Kat
ON THE
Map
How can I make my own adventure happen?
Objection #1: Solo travel is too dangerous
Objection #2: Women aren't safe alone
Objection #3: You need lots of money
Meet Jay: my mentor in adventure. When he was in my shoes after finishing his undergraduate degree, he took off on a year-long, solo road trip around the USA. I originally got to know Jay by interviewing him about his law degree and the work he does in U of M's Office of Student Conflict Resolution, but it didn't take long to realize Jay had a lot to teach me and it was nothing to do with law school. He recommended a ton of books, and he helped me reason through the fears I had about solo travel. On the female authors he recommended, he had this to say (and I'm paraphrasing): These women didn't start out thinking there wasn't any danger. Quite the contrary, they knew the risks...but they still chose to go, and their leaps of faith were met with the extraordinary kindness of strangers.
Can travel be dangerous? Absolutely. Will things go wrong? Of course. But I would argue that acknowledging that risk and choosing to face it head on is an enormous and necessary part of adventure. You should use your best judgement. You should listen to your gut instinct. One line Jay often used to underscore that point was this: "If you have a bad feeling about turning right, then turn left." Instict is a powerful tool for keeping you safe if you've learned to trust your gut. So knowing the risks for the particular travel you want, the choice to stay or to go ultimately belongs to the would-be adventurer and nobody else.
You might at this point be saying, "Well that's all good and fine for Jay to have traveled alone. He's a man. Women face a different set of risks." I started this research wanting to challenge that idea, so I spent the semester figuring out how to do that.
Check out this video of my graduation from IMPACT Chicago. The instructor at the beginning (Margaret) gives a very good synopsis of IMPACT's philosophy. You'll see my fellow graduates successfully using some of the skills we learned, and my fight is the last on the video. Who said women can't take care of themselves?
I started by taking a class called 'Violence Prevention in College and Beyond,' taught by a dear friend of mine, Katy Mattingly--author of Self-Defense: Steps to Survival. It was in her class that I really learned how to hone my awareness of the gut instinct that Jay kept telling me to trust. I also took an intensive 3 day self defense course through IMPACT Chicago. I started this process believing that I was already quite a confident person, but I finished those experiences with an entirely new sense of empowerment. In both IMPACT and Violence Prevention I learned tools to handle anything from a too physically affectionate friend to a full scale, violent assault. I learned verbal skills and physical skills for the worst case scenarios. And instead of making me more fearful, those skills have set me at ease. They have made it easier for me to make friends with strangers or reaffirm boundaries with friends or romantic interests. They have improved my life in ways I didn't anticipate. Whether you're interested in traveling or not, I can't advocate strongly enough for you (whatever your gender identity) to seek out resources like these to empower yourself and your community.
If you're planning to stay in swanky hotels and eat out for every meal, then yes, travel will get pricey pretty quickly. That's why my plan involves zero hotels and a whole lot of bulk purchased trail mix. To be more specific, I plan to either camp, hammock, sleep in my car, or couchsurf for the duration of my adventures. You can also bet that I'll be careful to head south once the weather in the northern US turns for the winter.
After reading about Daniel Suelo in The Man Who Quit Money, I completely reject the idea that you can't make adventure work on a budget. Sure, a lot of it might make you really rethink your definition of what it means to travel, but if you're willing to camp, sleep in the car, go without a lot of luxuries, and strip your life down to the basics, you can do it.
Click to check out YTravel--a blog with tips for getting the most out of your money even if you've decided a flight is necessary or you're aiming to go international.
Rita Golden Gelman realized that after her divorce, the $10-15,000 she was making per year off the royalties from her children's books wasn't going to cut it living in the US. So she decided to travel internationally instead. Click to check out how she did on her blog. Cool fact: on her home page she states that if you want an autographed copy of her book, she'll send it to you on faith that you'll reimburse her. If you're in the US, she'll even pay the postage.
This blog has been featured all over the place--TIME, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and more. Matt keeps it jam packed with useful tips on how to travel with as little money as possible, encouragement for when you think you can't do it, and more tips for when you come back around. Click to check it out!
Are you starting to get the idea about how many people have traveled cheap and are bursting with helpful advice on how you can do it yourself? In case you haven't, here's another one by Johnny Vagabond. Click to go directly to his budget page where he debunks the myth that cheap travel can't be great travel.
Just in case you were having any doubts, here are a few bloggers who have made this kind of travel work, and they're happy to help you do it too. Scroll over their images to get a description and click to go to their sites!
Still don't
believe me?
Savings
Sponsorship
A combination
Work as I go
I'll never afford this
When I polled people about how they would pay for their dream adventure, here's the breakdown of what they had to say.
The end result
There will always be another objection, another reason not to go, or something scary standing in the way.
For me that means my family will always be asking me, "Why can't you just stay put where we know you'll be safe?" There will always be an obstacle like applying to grad school that would maybe be more convenient from a singular location; I'll be turning my back on the sheer convenience and comfort of having a traditional residence for a long period of time. There will always be unknowns and car problems and wrong turns and days where everything goes wrong that possibly could go wrong.
To that I say, there will also always be another perspective on what it means to adventure, what it looks like, and how I can work around those obstacles to do it anyways. To the objections, I say I am not necessarily safer at home than on the road according to my violence prevention research. There will be public libraries with access to the Internet all over the country, and applying to grad school might even be easier if I can spend part of my travels scoping out Universities in places I've never been. I'll be turning my back on a lot of comforts and conveniences, yes, but to that I say growth doesn't happen when you are comfortable. For all the problems I hit, something tells me I'll encounter just as many blessings if not more.
My favorite part of this research is that I know it will never be finished. I encourage you to follow along as I add content to the blog once I actually set off on my USA roadtrip. I invite you to join the community who will be checking in and holding me to my word on completing this adventure. It will be, if nothing else, one hell of a learning experience.