"I'm going to be just like you"

Two and a half months ago, I was riding in the back of a truck from Vientiane, Laos, to the train station. It was a large pick up truck that had been converted by adding a bench running down each side of the bed. I was in the last seat at the back, holding onto the pole that supported the shade structure above me. The sun was hot and slanting in against my face. The sky was a brilliant blue, and we passed farms, trees, and domestic elephants as we drove.

All that I could think about was how bored I was.

Hemingway, who, amongst other things, portrayed a louche and drifting expat existence in his books, has a famous story called "Hills like White Elephants." It's a stunningly concise piece that places a pregnancy as the catalyst that sheds light on the different desires of two people.

"It tastes like licorice," the girl said and put the glass down.

"That's the way with everything."

"Yes," said the girl. "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."

"Oh, cut it out."

"You started it," the girl said. "I was being amused. I was having a fine time."

"Well, let's try and have a fine time."

"All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn't that bright?"

"That was bright."

"I wanted to try this new drink. That's all we do, isn't it--look at things and try new drinks?"

"I guess so."

In the story, the male character is pressuring his girlfriend to get an abortion so they can go on traveling and leading their lives. She is unsure.

I'd begun to feel like that woman. There are people who can travel their whole lives. I know and love many such people. For a while I thought I was like that, too. And then some changes in my circumstance, set in motion early in this calendar year, began to work on me. At first I just thought I was going through a transition, irritable but soon to recover and carry on as before. It took me nearly six months to realize what was really going on.

"Everything tastes of licorice."

Exploring felt like a chore. I was tired, introverted. I'd stopped cultivating new connections --what was the point? soon I'll be gone -- and had lost my energy to pick up new skills. At some point I realized that airports and airplanes felt more like home than anywhere in the world, and I don't mean that as hyperbole: the second I got on line to check in, something in me would unclench and I would relax into the joy of knowing exactly how to navigate every situation that would present itself to me in the next 10 to 20 hours.

I'd begun to thrill on the rush of leaving, only to feel cold and depressed on arrival.

It took a long time for me to understand all of this. Travel, or more specifically, living in new places, has been motivating me since I was a teen-ager. It's been my guiding principle, the one thing in my life that all other things were arranged around. I grew up in a bedroom suburb; both of my parents had moved there from other places. They worked in the city. It was a good childhood, and a pleasant one, but one that felt like waiting. Waiting for my turn to go out and find a place for myself.

When it did come time to leave, it felt impossible to simply go and pick a place to live. How could I make that sort of decision without knowing what my options were? Thinking about all the places I didn't know made me itchy, aggravated so I couldn't sleep. Like Conrad's narrator in Heart of Darkness, I couldn't take my mind off of the blank places on the map. Seeing the shape of a country and not being able to add the colors and smells and sounds to those bare lines gave me a deep anxiety. I was missing something, I was always missing something, and every second I wasn't off somewhere was a second wasted.

And so I left for a series of places that it never occurred to me to consider home. First, northwest Pennsylvania, where I attended school and gaped (to the sometimes amusement, sometimes annoyance of my friends) at the rural world. Then, France, a country I loved but where I could never find a real emotional foothold. San Diego, a city of compromise, where I and a boyfriend slowly learned that meeting halfway means no one is happy. New Zealand, a dreamland of landscapes, where I met multiple transplanted North Americans who had been tearfully airborne over the Pacific while members of their family passed away. Chile, a culture I loved more as an ongoing intellectual dilemma than as a sustainable life choice. And then, at a hyperactive pace, San Francisco (where I failed to create a base of local friends), Costa Rica (where I learned that small towns by the beach make me dull and lethargic), China (where I watched with fascination a culture I had no interest in entering), Istanbul (where I was defeated by the Turkish language), and Thailand (where I had to relearn the lesson about small towns by the beach).

And all of a sudden I was 27, I hadn't been in love in three years, I rarely saw most of my good friends, I spent many hours cultivating acquaintanceships that I knew would shortly be ending, and the things that had driven me up to that point -- curiosity, adrenaline, and the careful cultivation of my own mental landscapes -- were just not enough anymore.

