Updated: 07/22/19 | July 22, 2019 (Originally posted 7/19/2011)
Back in 2008, I was burnt out from travel. It had been eighteen months and I’d had enough. I cut my trip to Australia and new Zealand short and flew home.
I was tired of meeting people, tired of moving around, tired of having the same conversations over and over.
It’s one of the downsides of long-term travel.
It was a hard decision.
“If you don’t like traveling, don’t do it,” Scott said. We were in Brisbane as I hit my breaking point and, since he had been traveling longer than I had, I was asking his advice. “You don’t need to prove anything. You’ve been gone close to eighteen months. Go relax back at home, and come back when you’re ready. The world will always be here.”
“I know, but I just feel like I’m giving up. I’m so close to new Zealand and the end. Am I just being impulsive?,” I asked Scott.
“You have to follow your gut.”
The next day, on impulse, I decided to listen to Scott. I booked a flight home. I didn’t check the price. I didn’t look for a way to hack it with miles. I was done. In two weeks, after eighteen months away, I’d be home.
At first, being home was fun. It was exciting to being back. I went to my favorite restaurants, visited the bars I used to frequent, did some sightseeing around Boston, and held some “Welcome Home” parties to catch up with my friends.
But, soon, the warm glow of being home had worn off. I was listless. It was winter. I had no job, no idea what to do. and life back home was the same as I had left it.
Two weeks after coming home, I wanted to be back on the road.
“What have I done,” I thought to myself.
My cousin had a temp agency and got me something covering for a woman while she was on maternity leave. It would help me pay the bills while I figured out what I wanted to do.
Not wanting to hand off important tasks to a temp, they had me answering and routing calls. It was incredibly boring and I spent each day on Facebook. I was simply there to make sure the mail got delivered. It was a mindless job.
And it gave me a lot of time to think.
Life in Boston hadn’t changed.
I’d escaped Boston to escape the pattern and routine of my life there, and now I was falling back into it sooner than I had imagined. In part because home had remained frozen during my time away. My pals had the same jobs, were going to the same hangouts, and mostly doing the same things. The bars were full of the same kinds of people and playing the same kinds of music. The city had the same old stores and the same old construction work.
And there was no one I knew who could relate to what I was feeling.
No one to go “I’ve been there too.” no one had taken a long term trip. They just all wondered why I wasn’t thrilled to be back.
I had changed, but the world around me hadn’t. I felt like a square trying to be smashed into a round peg. I had shed my old self and here I was being stuffed back into it.
Being stuck in a cubicle again made me realized I wanted to get out of the cubicle. I wanted a way to get back on the road.
“Maybe I should become a travel writer“, I thought. “I bet writing guidebooks would be pretty amazing and that would get me out of the house!”
Traveling the world in search of stories, sharing my expert advice as I explored the lesser-known regions of the globe. It sounded perfect.
But how would I get started? how does someone become a travel writer?
I had no established writing résumé or any experience. but being the Gen Y-er that I am, I thought, the Internet can solve this problem! I’ll just create a website, write for some other websites, and then I can submit to Lonely planet when I have some experience.
So I started my website as a form of escape. I would build it up while I saved up and then head out on the road again.
But, before I could begin, I needed a name.
I was torn between two names: nomadicmatt.com or mattdoestheworld.com.
Polling my friends, they said to go with nomadicmatt, as the other one sounded too sexual. They made a good choice. (Back then, I didn’t give any thought to a brand name.)
In the beginning, it was a simple site. I had some pals teach me basic HTML, and my site looked like this:
Pretty awful, huh?
It’s like a bad Windows desktop. and it was a real pain to hand-code everything, but it did help me learn HTML, a skill that has come in very handy over the years.
All of my original posts were short, poorly written, and all over the place. I had no clue what I was doing. (I’ve actually gone back and edited them a bit to make them better and more detailed.)
I guess it’s easy to look back and think, What the hell was I thinking?! But when you’re just starting off, you think everything you write is genius. You’re simply finding your way. Hva virker? What doesn’t? What’s your voice? What’s your message?
It was a long, slow, and tedious process.
But I stuck with it.
