiful wine cellar-turned-dual-art gallery should be requirement if you want to experience some of the magnificent art, taste the glorious wine and hospitality that Santorini has to offer. Grabbing your own bottle or two or three of wonderful Greek wine should be a requirement too...