Of course, I pause here to assure you that it was all worth it. Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien. This decade-long (perhaps life-long) obsession of mine has shaped everything about the way I now relate to myself, to others, and to the world.

But it's time to confront a new identity for myself. I always felt it, that there was something odd about me for a traveler: while my truly nomadic friends were purging themselves of possessions at every chance, I was buying posters and putting them in storage. In some corner of my mind, there has always been an apartment, filled with my books and large plants. When I was eight I was walking down a street in Boston with my family one night, and at a lit window there was a young woman in sweats painting her walls. I don't know why I decided this, but I thought to myself, "It's her first apartment. Someday that will be me."

It's time to move somewhere and mean it. Again, with feeling....

Riding in the back of the truck, my eyes were barely focused on the scenery flying by. As I sweat in the Laotian sun, my pulse was quickening as I thought of all the things I was going to do, the things I was going to have. Hobbies. Friends. Lovers. A gym membership. A subway pass. A telephone. A steady address. Magazine subscriptions. Bookshelves. Plants. Everything was going to change.

Trainspotting Final Scene

João | Myspace Video

For anyone who's ever followed someone down

It's been years and years and years since I felt this way, but somehow watching this video ignites the deepest nostalgia in me. I've been watching it on repeat for over half an hour now, chasing that feeling. It hits somewhere behind the sternum. There's something so beautiful, from the vantage point of topical connections, to know that there is the capability in me to feel so deeply. I think about this sometimes, when dramatic songs come on my music list. How strange to know that once these songs hit me so hard, without a touch of irony. How strange that I would miss those times on some deeply felt level.

Watching this video, with a lot of concentration, I can bring back the reverberations against my ribs of what abject emotional destruction feels like. I hope I never feel that way again, but somehow, this exercise leaves me feeling good.

The Beauty of Speed

What's your recurring nightmare?

My theme is zombies, and it has been, as far as I can remember, for about ten years. I don't remember when the dreams started, but they seemed to have emerged in tandem with my entry into an adult mindset. I grew, and the dreams grew, and these days I have scarcely any nightmares that don't contain at least a couple of zombies. I'm a troubled sleeper and I tend to have a lot of nightmares, so this adds up.

It's not a recurring dream in the sense of exact repetition. It's thematic. Last night, for example, I had a relatively straightforward genre dream. I was in a large house in a pine-forested suburb somewhere. I had two companions. The zombies were outside; we were in the house; there was much running and shutting of windows. This is how the dreams tend to go: the zombies never get close enough to attack. They're always just a hair away, clawing at the door I forgot to lock, or approaching as I nail the last board over a hole in the wall.

Other times, the dreams are far less typical of the zombie trope. Say an average little yuppie nightmare: I've forgotten some major project. Or I discover an unpaid bill that I can never afford to pay off. Or something bad happens with a boy. In the middle of one of these pedestrian disasters, oops, here come the zombies. I'll be standing in a cafe arguing with a love interest, and then we look out the plate glass window and -- time to run! There will be an interlude of escaping, then eventually the dream will wander back on course.

Sometimes they look like movie zombies, all lurching and blood-spattered.

Sometimes, they look like normal people.

I've even seen robot zombies, and zombies that were essentially swaths of color.

It doesn't really matter what they look like. Just as in a dream you can see someone, and know in the instant that you're seeing them that although they look like a stranger this person is actually your close friend, all that matters is the understanding that they are zombies.

So what's a zombie? In the form I'm talking about, a zombie is relentless, dangerous, and singularly fixated on destruction. A zombie is also not alone: it's part of a sea of danger that surrounds the vulnerable. But most essentially, it's an inhuman human. From philosophical zombies to my own B-movie variety, the fascinating (for me) aspect is that the creature appears to us as one thing when in reality it is another. It appears to be a person like ourselves. Our impulse tells us that we can say or do something that will create an echo inside the chambers of the creature's experience and consciousness. But we can't. There is nothing there.

It's not surprising, then, that this would be the stuff of my recurring nightmares. In fact, I'd be interested to know whether writers and communications people have a greater tendency to dream about zombies than the general population. A world of zombies is a world in which I am deprived of my main skill. It's a world where I am helpless.

