FIRST Cover Your Logistical Bases Before You Leave

Nora does an amazing job of covering things like important tax, legal, healthcare, residency, voting, and document saving 10x better than I want to. It’s a bit of a dry article compared to this one, but these things are important enough that I think you should open the tab and read it after you read some hilarious real world stories of shit that went wrong in my travels. Don’t worry, I recovered from all of them.

Why I Bring 5 Bank Cards

Imagine your on a small island in Thailand at the end of a trip. You got to take cash out, and the ATM spits out your card with no explination, other than Thai text that fills the screen.

There are no banks, only ATM’s on the island, and none of the banks are Canadian anyways, so it wouldn’t matter.

It’s a 6 hour boat ride, and a 8 hour bus ride to the nearest bank. Not that it matters because you don’t have enough physical cash for that trip. You’ve been traveling for 8 months, and after being in Bali for 6 months, 2 of your bank cards are completely locked by your bank because they’ve been compromised by fraudulent ATM card scanners and are in danger of being completely drained at any given moment. You don’t keep cash in those accounts anymore.

The one remaining card you brought has a block on it, but it’s still working because you can call your bank, have them temporarily remove the block for an hour, you pray the hackers don’t notice or choose that exact moment to try to take out cash, you do your transaction and then the bank locks it again.

But that card isn’t working today. Even unlocked, NONE of the ATM’s will even register that it’s in the machine or take your pin, never mind actually give you cash. Maybe the ATM is out of cash, maybe the gods hate you, but it’s more likely it’s your card.

Your bank certainly won’t mail your card to Thailand, and your new cards will take 3+ weeks to make it to the nearest big city (which you still can’t get to without the cash you need)

Also, it’s almost dinner time, and you and your kid are hungry.

What do you do?

You ask at the local co-working space if anyone is Canadian, when you find them, you approach them to ask an awkward favour. Can you help me get money out? Can I send you $400 CAD via etransfer, and you can take it out of the ATM for me?

You have to trust that this stranger will keep their word, get you your money, and you’ll be okay.

LESSONS LEARNED:

Don’t get caught out like this. Make sure your bank knows you’re traveling (or they might lock your card)

Bring extra cards incase yours gets locked and it takes you 2-30 days to figure it out with your bank in Canada.

ALWAYS GET MORE CASH 5-10 DAYS BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY NEED IT.

The best extra card is one with no foreign bank fees. I love Koho because they are a company that wants to change the face of banking. You can even open it online. https://app.koho.ca/referral/5D8S470L

Make sure you can afford to be there BEFORE you arrive

There’s nothing worse than landing in Madrid Spain and realizing that a coffee and a croissant will cost you $15 CAD, there’s nothing gluten free on the menu, and the hostel you’d planned on staying at doesn’t let children stay in shared dorms, meaning your 11 Euro bunk bed is now a mandatory 56 Euro ROOM, and your prepaid room is no longer prepaid, but hella expensive. You have $200 in your account for food, shelter and hopefully seeing the sights over the next 6 days. True story.

What do you do?

The solution was to pay for the 1 night at the hostel, then spend a few hours of frantically messaging people on CouchSurfing.com, until I found a VERY kind Spanish man who took us in and treated us like gold for the days we were with him. By the way, people are incredibly kind to traveling moms & kids.

NomadList has a great guide on what you should expect to pay to be in many of the best spots.

Travel Tested Health Insurance aka. First Aid Items

While I’ve never actually traveled with health insurance, and we’ve never had anything worse than a staphylococcus skin infection, parasites (you probably have them too right now by the way), an unexpected pregnancy, and mosquito bites (oh and then dengue), all of those I handled with natural plant based medicine, or over the counter (ie under $50, minimal dr intervention) medications.

These are the items I swear by, and always travel with to handle any issue. https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1KUZCX63DP6BS?ref_=wl_share

I’ll also say, it helps a bunch to not eat meat, processed sugars, or alcohol.

