International Multi-Band and GSM-Compatible Phones
My World Phone (www.myworldphone.com)
I’m partial to Nokia phones. Ensure whichever phone you purchase is “unlocked”—that the SIM card can be swapped out in different countries with different providers.
World Electronics USA (www.worldelectronicsusa.com)
Good explanation of which GSM frequencies and “bands” function in which countries, which will determine which phone you purchase for travel (and perhaps home).
Tools for Off-the-Beaten Path
Satellite Phones (www.satphonestore.com)
If you will be in the mountains of Nepal or on a remote island and want the peace of mind (or headache) of having a phone nearby, these phones work via satellite instead of towers. Iridium has been recommended for widest reception (pole to pole), with GlobalStar in second place (three continents). Rent or purchase.
Pocket-size Solar Panels (www.solio.com)
Satellite phones and other small electronics are of little use (skipping stones, perhaps?) if their batteries die. Solio is about the size of two packs of cards and fans out into small solar panels. I was surprised to find that it charged my cell phone in less than 15 minutes—more than twice as fast as a wall outlet. Adapters are available for almost anything.
What to Do Once You Get There—Career Experiments and More
Verge Magazine (see Restricted Reading appendix)
Meet Up (www.meetup.com)
Search by city and activity to find people who share similar interests all over the world.
Become a Travel Writer (www.writtenroad.com)
Get paid to travel the world and record your thoughts? This is a dream job for millions. Get the inside scoop on the travel publishing world from veteran Jen Leo, author of Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures: Funny Women Write from the Road. This blog was a Frommer’s Budget Travel Top Choice and also features great practical articles about low-tech travel and going gadgetless.
Teach Engrish (www.eslcafe.com)
Dave’s ESL Café is one of the oldest and most useful resources for teachers, would-be teachers, and learners of English. Features discussion boards and “teachers wanted” job postings worldwide.
Turn Your Brain into Play-Doh (www.jiwire.com)
Travel the world so you can instant message (IM) with your friends in the U.S. This site lists more than 150,000 hotspots where you can feed your information OCD. Be ashamed if this becomes your default activity. If you’re bored, just remember—it’s your fault. I’ve been there, so I’m not preaching. It happens to the best of us from time to time, but get more creative.
Test a New Career Part- or Full-Time: Working Overseas (www.workingoverseas.com)
This encyclopedia is an exhaustive menu of options for the globally minded, compiled and updated by Jean-Marc Hachey, former international careers editor of Transitions Abroad magazine.
World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (www.wwoof.com)
Learn and then teach sustainable organic farming techniques in dozens of countries, including Turkey, New Zealand, Norway, and French Polynesia.
Chat and E-mail in a Language You Don’t Know
Google Chat Bots (http://bit.ly/imbot)
Use this to chat in real time using almost any language. Instant message (IM) directly from your Gmail e-mail account with anyone in the world.
Nice Translator (www.nicetranslator.com) and Free Translation (www.freetranslation.com)
Translate text from English into a dozen languages and vice versa. Surprisingly accurate, though the lost-in-translation 10–20% can get you in trouble. Nice Translator is faster and can be used on the iPhone.
Become Fluent in Record Time
Language Addicts and Accelerated Learning
For all things language related, from detailed how-to articles (how to reactivate forgotten languages, memorize 1,000 words per week, master tones, etc.) to mnemonics and the best electronic shortcuts, click on “language” at www.fourhourblog.com. Learning languages is an addiction of mine and a skill I have taken apart and reassembled to be faster. It is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in 3–6 months.
Find Language Exchange Partners and Materials
LiveMocha (www.livemocha.com),
EduFire (www.edufire.com), and
Smart.fm (http://smart.fm/)
I particularly like their BrainSpeed learning game.