My life is a series of drastic changes, when viewed from the right angle. It can be absolutely chaotic, and I thrive off of the madness. I've reflected on this a lot this year, because several incidents have proven to me that I really don't like change -- when it's something external that happens to me. I remember having terrible depressions each time I had to change schools as a child, and that tendency to take transitions badly continues today.

And so it seems to me that helplessness in the face of change seems to be my personal zombie army. From the moment I was old enough to do it, I responded to the threat of change by upping the ante. When it was time for college, there was a long relationship that I wanted desperately to be out of but couldn't figure out how to end. I went rural and out of state, and that solved that. Two years later, a large number of the friends I'd made were graduating and I felt abandoned. I went to France. When I graduated -- perhaps the biggest change -- I moved to California. When a serious relationship ended, I got on a plane to New Zealand. When it ended for a second time, I went to Chile.

So it seems to me that the majority of travel in my life has revolved around this theme. By throwing myself into change instead of allowing it to happen to me, I've turned it into my favorite drug. Externally inflicted change is always coming, but I can always get that board in place just in time. Sometimes it nearly catches me, grabs my leg, tries to pull me down, but I always get away. As long as I can do it on my own terms, I'm not helpless: I'm the most powerful creature in the universe.

This is why I will stay in Istanbul until May. There are changes happening right now that will affect me but are not orchestrated by me, and every single cell in my body is screaming "plane ticket!" But looking back on the last few years, seeing the frenzy underneath the illusion of my own power, is sobering. I do not want to spend my life running away from imaginary monsters. Or rather, what's imaginary is the thought that I can run. Time is a zombie. It looks rich and colorful, like it has feeling. It holds my experiences and so I think that it can feel them. But time is empty, sweeping, relentless. And running doesn't change anything. I want to travel because I want to, because I've decided to, not because I'm afraid of my own ability to weather a transition. So I'll wait this one out in Istanbul, at least til May. Right now, I don't know how I'll do it, but I know it's what I have to do. Step one.

Happy Holidays!

This post is to my wonderful family (and friends). Thank you so much for your presence in my life! I love you all very much. It's been an amazing year. To make up for faulty keeping-in-touch, here's my retrospective in photos.

I started in Chile last New Years, which also happened to be the night I received my new job offer.

Then it was off for a quick visit to Buenos Aires.

From there I made a visit back to New England, just in time to be caught in a blizzard in New Hampshire.

Then I moved to Berkeley, CA, where I spent 3 months learning my job and getting to know my eclectic bunch of housemates / coworkers.

In May we made the (BIG) move to San Francisco. I always complain about packing and moving but carting a house / office of 20 people with no labor except our own (and those die hard amazing friends & volunteers who turned out) was... near traumatizing.

Almost immediately after that I visited the Bahamas. Cruises are not for me, but hey, at least now I know (not that I doubted much prior...).

And then I spent 3 months living in Costa Rica. This was the view from our house. It was quiet, beachy, sometimes blissful sometimes dull. But we had a pack of howler monkeys pass through our backyard every day, twice -- 6am and 3pm, roughly -- and that will forever be one of the best daily routines I've ever had.

I quickly visited home for a couple of weeks, but was camera-less at the time.

In an all-too-fast month back in San Francisco, I attended the strange and beautiful Burning Man Festival. For the record I'm not a total convert and I will never, ever tell anyone that they "totally need to go, it'll change your life." I hope not to meet people whose lives are so undeveloped that they can change in a week long art-and-mayhem festival. But I will certainly say that it's an otherworldly blast and I hope to find myself out there in goggles amidst the dust storms next year as well. (photo via friend Casey A's facebook, as I was still without camera).

I also spent good times with my friends and coworkers at our house. At this time there were 30 of us living there. This may sound like living hell but I loved it. Normally, the backyard doesn't look quite so similar to Burning Man, but it does happen. (photo via friend Erin's facebook)


And then...China! The Great Wall....

The Forbidden City...

Tiger Leaping Gorge (the deepest gorge in the world), featuring the intrepid Caroline...

Shanghai...

And other adventures (seen: Hangzhou).

And now the lovely Istanbul, my new city-love.