Over the next few months, I wrote for Matador,Vagabondish, og den nå nedlagte hotellklubben og gjestenes ut på noen få andre nettsteder. Jeg bygde trafikk og fikk nye lesere. Jeg fant ut det hele. Snart, tenkte jeg, skulle jeg skrive guidebøker. Mitt navn ville være i Lonely Planet, og alt ville ha rett i universet.
Bortsett fra at det aldri skjedde.
Jeg logget lange, lange, lange timer foran datamaskinen min (jeg tror jeg fortsatt gjør) og prøvde å få eksponering og lesere. Jeg holdt på det, men jeg følte vanligvis at jeg ikke kom noen vei.
Jeg bestilte en enveis flytur til Europa, ringte sjefen min i Bangkok for å se om jeg kunne undervise igjen, og forberedte meg på å dra i august.
Så, en dag midt på sommeren, tilbød noen meg $ 100 USD for å sette opp en tekstkoblingsannonse.
Jeg tok det.
Jeg trengte pengene og salg av lenker var en vanlig praksis den gangen.
Så noen måneder senere fikk jeg flere tilbud. Så flere tilbud. I slutten av 2008 tjente jeg en jevn $ 1000 per måned fra nettstedet mitt via tekstlenker og annonser på nettstedet mitt.
Kanskje jeg tross alt kunne tjene til livets opphold i reisebransjen.
Måneder gikk.
Jeg begynte å få mer eksponering i tradisjonelle medier og online kretser. Jeg hadde noen få store gjesteposter. Sakte men sikkert gikk søketrafikken min opp. Jeg fikk flere lesere. Det var som om snøballen jeg prøvde å skyve ned bakken plutselig satte opp og begynte å gå på egen hånd.
Stjernene stemte overens og ting skjedde … men de stemte ikke overens med at jeg skulle bli en guideforfatter.
Nei, “Matt Kepnes, Lonely Planet Author” omgir sakte til “Nomadic Matt, Budget Travel Blogger.”
Jeg hadde drømmer om guidebøker i lang tid, selv etter suksessen til min første e-bok. Jeg trodde fremdeles at jeg kunne få det til å skje.
Men da jeg gikk på min første reisekonferanse i 2010 og alle kalte meg “Nomadic Matt”, innså jeg at det var den jeg var og hva jeg var ment å gjøre.
Jeg begynte på en reise, men endte opp et sted helt annet. Jeg kunne ikke være lykkeligere.
For å sitere Robert Frost:
To veier divergerte i et tre, og jeg—
Jeg tok den som var mindre reist forbi,
Og det har gjort hele forskjellen.
Hvordan reise verden rundt på $ 50 om dagen
My New York Times bestselgende pocketbok guide til verdensreiser vil lære deg hvordan du kan mestre kunsten å reise slik at du kommer fra allfarvei, sparer penger og har en dypere reiseopplevelse. It’s your A to Z planning guide that the BBC called the “bible for budget travelers.”
Klikk her for å lære mer og begynn å lese den i dag!
Bestill turen: Logistiske tips og triks
Bestill flyet ditt
Finn en rimelig flytur ved å bruke Skyscanner. Det er min favoritt søkemotor fordi den søker på nettsteder og flyselskaper over hele kloden, slik at du alltid vet at ingen stein er igjen.
Bestill innkvarteringen din
Du kan bestille vandrerhjemmet ditt med Hostelworld. Hvis du vil bo et annet sted enn et herberge, kan du bruke booking.com, da de konsekvent returnerer de billigste prisene for gjestehus og hotell.
Don’t forget travel Insurance
Reiseforsikring vil beskytte deg mot sykdom, skade, tyveri og kanselleringer. Det er omfattende beskyttelse i tilfelle noe går galt. Jeg drar aldri på tur uten det, da jeg har måttet bruke den mange ganger i fortiden. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:
Safetywing (best for alle)
Forsikre turen min (for de over 70)
MedJet (for ytterligere evakueringsdekning)
Klar til å bestille turen?
Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel. Jeg lister opp alle de jeg bruker når jeg reiser. De er de beste i klassen, og du kan ikke gå galt ved å bruke dem på turen.
