Wtf am I doing?

Two days ago I booked a one way ticket to Seoul, South Korea.

I have no idea why I did it. I love traveling but It’s also really scary. Im traveling across the world to a place where I don’t speak the language, don’t know anyone and have no plans. The whole idea fills me with anxiety.  

It would be so much easier to just come home. I love it at home. I love my wife. I love my friends. Every day I get to wake up and do things I love, see people I love, workout, and of course go to Chipotle.

But instead I’m going to Seoul, probably Tokyo after, and then back home in a few weeks. And I’m doing that because I know if I don’t do it now, while I’m already in San Francisco and closer to Asia, that I’ll always find excuses not to.

So while I’m super nervous, I know it’ll be fun and that I’ll have a good time, because I always do. It helps that I’m mostly comfortable being alone for long periods of time, but I also use a few ways to meet people while traveling that have worked well for me in the past.

I’ve already started bombarding everyone in Seoul on the site couchsurfing.org. I’m not trying to stay in anyone’s house but I’m just looking for local people to meet up. I’m not amazing at meeting people organically, and it’s especially harder when you don’t speak the language, so couchsurfing is great for me. I’ve made a ton of friends there so far, and looking forward to meeting more.

It takes a lot of work though, because you may have to write a lot of people to guarantee that someone will meet up. People are busy and have their own lives, so I may have to write well over a dozen people.

Another good strategy is checking out the Couchsurfing meetups. I went to one of them in L.A. and it was really fun and I met lots of cool people. 

Meetup.com is another site I may use. I haven’t used it much while traveling in the past, but I may have to get more creative on this trip.

It also helps that I feel at home whenever I drop in to a CrossFit gym. Everyone at CrossFit is really friendly and it helps me get some guaranteed human contact every day. Also I get to stay in shape at the same time!

One more thing I do when I travel is I’m very active on social media and chat to my friends at home. It sounds weird because you’d imagine that when you travel you shouldn’t be doing as much of that, but really I have a full day every day to do whatever I want. With my style of traveling there’s always a lot of down time and it helps me to feel connected. 

I also text while I walk. Like I’ll just wander around and if someone texts me I stop and text back, or maybe I check twitter at one corner, check Instagram at the next corner and etc. The travel snobs will tell you there’s something wrong with this, but it makes me really happy.

Why am I sharing this? I know it’s daunting to travel on your own. I can’t even believe that in a few hours I’m going to be halfway across the world with no idea what to do. Maybe something I’m writing will resonate with others, because I don’t think it’s normal advice. At least I’ve never seen a travel blog that encourages spending lots of time texting your friends.

It feels good to turn my world upside down every now and then. It’s supposed to be scary and make me feel vulnerable. These are feelings I like to keep feeling from time to time, and this is the best way I know how. Maybe for other people it’s not such a big deal to just go to another country on their own, but it’s still tough for me.

Lastly if anyone who reads this knows some cool people in Seoul/Tokyo (or anywhere in Asia for that matter, as my plans are still totally flexible), please let me know! Oh yeah, that’s the other way I meet people when I travel: I write blogs begging people to introduce me to their cool friends.