You don’t need health insurance, but if me saying that gives you the heebie-jeebies, then you DO, because anxiety breeds accidents. (if you want help resolving this anxiety for good, book a call with me)

So if you do really want health insurance use https://safetywing.com/ or https://www.worldnomads.com/ You can start using them when you are outside your country of orgin too, which is unique to insurance companies.

Get the Best Flight Prices by Booking One Way or Nomad Tickets

Use Kiwi.com to get your one way ticket.

Some countries will require proof of online travel, so a quick google search “what are the visa entry requirements for XX country” will let you know if you need that. You can then have a backup “fake” ticket ready for when you need it.

There are a number of services that have sprung up in the last few years. Choose your own.

Get MASSIVE Discounts on Longer Term (1-6 month) rentals

Locate Accommodation on AirBNB for your first 2 weeks. (use the price sliders to choose only the listings that are in your budget, or you’ll get “luxury envy” I guarantee it.

Once you’re there find a local place via the grandma method, or the facebook method.

Facebook search for “(Ubud or name of your town) Longterm Rentals” and then look for what you want to find.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/UbudMonthlyRentals/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1571543596455316/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ubudrental/

Use The Knowledge of Others & Find Friends

https://www.facebook.com/groups/weareworldschoolers/

Families in Mexico https://www.facebook.com/groups/1889482044672683/

Arcturian/Pleiadian Starseed Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/342683132960718

We are Worldschoolers Events https://www.facebook.com/groups/299731590638407

Ubud Events https://www.facebook.com/groups/701570479882385/

Ubud Night and Day: What to do and Where to go! https://www.facebook.com/groups/1031355626884446

Burning Man Global https://www.facebook.com/groups/2209575143

Be Able to Handle Paperwork Back Home

Make sure you setup the bank of mom (ie, get your mom to handle opening your mail and give her shared access to an account so she can cash cheques for you, and handle money things that might need you to be physically present. Remember to say thank you.

You can also Docusign most things if you ask (it’s legally binding, and I used it to buy a car remotely once.. yes.. for real), or digitally fax papers you print and sign (helpful when dealing with govt agencies who want fax.

Travel Light

When you pack your bag, bring only what you would bring to a friends house for an overnight. Everything else you can pick up along the way.

One can recognize an expert traveler more by what they leave at home than what they carry in their suitcase.”

“Suicidal ideation, the act of thinking about committing suicide. Is normal. A normal healthy response to an overwhelming, unrelenting, inescapable emotional pain.”
The words drop into my mind like a hammer. I’m normal. It’s okay.  “I wish someone had told me that 5 years ago.”  I laugh a little bit, but it’s not funny.  I think of the years I’ve spent hiding this part of me, the hours I’ve spent ruminating and pondering what makes me so fucked up that my first thought when something goes wrong is “I want to die.”
The pain I’ve felt at the voice that said,
“I want to die,
I want to die,
I want to die.”
All of this is normal.
 
“When you get a chance, go with a friend to the place where you wanted to drive off the bridge, be the passenger, and talk to them, share with them what you felt, what you experienced, what your world was like then.”
 