About.com (www.about.com)
Some of the more popular languages have excellent tutorials on About.com:
http://italian.about.com
http://spanish.about.com
http://german.about.com
http://french.about.com
68. The dollar figures in this chapter are all from a period immediately following President Bush’s reelection in 2004, which correlated to the worst dollar exchange rates of the last 20 years.
69. I refer, of course, to the amazing bike-riding opportunities and famous pastries.
70. Coined by Joel Stein of the LA Times.
71. By all means, go ahead and take a post-office celebratory trip and go nuts for a few weeks. I know I did. Rock on. Ibiza and glow sticks here I come. Have some absinthe and drink lots of water. Following that, sit down and plan an introspective mini-retirement.
72. Muses are low maintenance but often expensive in one or both of two tactical areas: manufacturing and advertising. Shop for providers of both that are willing to accept credit cards as payment, and negotiate this up front if necessary by saying, “Rather than trying to negotiate you down on pricing, I just ask that you accept payment by credit card. If you can do that, we’ll choose you over Competitor X.” This is yet another example of a “firm offer,” and not a question, that puts you in a stronger negotiating position. For a detailed explanation of how I multiply points for travel using concepts like “piggybacking” and “recycling,” search for both terms on www.fourhourblog.com.
73. To see a video of how I pack to travel the world with less than 10 pounds, click on “travel” at www.fourhourblog.com.
74. Founder of www.nileproject.com.
75. http://www.usc.edu/hsc/dental/opfs/SC/indexSC.html.
76. Brazilian shantytowns. See the movie City of God (Cidade de Deus) to get a taste of how fun these are.
77. This is a serious step and should not be taken with those you do not trust. In this case, it helps because your accountant can then sign tax documents or checks in your name instead of consuming hours and days of your time with faxes, scanners, and expensive international FedEx’ing of documents.
78. There are also services like www.earthclassmail.com, which will receive, scan, and e-mail all of your non-junk mail to you as PDFs.
79. This would be used if you leave your computer at home or in someone else’s home while traveling. This step can be skipped if you bring your computer, but that is like a recovering heroin addict bringing a bag of opium to rehab. Don’t tempt yourself to kill time instead of rediscovering it.
80. “Unlocked” means that it is recharged with prepaid cards instead of being on a monthly payment plan with a single carrier such as O2 or Vodafone. This also means that the same phone can be used with carriers in other countries (assuming the frequency is the same) with a simple switch of the SIM memory card for $10–30 U.S. in most cases. Some U.S.-compatible quad-band phones can use SIM cards.
ADDING LIFE AFTER SUBTRACTING WORK
To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass.
—ANNE LAMOTT, Bird by Bird
There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.
—BILL WATTERSON, creator of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip
KING’S CROSS, LONDON
I stumbled into the deli across the cobblestone street and ordered a prosciutto sandwich. It was 10:33 A.M. now, the fifth time I’d checked the time, and the twentieth time I’d asked myself, “What the &%$# am I going to do today?”
The best answer I had come up with so far was: get a sandwich.
Thirty minutes earlier, I had woken up without an alarm clock for the first time in four years, fresh off arriving from JFK the night before. I had soooo been looking forward to it: awakening to musical birdsong outside, sitting up in bed with a smile, smelling the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and stretching out overhead like a cat in the shade of a Spanish villa. Magnificent. It turned out more like this: bolt upright as if blasted with a foghorn, grab clock, curse, jump out of bed in underwear to check e-mail, remember that I was forbidden to do so, curse again, look for my host and former classmate, realize that he was off to work like the rest of the world, and proceed to have a panic attack.
I spent the rest of the day in a haze, wandering from museum to botanical garden to museum as if on rinse and repeat, avoiding Internet cafés with some vague sense of guilt. I needed a to-do list to feel productive and so put down things like “eat dinner.”
This was going to be a lot harder than I had thought.
Postpartum Depression: It’s Normal
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
—ANATOLE FRANCE, author of The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
I’ve Got More Money and Time Than I Ever Dreamed Possible … Why Am I Depressed?
