Why Travel

Living Abroad

What is the difference between travel and living abroad or the expat life?  Many expats I know, both abroad and in the US (which is, of course, abroad to them and their folks back home) also love to travel, take the opportunity to explore the region they are living in as well as others, and embrace living in other places not just as a necessity but for the very reasons that many of us travel.

I just lived abroad as a student and only in London, twice.  But that's a little like saying we are just friends.  Friendship may be the most essential and at times difficult relationship. Being a student may be the most travel like and the most difficult way of living abroad.  The student mode of openness and inquiry is very much like that of the traveler.  The student budget is very much like that of the backpacker.  The foreign student is much less walled off and air conditioned than the banker.

But moving as a student is so much easier, especially since it is temporary, as is everything else during student years (whenever they my fall).  I moved both times with two big suitcases. In those two suitcases was my teapot, both times. Bought on a previous trip it was one object both useful and pretty that made me feel at home. 

I just lived abroad in London, in the UK, a country famously divided from my own by a common language. Communication changed radically between the two times I lived there. The first time I had my first mobile phone there but still used phone boxes for most international calls and spent a lot of time (and money) on Internet cafes to keep in touch.

What has been your experience with living or movinng abroad?  With keeping in touch?  What do you do when moving or traveling to make things feel "like home"?

 

Packing Light (or, a vacation from stuff)

I have always been passionate about packing light, ever since my first trip abroad, on a high school exchange when I somehow brought two bags plus a backpack for a 10 day stay in the suburbs of London.  What was all that and what was it for?  Who knows but after that I've done many trips with backpacks sold as "daypacks" as my only luggage for a couple of weeks.

India for 7 weeks, followed by a week in Beijing and a couple of weeks in California was more of a challenge.   One of the best things about traveling in India is that it really teaches you to pack light.  Researching the trip, and then actually going on it, both enforce that you want to have your stuff with you at all times on trains and busses, and directly under your seat, preferably locked to it.  Once you get your stuff down to the minimum, you also don't want to check it on flights because you need this stuff and don't want it to get lost.  So it has to fit in a true carry on bag, and reduce liquids to the one ziplock baggy.

I did some research and enjoyed reading blogs and other advice about packing light.  It's a popular and fun topic.  Some useful ones are:

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree
www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/packlight.htm
http://www.travelite.org/

Here's what I packed:

REI "desert" travel shirt
Striped pullover shirt
black pants
convertible pants
silk long underwear
rain jacket
fleece jacket
Tilley Hat
winter hat
Hiking boots
black Teeva sandals (with velcro straps)
3 pairs underwear
2 bras
2 pairs socks
Travel sleeping bag
Alarm Clock
Luggage locks
Medicines
Insect Repellent
2 packages travel soap sheets (for shampoo, soap and laundry without carrying liquid)
5 books (Lonely Planet India, 3 novels to read/swap, Top 10 Beijing, and journal)
Camera
Cell phone
Money belt
Book light
Small roll of duct tape
Sewing kit

That includes what I wore.  More than half my backpack was taken up by my medicines (of which I only used the malaria pills, 1 tylenol and 1 immodium) and (tiny) sleeping bag.  I had some room for souvenirs, but did ship them a few weeks into the trip.  I bought local clothes as I went, and was given an extra fleece by another traveler before going up to Darjeeling (where I also bought a wool hat which I wore over my other winter hat, it was that cold.)

The sleeping bag was key, it was the coldest winter in decades in Rajastan and I used it, along with the hotel blankets, almost every night until Mumbai.  Doing a little laundry every night or two really is no big deal, as the travel experts will tell you.  I always cleaned my own underwear, and had my other clothes cleaned by hotels (including my socks).  When you are really packing light, it's important to remember to bring at least one extra set of clothes so that you can have laundry done (or let your other pants dry if you're doing them yourself)!

Protests and Strikes, 2nd North End Post

Though I witnessed/experienced a few protests and strikes in India, it seems I visited India and China just in time.

Protests in Tibet started just as I departed Beijing, and there have been many more protests in India since I left.  Including about food prices, which began their steep global climb just after I left.

Last week I read that tourism in Beijing is way down, and that due to tightened visa rules even business travel is off, and tourists are being discouraged from visiting the Olympics.  This is the opposite of how Beijing was when I was there just a few short months ago, when the new airport was opening, and I only had a tick three boxes on a newly adopted landing card when entering (and they gave me a full year tourist visa though I applied for a six month one).

Phew, its a good thing I missed those.  Except for understanding.  If I'd stayed a bit longer, maybe I would have a better understanding of what the possibly mounting unrest means.

One effect of the rise in food prices here in America for me is that I am shopping more locally, not only are the farmers market prices more competive with supermarket produce, but so are the also rising prices at the small local shops in my quickly gentrifying neighborhood that have always seemed way over priced. 

I guess as rent becomes a smaller percent of the overall pricetag, even the quickly rising local rents don't lead to price increases as quickly as truly global economic forces.  As I return to more frugal ways as I delay finding employment, it also helps to waste less when I simply walk to stores to buy exactly what I need when I need it, and of course avoid the temptations of sales on things I don't really want and weird new products promoted at the big grocery store.  A new "natural food store" is about to open, so I will be able to get even more food from a local shop.  This shop is tiny, probably less than 500 square feet.

Two gas stations we wanted to go to yesterday were closed, maybe permanantly, because of the high costs of gas.  We ended up going to a gas station with relatively high prices for the area late last night, that was on our way home from a friends house.

I am skeptical that household recycling of many materials is efficient, at least the ways its done now (rinsing things out, collecting from each house with big smelly trucks or households driving to a dump) but the city's new pilot program in my neighborhood, using big clear plastic bags rather than small blue bins to collect mixed recyclables, seems to be a huge success.  In our house, we now recycle more than we throw away, and based on what I see on the street, neighbors are heading in this direction.  We are also lucky to have the greatest urban recycling system, if you put out a whole usable thing, like a piece of furniture, dishes, almost anything, someone will take it for use within half an hour, any time of day or night.

I recently joined freecycle.com, an online extension of this idea.  But it's not nearly as quick and efficient, you still have to communicate with people, and people have to drive or try to lug things on public transportation.  We are lucky to live in one of the densest neighborhoods in America, where just putting things out works better.  But now I've come to enjoy reading the freecycle digests I get by email, it is oddly interesting reading about what people don't need anymore, and want people need or want.  It's a little like shopping online, without spending any money, or usually even getting any stuff.  So maybe the greatest innovation of freecycle is to provide a way to scratch the shopping itch?