Sooo turns out I’m terrible at posting regular updates. Looks like I haven’t written much since probably July of last year. I owe an honest apology to anyone who has been waiting expectantly month after month for… silence. And I owe a genuine thank you to everyone who has lovingly–or impatiently–nudged me to write more here. I suppose this post is going to be my repentance–sort of a reflection on everything that’s happened since last July, and a little bit about where I am now and what I’m up to.

Buckle in, this is probably going to be a long read. So long, in fact, that I’m going to leave a summary and a table of contents for those without the time (or patience) to read everything:

Summary

The short version: since my last post in France, I’ve traveled through Morocco, Bali (Indonesia), India, back to Chiang Mai, and to Taipei, Taiwan. Things were rough for me in France and Morocco, but I’ve recovered since then and learned a little bit more about what I need in order to be happy, healthy, and productive. In my darker periods, I was fortunate to have a few consulting projects fall into my lap, and ended up consulting on various project nearly full-time for almost 6 months.

Consulting isn’t what I set out to do, but it’s been cool realizing that I can recreate the job I used to have in Silicon Valley on my own terms. What’s more, the pay is usually good enough that I’ve been able to start funding my lifestyle with plenty of time leftover. I’ve gone from working full-time as a consultant to half-time, and now even less.

At my present burn rate, just a few consulting projects a year is likely enough to pay my annual expenses, and then some. Right now the rest of my time is spent on my own projects. Currently I’m working on a new project with two close location-independent friends. We’re expecting to start beta testing the product in the next couple weeks. Between all the plates spinning in the air, things are busy enough that I’ve actually had to start turning prospective clients down. In short: work is going well. It’s taken me longer than I expected to get to where I am now, but I’m excited to have found a potentially sustainable way to continue traveling and to have time to work on my own projects.

Geographically, I’m currently in Medellin, Colombia, though I’ll be moving to Mexico City, Mexico very soon. I have a lot to say about Colombia now that I’ve lived here for almost 3 months–I expect I’ll publish something about my experience here soon :).

Recap

So let’s rewind: if you’ve read a few of the earlier posts here, you’ll know that a little less than 2 years ago I was working in Silicon Valley for a relatively prestigious company called Palantir. By some metrics, I was set for life and could have simply continued to climb the Silicon Valley career ladder in comfort. Yet I found that I was deeply unhappy and unfulfilled with what I was doing despite ostensibly having it all. So in August 2017 I quit both to challenge myself and to challenge the fragile definition of success I had implicitly bought into. The plan was to build small, self-sustaining, and automate-able businesses using my existing skillset as a software engineer, with the hope of 1) learning from repeated failures as much as I could in a short time span and 2) in the ideal case, eventually find a product or business that would stick well enough to generate the revenue required for me to win back my time (i.e. ~$2000-5000/mo in relatively passive income). I had about a year of runway saved up at the time, and figured that would be enough time to work something out.

Pre-Travel

After quitting I spent about 6 months at home with my parents in San Diego slowly acclimating to self-employed life. To be honest, this was a hard time. I knew to expect it, but my initial enthusiasm inevitably gave way to anxiety. It turns out that after over 2 decades of schooling followed by a full-time job it’s not the most simple thing to transition to completely managing yourself. I was surprised by how much I initially struggled with this, especially since I’ve always been very independent and extremely self-disciplined. I had such high expectations for myself to crush it that in the early moments when I realized I was definitely not crushing it I made myself feel awful for it. For obvious reasons this led to even less crushing it.

So 6 months passed, and I managed not to release a single product of my own. I did end up doing a few other things in that time, however. For example, I intentionally got rejected a lot, and for a little while I wrote some so-so weekly articles here on this blog. I also wrote a lot of foundational code for a library that I have ended up using for a couple of client projects. Oh, and fairly importantly, I took on my first consulting project building a prototype for a friend’s nascent startup. (The company was called Sain Health and we were building software to improve post-operation outcomes for hospital outpatients. The founder has since moved on to bigger and better things.)

Then, in February 2018, having still not really figured out how to run my own businesses, I left the United States. I had been reading about the trend of people traveling around the world who worked from wherever they chose to, and was naturally drawn to the idea. I also had a desire to live abroad and learn a number of foreign languages, so I already knew I would eventually leave the States when I quit my job.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

My first stop was Chiang Mai, Thailand, in February 2018. To be honest this was also initially a hard time. I still remember moments of extreme anxiety my first week in Thailand where I asked myself just what in the actually fuck I was doing there and why I had thrown away so much of my existing comfort and security for a life of who knows what the fuck I’d find. It got so bad at one point that I remember literally getting online to search for a therapist only to realize that I wasn’t sure I was willing to spend my precious runway to talk to one.