It’s a good question with a good answer. Just be glad you’re figuring this out now and not at the end of life! The retired and ultrarich are often unfulfilled and neurotic for the same reason: too much idle time.
But wait a second … Isn’t more time what we’re after? Isn’t that what this book is all about? No, not at all. Too much free time is no more than fertilizer for self-doubt and assorted mental tail-chasing. Subtracting the bad does not create the good. It leaves a vacuum. Decreasing income-driven work isn’t the end goal. Living more—and becoming more—is.
In the beginning, the external fantasies will be enough, and there is nothing wrong with this. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this period. Go nuts and live your dreams. This is not superficial or selfish. It is critical to stop repressing yourself and get out of the postponement habit.
Let’s suppose you decide to dip your toe in dreams like relocating to the Caribbean for island-hopping or taking a safari in the Serengeti. It will be wonderful and unforgettable, and you should do it. There will come a time, however—be it three weeks or three years later—when you won’t be able to drink another piña colada or photograph another damn red-assed baboon. Self-criticism and existential panic attacks start around this time.
But This Is What I Always Wanted! How Can I Be Bored?!
Don’t freak out and fuel the fire. This is normal among all high-performers who downshift after working hard for a long time. The smarter and more goal-oriented you are, the tougher these growing pains will be. Learning to replace the perception of time famine with appreciation of time abundance is like going from triple espressos to decaf.
But there’s more! Retirees get depressed for a second reason, and you will too: social isolation.
Offices are good for some things: free bad coffee and complaining thereof, gossip and commiserating, stupid video clips via e-mail with even stupider comments, and meetings that accomplish nothing but kill a few hours with a few laughs. The job itself might be a dead end, but it’s the web of human interactions—the social environment—that keeps us there. Once liberated, this automatic tribal unit disappears, which makes the voices in your head louder.
Don’t be afraid of the existential or social challenges. Freedom is like a new sport. In the beginning, the sheer newness of it is exciting enough to keep things interesting at all times. Once you have learned the basics, though, it becomes clear that to be even a half-decent player requires some serious practice.
Don’t fret. The greatest rewards are to come, and you’re 10 feet from the finish line.
Frustrations and Doubts: You’re Not Alone
People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.
—JOSEPH CAMPBELL, The Power of Myth
Once you eliminate the 9–5 and the rubber hits the road, it’s not all roses and white-sand bliss, though much of it can be. Without the distraction of deadlines and co-workers, the big questions (such as “What does it all mean?”) become harder to fend off for a later time. In a sea of infinite options, decisions also become harder—What the hell should I do with my life? It’s like senior year in college all over again.
Like all innovators ahead of the curve, you will have frightening moments of doubt. Once past the kid-in-a-candy-store phase, the comparative impulse will creep in. The rest of the world will continue with its 9–5 grind, and you’ll begin to question your decision to step off the treadmill. Common doubts and self-flagellation include the following:
Am I really doing this to be more free and lead a better life, or am I just lazy?
Did I quit the rat race because it’s bad, or just because I couldn’t hack it? Did I just cop out?
Is this as good as it gets? Perhaps I was better off when I was following orders and ignorant of the possibilities. It was easier at least.
Am I really successful or just kidding myself?
Have I lowered my standards to make myself a winner? Are my friends, who are now making twice as much as three years ago, really on the right track?
Why am I not happy? I can do anything and I’m still not happy. Do I even deserve it?
Most of this can be overcome as soon as we recognize it for what it is: outdated comparisons using the more-is-better and money-as-success mind-sets that got us into trouble to begin with. Even so, there is a more profound observation to be made.
These doubts invade the mind when nothing else fills it. Think of a time when you felt 100% alive and undistracted—in the zone. Chances are that it was when you were completely focused in the moment on something external: someone or something else. Sports and sex are two great examples. Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow,81 these doubts disappear.