Remoteyear

Many of my fellow remotes have already written something about their experiences during the year and come to some conclusion about the meaning of it all. The honest truth for me though is that I don’t know what it means to me yet. My experience was very different from most of the people in our group, and yet I can’t help but see that some of the things I’m slowly coming to conclude align pretty strongly with others. I wasn’t at any of these epic parties mentioned in so many other posts, I’m absent from almost every group photograph, I even ended up missing the last day and the big farewell event. Yet, at the same time, I never felt like I was missing out. No FOMO at all. I explored the cities and countries we were in, met locals, broke far out of my comfort zone, and left with a bevy of stories which I will carefully hold to myself.

Happy New Years!

First of all, welcome to 2017. 2016 was an interesting year for me in many ways and a really positive experience, I hope the same can be said for all of my readers. I’m writing this from my apartment in Bogota, Colombia as I begin Month #8 of Remote Year - Darién.

When I think about last year and what sort of theme it represented in my life, I can only categorize it with the term “Discovery”. This last year I had started a new job, I had started remote working full-time for the first time, I had learned a new programming language, operating environment, and industry. In that mix, I also decided it’d be the perfect time to travel the world and meet a whole bunch of new people in places I’d never been before. In short, last year was largely about discovering the world, seeing things in a new light, and through that lens also discovering things about myself.

Where Have I Been?

It’s been awhile since I’ve last written anything here and I apologize for that. I’ve had a few people ask me when I was going to post something again. The truth is, I’ve been spending a lot of time working. When I haven’t been working I’ve been reading and sometimes thinking, although reading quite a bit more than thinking. I’ve thought a lot about the experiences I’ve been having on my journey and what it means to me as a person, what it means to us as a group. Long story short though, I haven’t found it in myself to put much of these thoughts down and share them with the world. Today’s post will be short and to the point, but hopefully will reassure my readers that I haven’t completely disappeared from this Earth yet.

Hello all! I’d greet you in Serbian, but the fact is I haven’t really learned any in my journey yet. The people in Belgrade speak English very well and start learning English in the equivalent of kindergarten, so it’s not really an issue here.

This is going to be a short introduction for a rather long post and then I’m going to get right into it. I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks writing with pen and paper or sometimes with my phone or laptop whenever the mood strikes me. Some of this I’ve posted elsewhere before (mostly on Facebook), but it is now all collected here with annotations added at points and perhaps reworded or updated.

Dobrý den once again readers.

When I set out on this journey I originally intended to write at least one blog post a week. It seems its more difficult to keep with that schedule than I thought it was going to be. For those of you waiting for my next update, I apologize for the delay. Right now my schedule as I travel is pretty much filled with work during the week and I use the evenings in the weekend to write.

Dobrý den once again readers.

This post is going to be a bit different from my last. I’ve had a lot of different things go through my mind in the last 10 days. I would say that in general for everyone in my Remote Year group that this first month is a period of discovery. We’re learning more about who we are, what our tolerances are, and what we really care about in life. We’re also learning about each other and forming new relationships. This is exciting but can also be somewhat troubling. In this post I plan to cover some of these things as a series of short thought-blurbs/essays, but I also don’t want to make it too serious so I’ll be sharing some more photos I took around Prague. To head it off before someone takes my comments the wrong way, I don’t mean my thoughts below to be taken as a negative of my experience. I just think it’s important to be honest with myself and the world about who I am and maybe I will help put to words something that others in my group are feeling too.

Dobrý den readers.

It’s been a whirlwind the past 4 days, but also very cool. I’ve met and forgotten the names of so many people over the last 4 days. If you’re reading this and you’re one of the people I’ve met, I am apologizing heavily in advance for my bad memory for names. I’m sure I’ll ask your name many times during this first couple of months. I am going to heavily compress my stories, but I have a few surprising or interesting things I wanted to share that I thought were worth telling, and a handful of pictures. I hope everyone reading enjoys. :)

Super short update. Tomorrow is the big day I fly out. Between flight time, layovers, and time zone changes I will be traveling for 26 hours straight. Leaving 8AM from San Antonio, Texas, USA to arrive in Prague, Czech Republic at 10:30AM (or thereabouts) local time. 7 hour layover in JFK, 8 hours to time zones, and the rest is in the air.

Illness Update

I’ve basically fully recovered at this point. I do have a bit of lingering congestion and an occasional throat clearing or cough, but I’m doing pretty well. My ENT has prescribed me additional round of anti-fungals so that I can definitively get rid of the infection. I’ll probably try to find an ENT in Prague and follow-up while I’m there just to confirm that the infection is gone.

This is going to be short, just a quick update on how things are going.

Illness Update

The medication I am taking has caused some bad side effects. I’ll spare the details, but I think I may have it under control. I am following up on Monday with the ENT specialist to check everything out, and then I am going to get my Hepatitis B booster this week assuming I am safe to do so. My illness hopefully is coming to an end, because I’m about to hop on a plane.

So, it’s almost time to depart. Just 10 days left in the US, and I’ll be on way for my trip and off to meet 74 strangers (hopefully soon to be some friends) to gallivant around Europe and South America. It’s a bit daunting at this point and definitely feels real. Honestly, I don’t feel like I have enough time left to do all the things I need to do so my anxiety is in overdrive. Nonetheless, the time has come.

Howdy all. This will be a mixed post today. The first part will cover a quick update to all the things I previously had in flight preparing for my trip, and the second part will be a summary of the intensive research I’ve done on insect and mosquito repellents and other precautions. Several folks on the RY Facebook groups have been asking questions about what to do for mosquitos while in South America, and I have also fielded some direct questions from folks about the Permethrin-embedded clothing that I bought. In addition, I’ve now agreed to join a hike of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu while we’re in Peru, which means I need to step up my research game and be definitively sure of my choices before I leave. But first, the update.

I apologize I haven’t posted the later parts of my Macbook setup instructions yet. I ran into the chicken-and-egg problem of wanting to use my new Macbook to write my posts. I am happy to report that I am now writing this post on my new Macbook and it’s to a point where I can start writing the rest of the article. I will do that later on. First though, a quick update regarding trip preparations.

Itinerary Update

First, before I get into the rest of what I’ve got sorted out this week for my trip, the itinerary has changed for Darién. The Remote Year staff reached out to everyone who has been accepted to Darién to notify us of the change earlier this week, citing safety concerns about Turkey and Bolivia. The new itinerary is below:

1. Prague, Czech Republic
2. Belgrade, Serbia
3. London, UK
4. Lisbon, Portugal
5. Rabat, Morocco
6. Valencia, Spain
7. Mexico City, Mexico
8. Bogotá, Colombia
9. Medellin, Colombia
10. Lima, Peru
11. Córdoba, Argentina
12. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Preparing to Travel

When I left you last week I was still figuring out insurance, waiting on my US Passport to be sent to me from renewal, and considering my options for some other essential items for travel.

I’m in!

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been accepted to join Remote Year as part of the Darién cohort starting on June 1st, 2016 in Prague, Czech Republic, and returning to the US in June of 2017. I’ve been looking forward to doing international travel and participating in the digital nomad lifestyle for many years, and since I now work remotely its presented the opportunity to make that dream a reality. I’m overjoyed to be part of what is surely going to be an epic experience.