Tomorrow I head to Andorra for a week of skiing and time with an old traveling friend I know from New Zealand. So that puts the grand count of 2009 at 8 countries visited.

Next year.....?

I love you all and wish you a very happy New Year!

How I Almost Ruined the National Holiday for 60 Strangers, or, Against Pollution

When the quarantine officials entered the plane, covered head to foot in white bio-suits, I turned to Caroline and said, “They’ve called the people from ET to come and get me!” Thank god Caroline’s good on a bicycle, but I’m not so sure that I’d fit into the front basket. It was around this time that the Chinese passengers, clustered around the bulkhead and back towards the bathrooms, began pulling out their cell phones and taking pictures of me.

It had been an interesting day.

Shanghai is extreme. This is certainly something that my subjective experience seems to corroborate. The visibility and thickness of the ground level ozone is overwhelming. On top of this, everything everywhere seems to be under construction, so pure dust is a contributor, along with smoke and all the usual suspects.

My sore throat began last Wednesday, when I’d been in town about 3 days. By Friday, I had developed a dry cough and was downing herbal couch syrup at regular intervals. After taking it easy over the weekend and avoiding spending too much time walking around in the pollution, the cough was a bit calmer.

So, of course, I stayed in on Sunday night to ensure that my planned trip to Kunming, in the western province of Yunnan, would go smoothly.

Just kidding! I went dancing.

On Monday I woke up and the cough was back in full force. Caroline and her roomie, Emily, and I, were due to head to the airport around 12. It’s National Holiday on October 1^st, so the girls have some time off (them, and everyone else in the country). Due to a work miscommunication, my 11am meeting didn’t get started until 12. At 1:15 I was just getting off of Skype, Emily was wrestling with a ginormous suitcase, and Caroline couldn’t find her keys. All well and good. We flagged a cab to the metro and, after some cartoon-worthy antics with Emily’s suitcase, got on the train at 1:30. We figured we’d just make it in time for Caroline and my flight.

Until we took the metro in the wrong direction for half an hour. When we reached the end of the line, the girls looked up and said, “we missed it.”

“By how far?” I wanted to know. I thought maybe we’d just talked too much and overshot.

Thankfully, there was another western woman on the train to witness our embarrassment. (what’s the point of being dumb if no one gets to appreciate it? I bet this woman went home feeling like the most competent expat in town) “You should have gotten on going in the other direction,” she helpfully pointed out to me, as the girls avoided eye contact.

We started back in the other direction. “We missed our flight,” I observed. This is when I discovered just what it means when your friends work with 5-year-olds all day.

“Not at all! I’m certain we can make it!” Caroline beamed.

“Absolutely! It’s not so far at all!” chirped Emily.

Silence.

“The Maglev only takes 8 minutes, you know.” [the Maglev is a bullet train that peaks at 430kph, suspended magnetically over a curving track]

“You won’t have to wait in the airport!”

“We can absolutely make it.”

Silence.

“You know, I bet we’ll get there with just enough time!”

“Emily, Caroline…..no. Just no.”

We got to the Maglev station at 2:40. Our flight was set to leave at 3:10. We’d already missed boarding by a long shot, but nonetheless Caroline and I gave it a go by ditching Emily with her bags on the platform (so chivalrous!) and running up stairs and across platforms. Where we waited, me coughing and wheezing, until Emily wheeled up behind us as a sign of the futility of it all and we all boarded the train together. It left the station at 2:45, bringing us to the airport at 2:53.

Where Caroline and I ran, again.

Needless to say, at 3:10 we were not on our plane. We were drinking a beer and having lunch at a restaurant in the airport, new tickets for 7:15 in hand. I was pleased. But the cough hadn’t been helped by all of the sprinting, so I was running through tissues at an alarming rate.

When our new, better, more conveniently timed plane began taking off a few hours later, the recycled air hit me in a bad way. No sooner had the vent turned on than I was doubled over, coughing so hard I thought I might throw up. This continued for a good 20 minutes. Once we’d leveled off at cruising altitude, I was red and sweating, and my scarf had become an incredibly sparkly handkerchief, but the worst of it seemed to be over. The flight attendant came over with a cup of warm water and offered me a face mask, which I took. Breathing through it kept the air around my face a bit less dry, so actually did help considerably. I have a photo of me enjoying my face mask, but can’t upload it at the moment.

