Derive

There is a French word that describes spontaneous and unplanned journeys.

As I write, it is 00.36 on a Monday night, all my roomies are asleep, and in the background, I listen to a song from Xavier Rudd.  Tomorrow I am heading off to another adventure, and I only have had a few trips in my life that were as unprepared as this one is today.

At the weekend, we threw a house party at our dorm, and I reconnected with a friend of mine, and he asked me casually if I want to join him for a 4-day road trip by canoe around the Seenplatte in Mecklenburg Vorpommern (German is really the most beautiful language in the world haha).  It is basically a unique lake archipelago in north Germany, and some of Europe’s finest natural reserve parks are to be found there.

In my last blog post, I reviewed the book Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts, and one of his core missions is to eliminate the mental fallacy that travelling is only reserved for the rich.

At the moment, my university is eating up all of my money, and the only thing that stops me from regarding myself as broke is that I stopped checking my bank account. x)

However, I thought that this might be a perfect opportunity for another experiment.

Is it possible to travel so cheaply that you actually save a bit of money?

Right now, I spend about 15 dollars a day on food (jab those gains cost me a lot actually), and I need to buy tickets for public transportation, which is about 5 bucks also.

So, over the next 4 days, I plan to make a badass road trip, and actually save some money while doing so!  Renting a canoe costs 5 euros a day, we sleep in a tent in the woods, so that is no money, and we have to pay for gas for the car.  All in all, for 4 days, it will be roughly around 20 for canoe and 25 for the car so 45 total.  For food, I am going all minimalist on you guys over the next 4 days; kidney beans, sardines, and rice is on the menu.  Jab this is going to suck a bit, but hey, do you want to eat a pizza or do you want to travel.

The point I am trying to make guys is that working more is not always the answer, spending less can be just as efficient.

So my plea for you today is: revaluate your excuses.

What is it really that is stopping you from getting or doing the things you want.  People think they do not work out because they have no time, but they watch 2 hours of Netflix in the evening; others think they cannot afford travel because they do not have enough money, while in reality, it is that they are bad at finding where they can spend less money on bullshit they do not really need.

Travelling does not start when you book a flight, it starts with a conscious decision in your everyday life.  Evaluate your financial habits, where can you save some money?  Do you have some stuff that you do not need anymore?  Fcking sell it.  You got an extra room that you do not use?  Air BnB it.  Do you spend too much money on restaurants?  Go vegan for a month and only eat healthy greens.  You love going out with your friends?  Have a party at your house, so you do not have to play club entry.  I think you catch my drift guys.

Being a vagabond is not only about travelling, but it is also about mindset and habits.  The psychology of a traveller is different than from somebody who does not know what they want in life.  And, from personal experience, I never regretted a shitty job that I had that enabled me to fly around the world, and I never thought back on an unspectacular meal that I had and regretted it.  We are in the business of collecting moments, not things, guys.

So fellow crazy people, thx for reading, and write in the comments what sacrifices you make to travel.

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The Price Of Being A Vagabond— Mecklenburgische Seenplatte {Travel Journal Day 2}

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