The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel

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Simple Tips for a Risk-Free Life:

Accept what people tell you at face value. Surround yourself with people who think like you. Don’t stand out. Stay close to home. Get a normal job. Do things the way everyone else does, because there has to be a method to the madness.

College

Go to college because someone said you should get a degree, not because you want to learn anything. Take four years to finish, or maybe even five. No one’s counting. Take out student loans to “invest in yourself.” Follow the plan in your course catalog even if you hate some of the classes. Believe your advisor when she says you have to do things a certain way. Jump through hoops. Check off boxes.

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Part of what I go in search of while traveling are moments of personal discovery combined with a sense of wonder at the world. I’m not looking for places no one has ever set foot in before—it’s hard to find many Star Alliance flights to those few places still left in the world—but I am looking for a change in perspective that challenges me and brings me hope and purpose.

I sometimes expect to have this experience upon arrival at a certain place, and I am sometimes completely surprised by it. It’s happened to me in Macedonia, Montenegro, Israel, Hong Kong, and countless other places. Read the rest of this entry »

Before heading out to Africa via a 24-hour layover in Copenhagen, I checked all my sources for low-cost hotel options. I found absolutely nothing, so I moved on to hostel and guesthouse searching. The best deal I could find anywhere in the city was $99 a night—not what I usually consider a budget price for an aging one-star property. The Absalon Annex offered tiny rooms in a good location near the train station, so I booked a single.

“Your room is on the 5^th floor, but the bathroom is on the 4^th,” the check-in girl explained. I wasn’t too worried, because I only wanted a place to sleep in between flights, and since I knew I’d be jet lagged, I didn’t plan on doing much of it anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

An airport doesn’t always provide a good introduction to a country, but it can often be a good start. Airports are good places to test the system and find its breaking points. If the customs guy waives you through without a glance and the immigration guy hands your passport back without looking at it, you know that the place is pretty laid-back. If a dozen guys are prowling around the arrivals lounge bothering you about a taxi or changing money, you also know that the system is pretty loose, but not in the way you usually want.

In Japan, there are no breaking points in the system, at least not for foreigners. Tokyo’s Narita (NRT) airport is one of the best displays of a transportation hub that reflects the stereotypes we often have about a national culture. Narita is at once disorienting and welcoming, albeit from a distance that always lets you know you are a foreigner.

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I think a lot about distant places, but to be honest, I’ve never really given much thought to the small country called Montenegro. I’m not sure why– after all, it is the world’s youngest country, having just voted for independence from Serbia in 2006. That in itself is interesting to someone like me, but for whatever reason I knew very little about Montenegro until I arrived in it this afternoon.

I left Croatia with some Croats who were headed to a Rolling Stones concert in Budva, Montenegro. We split up in Herzog Novi, where they went on to Budva. The concert group invited me to come along, but I’m not really a Rolling Stones fan– and I didn’t have 100 euros to spend on a ticket. Instead, I took another bus to the city of Kotor, and then walked two towns away to the village of Prcanj where I am now.

Here’s the view of Kotor from across the water, which is now the background image on my laptop. In the morning I’ll leave for Macedonia, via an overland bus trip through Albania.

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