The flight attendant asked if I’d like to take my temperature. Taking it as a nice offer rooted in a cultural difference, I declined. She seemed uncertain but left.

It wasn’t until this video was screened that I understood what she had been getting at. (You MUST watch this video, it is priceless).

The flight went on. My cough had subsided once I got used to the altitude and the air. Caroline and I worked through the guidebook, planning our ten day trip to Yunnan.

About 45 minutes before landing, the flight attendant came back and politely insisted that I have my temperature taken. I gave in sullenly, but what could be the harm? I’m not sick, let them take my temperature, whatever they want. The flight attendant, who for the record was absolutely sweet, chatted with us while we waited – or rather with Caroline, since I was sitting there with a glass thermometer stuck in my mouth. After 5 minutes, she took a look. And another look.

“37.3,” she said. Caroline and I were just beginning to figure out what that meant in Fahrenheit when the flight attendant said “I’ll be right back” and disappeared for 10 minutes.

By the time she came back, Caroline had scribbled through some longhand, memory-based calculations and determined that I was at more or less 99 Fahrenheit. Caroline was being sunny – “That’s nothing!” I was being pessimistic – “Then why’d she leave?! We’re being quarantined.”

"Well, this reminds me of a story...." said Caroline, and launched into a long history of someone she'd met somewhere.

After a while I turned my head and said "Caroline, I'm not listening."

She looked back at me, equally calm, and said, "This helps me."

So, with more respect on both sides, on went the one-sided chatter.

“I’m sorry,” the flight attendant said, when she returned, “but the regulations of China say that it cannot be more than 37.” Another flight attendant, a bit less sympathetic, stood glaring over her shoulder. “Some passengers heard you coughing, and we must have your temperature. If it is too high, you must speak to quarantine officials when we arrive.” She asked me to take a new reading, this time by armpit.

A few months ago, my mother called me to tell me that her friend’s son had been quarantined in Beijing. Someone on his flight had been declared a swine flu risk, so Chinese officials had required all of the passengers of the flight to check into hotel rooms for 4 days. My mother had urged me to get traveler’s insurance in case some such thing happened, since the friend’s son had been required to pay his own hotel expenses.

Did I listen? Enough to know that I was screwed should I be quarantined....not enough to purchase said insurance.

So we waited. I argued with the flight attendant, who was indulgent of my concerns and demands and clearly of the opinion that I was not sick. I tried to mentally control my temperature, but the thought of 4 days trapped in a closed room was not exactly calming. The flight attendants left for a minute and when I looked down I saw that I was at 37.5. The thermometer was retrieved. 5 minutes later, flight attendants reseated the row in front of us.

Over the half hour before we landed, the entire aircraft was rearranged. It wasn’t a very full flight, so by the time we landed, Caroline and I were isolated from the rest of the plane by a good 12 rows ahead and 2 behind. Caroline tried to cheer me up. I resisted and started yelling at the plane at large about my allergies, the horrific pollution of Shanghai, and other related topics. No one spoke English, and I was muffled by my face mask, so everyone just ignored me.

Enter the ET bio-hazard team. The Chinese passengers edged closer to watch the drama. I sat there with a thermometer under my arm, trying to look as healthily exasperated as possible. Caroline, now fitted with her very own face mask, giggled. The flight attendant translated back and forth. As the flashes were snapping all around me, I couldn’t stop thinking --

What does it do to your karma if, due to not caring properly for your cough, you cause 60 plane passengers to be quarantined and miss their holiday home with family?!?!?!

Luckily for me, after the temperature was read and the flight attendant translated my explanations about allergies, pollution and air conditioning, Lead Bio Hazard Lady took off her hood and raised her goggles. Things were said in Chinese. The hazmat folk left. The other passengers began leaving with their things. I took this as a good sign, but when the flight attendant came by and definitively told me I was not in lock down, that’s when I did the Rocky air punch.

