The Prodigal Global Digital Nomad Returns: My truth and my travel tips

It is 4:32 AM and thanks to jetlag I am awake. But awake in my own home and it feels as if I have never left. The dog is still alive. My houseplants are fine. The fridge has a number of science experiments blooming but it's nothing that can’t be composted and cleaned out. 

Five planes, eight trains, two buses, one ferry, countless rides in ubers, taxis and the London tube, and on average 14 thousand steps a day for the past month - I am back where I started, but I am different. 

We are all changing and evolving everyday, but when we travel - the adrenaline is pumping with the sheer amount of change, from places, to people, food, sounds, smells, local customs all putting your adrenaline on steroids. For me, it's addictive. It is an exciting and scary cocktail that keeps me awake, aware and alive.

In the words of Mark Twain, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of (hu)men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

MY TRUTH

It has been an incredible privilege to travel during this time of uncertainty and upheaval in the US and the world. I feel as if I have just taken a vacation from the insanity of what is brewing here at home. 

It has also given me such compassion and empathy for my clients with Creative Re/Frame I think about the work I do with WorldBoston and the US State Department's International Visitors Leadership Program and the facilitation sessions I have led with Arab Speaking Israelis and the Ukrainian refugees who have moved to Belarus to keep fighting from a relatively safe zone. I feel I can empathize with the participants on a much deeper level. Many of them felt guilty for leaving the wars to come to the US and now I felt guilty for leaving the US at a time of vulnerability. 

I have had conversations with people in Marrakech, Barcelona and Wales. All of them went along the lines of: The USA is like Poland in 1934. You have time to run. Get another passport. Flee while you still have a choice. And with a Jewish surname, I think of this often. But is anywhere safe? 

I am home. I am well rested and revitalized to jump into my regular world with new eyes. And a deeper commitment. I am making signs tonight. I will be at the Hands Off Rally tomorrow. We will be hosting a dinner for 30 strangers in a couple of weeks for a nonprofit intentional community building group @jumpinthejar.

I believe in people. I believe in all of us. I believe that all people are naturally good and see the humanity in each other. Traveling has reinvigorated me to dust off my activism skills because our world is too amazing and we need to fight for open borders, sharing resources and building the world we WANT to be living in. 

MY TRAVEL TIPS

The Capsule Wardrobe

I nailed it. One small carry-on bag and a backpack for a month. Stuff bags are essential. Dark neutral colored lightweight clothes and tights underneath for cold days. Scarfs. 3 pairs of shoes. Wear your biggest, heaviest shoes on travel days. Remember - no one else is paying attention to your wardrobe. The only three categories are: clean, clean enough, and dirty. 

Traveling as a woman of a certain age is FREEING

I am invisible and that is just fine by me. People ask if I need help carrying my bag up four flights of stairs and I say “YES!”  I am not a threat. And, most other countries respect their elders. More of that please!

Plan your trips to places where you have friends 

Working in Barcelona was a dream and it was all thanks to my former student, now fabulous friend and colleague, Raquel Peula Being able to see her in her city. Meet and play with her kids. Spend time with her husband. Understand her life. It was like having a sneaky whisper in my ear re: language, history, local customs. She is also the one who arranged my talks. INCREDIBLE! I love having a chance to feel like I am a local. One proud moment was when a gentleman approached me speaking Italian asking me for directions. Was I putting out Italian vibes? Love it!  I am working, but I just happen to be in Barcelona. 

Walk everywhere.

This is how you learn about a city. And it’s ok to get lost. In fact, getting lost is fun. But truth be told, it's really hard to get lost with google maps in your hand. Even when I was walking through the miles of medinas in Casablanca, google maps knew every sneaky path. 

Leave your ipods for your zoom meetings

When I travel I am there to experience where I am. I don't need Ezra Klein or Michael Babaro keeping me informed every minute. In fact, that is one of the reasons to travel. To hear the local perspective, their entry points into the world. And when you have your ipods in - you are saying to the world “I am not available”.   

It's the small moments that matter

I am taking the train from Marrakech to Casablanca during Ramadan and I am sharing an 8 seat couchette with a lovely mother and her two young daughters who are travelling to be with their extended family. The 9 year old sits across from me. She is folding a piece of paper into a soccer jersey, complete with a collar and she writes MOROCCO across the back.I take out a piece of paper and fold it into a boat. And then I fold another piece into a book. I wrote her a story, “The girl on the train”. We communicate through google translate and folding paper into things we both recognize. We share colored pens. She gives me a key chain with the Eiffel Tower, I give her two of my beaded bracelets from Sierra Leone. We say goodbye when the train pulls into my station. 

I arrived at London’s Euston Station from Wales. I have 15 minutes to find a safe, relatively quiet space to set up for a zoom meeting with a client. I make my way to the second floor and settle into a comfortable enough table at a franchise pub called Fullers. My waiter is so sweet. He calls me “lovely” about 15 times. He is so curious as to what I do and where I have come from. When I told him I just arrived from Wales he said, “I have never been outside London other than to go to Pakistan to visit family.” I laugh and point out the obvious, “You work in a train station! You could be anywhere in 3 hours and back in time for your shift tomorrow”. I order food I am not hungry for to justify my stay. I set up my computer, got on the free wifi, put in my noise cancelling ipods and tuned out the lovely waiter, the noise of the trains, the station master's voice announcements booming overhead. The food arrives when I am on the call and grows cold as I meet with my client. An hour later I log off and the waiter comes to check on me, bringing me warm tea, and offers to heat up the sandwich I never wanted. And we talk. He tells me he had always wanted to go to America but there is no way he would go now because of his brown skin. I concur, “America is a mess right now. And mean. Don’t go.” 

This is the feeling I get from most people. They shake their heads at the insanity of the state of the world, America's crazy President and look at me with sadness and pity for the country I live in that is dismantling before our collective eyes. And we are all scared. For the world.