“I can do that.”  I think immediately of the bridge as it crosses Fish Creek park on 22x. How many days of driving that cursed yellow school bus did I think about turning the wheel just enough?  Hundreds of times.  Today, a question I had never thought to ask rises to my mind.
How much shame did I internalize from feeling there was something really wrong with me for thinking about it?
A few hours later I’m a passenger in the car, on route south to a family dinner.  I’m dressed up and excited to be going towards my beloved’s families house to spend time with them.  The traffic slows, but it’s the wrong time of day for rush hour.  It must be an accident.  We wait in traffic for a while, and as we pull slowly past the scene, I see clearly, the side of a car smashed in, the back passenger seat, where Alex would sit. It fills my stomach and my heart with dread, I hope dearly there were no children in the back seat.  I feel deeply “I would be so sad if my son died.” This in itself is a relief to the cold hearted “It would be a relief to be free.” a few years back that was my internal response to moments like this.
As we pass by the accident, we both get quiet.  The car is filled with a clear sense of the frailty of our mortality, the real possibility of losing the people we love on short notice, and it brings it all back to reality really fast.   I squeeze his hand, and we sit in silence for a while.
A few KM later, as we exit onto 22x, I realize that this is the moment of speaking my thoughts to die on that bridge.
That moment is happening today.
That opportunity to be listened to
is happening today.
I quickly check in with Dan. “Are you able to hold space for me while I share about this place that I have been suicidal?” He says yes, and I am so greatful.
As we drive forward my voice starts speaking, and it feels not quite like my voice, but the silent repressed voice of all the times I have driven here. I speak in the present tense like it’s happening now. Like I’m walking through my thoughts.
“This is where I start thinking about running off the road.  Before the bridge, so the bus would land in the water, and we’d drown.  Less chance of survival.  But the angle is tricky. Some days I speed down that off-ramp, feeing into the speed build, I’d need to be going fast to break the median.  I remember feeling the courage it would take to take the plunge.  Somedays it was exciting to feel the excitement of getting close to that moment.”
I can feel my body tingling all over, there is a visceral sense of relief, of being seen, heard and felt.  I understand why I was invited to do this.  I know I will do it again in other moments of pain.
“I feel I am useless. I feel I am helpless to change it. The kids I am driving are so far gone off the autistic spectrum, they are incapable of living normal human lives, I would be doing their parents a favor to end their lives and the suffering of parenting a child like that.  But Alex was on the bus most days, I didn’t do it because I thought out of all of us, he might have a future.  I couldn’t take that away from him.  I couldn’t take him away from his grandparents like that. ”
My body starts shaking, and deep tears flow to my eyes. I wonder at the pain I must have been in all those years ago. I see my pain through a new lens.
“Suicidal ideation is normal.”  I think to myself.  Time to REALLY let it go.
“I hated that job, I hated the kids I drove, I was filled with contempt every day. I hated waking up early every morning and slogging through the cold weather to pick them up. So they could sit like lumps on the bus, and sit like lumps at school.  They had no future.  The bus never really got warm, even with three pairs of pants, and a big jacket and scarf and hat, and big mitts and the heat cranked.  I was always still cold.”
I remember the strictness of my playlist.  Only happy tunes, happy words, happy themes to the songs I listened to.  No sadness allowed.  I clung to joy like it was a life preserver in the middle of a choppy sea.  I forced myself into it all winter, being the most upbeat person on the team, I stuffed my pain.  I remember the joy in my heart when spring started to come that year, and I finally felt the sun on my skin again. I remember thinking “I thought I would die, I thought the winter, and the cold would kill me. ”
We pass the bottom of the bridge and head up towards the next offramp.  We are passed the point of no return. I whisper. “This is where I was always silently relieved that I had decided not to do it.”
He says nothing, but I can feel him there.  Listening to my pain, heart open.
I get quiet again, and sit with my feelings, with the tingling sensation in my scalp, hands, and spine.  I know I’ve just healed that time of my life, and that desire to die on a deep level today.
It’s time to return to the lovely conversation we were having before this moment started.  I shake my whole body and make a silly noise.  I take a deep breath in.
“I’m complete. Thank you.”
He squeezes my hand, and we sit together in silence for a while before returning to our conversation.  I hold his hand, watching the city lights sweep past us, and into the night, as we enter the countryside.  It’s beautiful to be here, alive and enjoying the drive.
 
**** If you or someone you know struggles with suicidal thoughts. I wrote this today to let you know that you’re normal.  It took me a lot longer to ask for help than I’d like to admit, and I know that it’s hard.  But asking to be heard is one of the crucial steps in recovery, along with learning to love yourself.  I feel I did it backwards, I feel it might have been easier if I’d know how to ask for help but it might also be a chicken/egg type thing.
If you need support in learning to love yourself, check out the 60-second depression recovery/self love hack I created in the darkest of days to help myself find the courage to keep going.  JoyGasm.me/LOVE

Today I write to honor the season’s changes. The changes in our lives. The death in preparation of rebirth that is the “fall”.  This is a moment to celebrate, a new beginning.