Then coughed all the way to the terminal, while avoiding the gaze of the other passengers as well as Caroline’s attempts to ‘lighten the mood.’

“Well! Two first experiences in one day! A missed flight, and a near detention!”

“Caroline, let’s just get the hell out of here.” And we did.

Your Nomad Toolkit

There are many types of modern nomadism. Most people associate the word with what I'll call "river nomads": people who constantly move from place to place in a steady onward flow, never putting down roots anywhere, living out of their backpack or an RV. Dynamic, and watch out - if you fall in you might end up miles from where you expected to be (and your life will be a much better story for it). In contrast, I'd say that I'm more often a "waterfall nomad," to stick with the water theme (because nomads all have something aquatic about them, don't they?). Deep pools catch the water until the miniscus breaks and the movement cascades into the next swirling calm. Waterfall nomads move from place to place but tend to live in each of these places for a time, getting into the daily routine, putting down roots. Fall into my life and you can swim around for awhile, no problem. For months at a time, I look like anybody else.

I've been at this type of pattern for awhile now. Not a great long while, years-wise, but out of the span of my life, a pretty significant chunk. The whole adult bit, about a third of my earthly time. I'm 26 now. When I was just newly 18, I left Boston to attend college in rural western Pennsylvania. I'd taken solo trips before, and gotten the bug from them, but this was the beginning of my waterfall cascade.

What followed (with a few 1-2 month money saving stints back in Boston omitted):

2 years: Pennsylvania

1 month: Greece

9 months: France

9 months: Pennsylvania

6 months: San Diego

6 months: New Zealand

6 months: Boston

1 year: Chile

3 months: Berkeley, CA

3 months: Costa Rica

1 month: San Francisco

2 months: Shanghai (beginning last week)

next: a trip to Nepal; 6 months in Istanbul

In the years between 2002 and 2010, in other words, I will have lived in 11 places and moved even more times than that. And of course all of the travel in between (every waterfall is part of a river, after all).

Shallow? I don't think so, but it could be argued. Flighty? Very possibly. Sustainable? Now, yes, thank you. Common? Way more than you might think.

Here are my personal recommendations for resources to help you in the fluid life. All are free unless noted.

Your Nomad Toolbox - nuts, bolts, reads, networks, and more.

Beginning.

Why you can do this, too: The good folks at Technomadia (who run Camp Nomadia at Burning Man) shoot down common "I can't travel" excuses.

Work Your Way Around the World: If you don't have any idea of how you're going to tackle it, this book may get the wheels rolling. I found it useful when plotting out New Zealand.

Stay connected / practical.

Skype: Free computer-to-computer phone calls; very reasonably priced computer-to-phone calls.

XE: Currency converter.

World Clock Meeting Planner: Coordinate meetings for up to four different time zones at a time.

Google Docs or Zoho: Keep your projects going from any computer; give people worldwide the ability to work with you on comments and editing.

Blogger or WordPress: Making your writing public saves you from opening up the travel journal only to find incoherent, emotional babbling (rather, you will find coherent emotional babbling with comments from others -- a world of difference). A good way to share ideas with other travelers, and the best souvenir you can give yourself.

Yuuguu: Screen-sharing made easy. Teach someone in another hemisphere how to use a web tool.

A photo storage / sharing service: I use Kodak Gallery, which is hopelessly un-hip, but I've been using it for too long to bother switching. Flickr's the one I'd choose now, but that may just be because I like their content & design. Also check out Snapfish and PhotoBucket before making a choice.

Recipezaar: Why is this relevant? Because you can search by ingredients. This is very, very helpful when you find that your fall-back ingredients just aren't sold here, but all these other strange things are.....

Freecycle and Craigslist: If you move every few months, you don't want expensive furniture - but you do need something more than cardboard boxes (trust me, I've tried....cardboard tables collapse after a month or two and cardboard chairs just don't work). Get free stuff. And then when you leave, give it back. (note: in my experience, these really only work in the US).

World Newspapers: An index of international papers in English.

International Herald Tribune: Lackluster but worth skimming.

Telegraph's Expat Section: A weekly set of features of interest.

Meet people, make friends.

Word Reference: Simply the best language dictionary / translation discussion forum out there for the 6 languages it covers.

Facebook: Yes, we're all addicted. But also, you'd be amazed what can happen when you post, "I've just moved to XYZ city." Someone you went to preschool will say, "Hey I've been here for years! Want to come meet my friends this weekend?" Networking made easy.

CouchSurfing: "I'm also a client." I would like to point out that I've been in Shanghai for less than a week and have already made friends. Even if you don't need a place to stay, and don't want to host, you can still meet interesting people from all over the world.

WWOOF: Although it stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms, you can now find a variety of barter work-for-lodging exchanges close to, but in expansion from, the original theme.

Meetup: Another way that I've met friends in cities around the world.

Hostel World: Another way that I've found cheap accommodations around the world.

The Thorn Tree: Lonely Planet's online travel forum. I find LP guides hit or miss (like all guides) but these discussion boards have the answer to almost any destination-related question you may have.

Learn from your community.

Expat Exchange: Takes some skimming and parsing, but there's good information to be had here on all kinds of relevant topics.

Transitions Abroad: Ditto.

Escape Artist: Ditto.

Idealist: Ditto, but for non-profit jobs and volunteerism only.

Location Independent Club: Ditto, but in the form of a community network.

Digital Nomads: Group blog focusing on the new internet-based way of the road.

Expat Women: I never found this to be personally useful, but it is an active international network.

WorldTeach: A volunteer teaching placement agency that I used to get my Chilean visa / one of my Chilean jobs.

All this information! I'm sure you've got more of it. If you do, please contact me or leave a comment.

Rue Notre Dame des Champs

Today I feel like Hemingway wrote me into existence. Some travelers arrived yesterday to stay with us. They are great people, as always; having some new perspectives in the house is refreshing.

One of them is on a soul quest. He left his country at the advice of some friends. He was becoming dull, they told him, too academic. His world was shrinking. He's a philosopher, so I can understand this: the study of philosophy shrinks the world in an interesting but unnerving way. It is a sort of shrinking through expansion that makes me dizzy.

So he left on an experimental attempt to expand his world. He took a biography of Rimbaud with him; Rimbaud who would stab his friends (literally) for the sake of the experience. We discussed all this yesterday. Today I woke up and looked out the window; my friend was teaching him how to split coconuts with a machete for the juice.

And in this scenario, strangely, I felt like an image. Last night my housemate got drunk and took a civil debate to an argument. People who work '9 to 5' are soulless, he said. They only care about money. When we challenged that he was being offensive and narrow-minded, he said that clearly people who wanted to could find a way out, since he did. When I argued that he was living in a loophole and was blaming other people for not having his luck, he said that I was a North American capitalist and that was the reason for my anger. He stormed off and went to sleep before 9.

The debate was silly and commonplace; I wouldn't have thought much about it except for the new perspective brought by our visitors. Suddenly I felt like the debauched expatriots of the Montparnesse. Here we were, waving drinks around, arguing about the 'pathetic' concerns of the little people at home in their countries. Housemate expanding on their small-mindedness. I and others jumping in like self-aggrandized martyrs to defend people whose lives we were still somehow belittling just by assuming that we needed to defend them. It was a living parody. Earlier that day we'd discussed the definition of irony; I suppose that I wanted to show and not tell.

Earlier it had poured rain; the house was flooding from a thousand different directions. I stood outside and got soaked until my clothing looked like I'd gone for a swim; the others skinny-dipped in the pool. Our Rimbaud-reading visitor joined them and it was the first time he'd swum naked. An odd thing to meet someone who can say that. The rain poured down and it was, really, joyous. We enjoyed the little-kid kind of joy that things like acts of nature can bring: total abandon. Throwing my arms around to feel the way the rain hit them, I was not in myself. When the lightning blinded us every few minutes, I jumped impulsively on the plastic furniture as if somehow that would protect me. Even screaming, we couldn't hear each other over the drum roll of the water.

Weighing these two things, I wonder today what impression we made. I feel it's important. What will be dominant: the joy of the freedom? Or the disassociation from reality? How are we representing our lives? And when someone comes down on them in some silly Friday night debate, who will defend us?