I have been a traveler for many years. I have traveled far and wide, and it was in my travels that I met Grandma Kaarina, on Christmas day a few years back, we were both there soaking up the Mexican sunshine.  I had run away from the Canadian winter that year and many before. In fact, it has been 6 years since I’ve done a full winter. 10 since I did it on a regular basis. When I was 21, I did my first full year of summer, traveling to Australia, and when I returned I knew that I would not return to that cold, I had no desire to return to winter.

Yet this year I am choosing to stay. To embrace winter. Why?

The death, that is at at the heart of winter, is something that is a source of renewal, a source of connection, a source of life. This is a necessary part of life. A part of the natural cycles of life.  Each plant dies and is reborn, each generation has its time.  Yet in my life I have denied this seasonal cycle for many years.  I feared the darkness, the cold, the isolation in a basement suite that the winter threatened.  I feared seasonal depression, suicidal thoughts unchecked, and the pain of being alone.

It’s not surprising, having been raised in a culture that embraces the youthful face, and rejects the elder.  In a culture that isolates in little box houses, and keeps us churning in consumerism.  It is not surprising when the media tells me that the new is to be cherished, and the old discarded.  If I was not productive in those winter months, I was without value.  To be discarded.  Of course, I would run away. Of course I would avoid that death.   What value would death have to a culture that praises baby faces and the newest fad week after week, after week, after week.

But I have not denied the symbolism of death totally, for I have had some wise teachers, and I have learned to create my own deaths and rebirths, separate from my journey with the seasons. Seeing each country, each city, each moon time as a moment of death and rebirth. A ceremony to celebrate becoming reborn.

So when I returned to Canada in the spring, I knew that I would die. Not physically die, but to metaphorically die. To die as an ego. To die to the part of myself that need to do it ALL ON MY OWN ALL THE TIME.   To die as an individual, and be reborn as a collective. The energy these past few weeks has been so strong there were moments when I wondered how would I even know what to do, without the kind voices and faces of those who live and love around me.  How I would have survived without a friendly face who I knew was on my side. The collective is strong.

Yet I have spent the better part of the last few years being the embodiment of aloneness. Loneliness. Alone. Not peaceful and alone like the monk on the mount, but fearful. Fearful and alone. Not fun. Isolated. Socially rejected, but by my own choice and habit. Always the outsider.  Always the minority.  Traveling, with me, myself, and my son.

He and I have known change more than stability in our lives, and in this time of massive change, maybe we are more poised than others to deal with the instability of these times.

Now having returned to Calgary, now it is time to anchor into a community and become WE.

Not me. We. We can save the me. Me is lost now without the We.  We are a collective soul, a collective evolution, a collective tribe.  Spanning far further and wider than most could imagine. Every country I touched, I found people, young and old, seeking the knowledge that they were not alone in having woken up.  Seeking community, a return to the land, and a hope that there is a better way to live.  This is not only my journey, or your journey, but the larger journey of the soul of our time.

“The next Buddha will be a Sangha,” said Thich Nhat Hanh.  It is time to learn to open up to the tribe.  To share the pain, the burdens, as well as the joys and the celebrations, and to rekindle the village. To relearn what the village is and can be for me. Who I can be in it, how I can be of service in it, and how we can share the bounty and the challenges of life together.

The challenge for me now is to love myself so much that I can finally accept into my life, heart, and soul, the friendship which was torn from me at 10 years old when I moved and created the TRAUMA of relocation.  To honor the intergenerational nature of this trauma, as see also that I am the one that passed on deeply to my son by bringing him to 11 countries in 5 years. To forgive me in that, and to find peace within.  To allow the winter to bring its death, and to let it wash over me, to rest deeply in the darkness.  To huddle closer to those around me, also in search of the light.  And when the time comes, in its own time, to find ourselves, the tribe, the village, the community, peacefully budding into blossom in the spring.