Things got better, of course, and, though I didn’t realize how important this was at the time, I was extremely fortunate to not be alone in Thailand. Prior to making the jump to Thailand, I had gotten in touch with an alumni from my college fraternity who also turned out to be headed to Thailand with his then girlfriend (now wife). Hilariously, I had only ever talked to him on the phone before showing up on his doorstep in Thailand to rent their extra room. I now count the two of them among my closest friends, and have crossed paths with them again a few times since we parted ways in Chiang Mai. Their presence plus the continued financial stability of my first consulting contract combined to make Thailand a very positive experience for me overall. And so, by the end of the month, much of my initial anxiety had given way to excitement and enthusiasm to have the privilege to live my life on the road.

Saigon, Vietnam

In March I moved to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam. I had an unexpectedly spectacular experience in Vietnam, likely owing largely to the fact that I fell head-over-heels in love with a beautiful and intelligent Vietnamese woman. I never expected that I’d find the next love of my life while traveling, but I suppose life has its own plans sometimes. Anyway, what was supposed to be a single month in Saigon turned into two when I eventually decided to cancel my plans to move to Penang, Malaysia (again, mostly motivated by my then budding relationship, though I probably would have denied it if you had asked me at the time).

Saigon was a definite highlight in my early adventure: the food was delicious, I found community at a good coworking space, and I was in love. While there I wrapped up my first consulting project and finally got back to work on my own projects, though I didn’t release anything.

Return to the States

After two months in Saigon, it was finally time to go back to the States for the month of May to watch my little sister graduate from NYU. I spent a bit of time on both coasts. I picked up a motorcycle license in California. I planned a trip to Yosemite to reunite with many of my Bay Area friends. I went camping and spelunking with a close friend in Pennsylvania. The focus was really on spending time with friends and family, so work was once again put on hold.

During much of this time I was long distance with my girlfriend in Vietnam. Toward the end of my shore leave, she dropped a bomb on me that ended our relationship and left me pretty emotionally shaken. At this point, I’m more than capable of talking about what happened, but it’s a long story that a few sentences won’t do justice to. That one will have to wait, sorry :P.

France

At the end of May, at long last, I flew across the Atlantic to France, the one place I had actually really pictured visiting when I started traveling. (I mostly started in Asia because, as a spoiled Southern Californian, I wasn’t sure I’d survive a European winter.) I was driven by the dream of learning French and eventually going to Le Cordon Bleu for culinary school. It was also one of my annual goals to visit Plum Village near Bordeaux, France as part of an effort to deepen my mindfulness and meditation practice.

I landed in Marseille, a port city in the south of France with a bit of a seedy reputation. Marseille is a rougher city, for sure, but I actually really like it there. It isn’t nearly as clean or as orderly as most of the other large European cities I’ve been to, but what it lacks in splendor it makes up for in character–the walls along the streets would often be covered with colorful graffiti murals.

I eventually went on a 2-week long road trip with a few good friends from the States. There were lots of fun moments getting stuck or stalling out inconveniently while getting used to driving a stick as I drove all the way from Lyon on the eastern side of France, through Dijon, up to Paris, out to Mont Saint-Michel, and back to Paris.

From Paris, I took a train to Bordeaux closer to the Western coast of France, where I spent a few weeks before and after my 2 weeks at Plum Village. Of everywhere I went in France, Bordeaux was probably my favorite city–beautiful architecture, lots of gorgeous public spaces, and a shimmering river that cuts through the city’s center.

When I came back from Plum Village, I bought a bus ticket to Lyon, often hailed as the gastronomic capital of France. I got a deal on a nice apartment in a lively area and spent my last 6 weeks there, occasionally splurging on expensive Michelin-rated meals. (For the record, my favorite restaurant in Lyon actually wasn’t any of the 1- or 2-star Michelin restaurants I ate at, but instead an up and coming restaurant called La Bijouterie.)

France was actually really tough for me. When I arrived in Marseille, I barely spoke the language, I was still reeling from breaking up with my Vietnamese girlfriend, and I was staying in this very strange AirBnB situation where it seemed like my host would kick himself out onto the couch so that he could advertise his bedroom as a private room for guests.

I honestly didn’t make many friends in France, and I started to experience social isolation for the first time. I also felt poor for the first time, since I wasn’t making any income and prices in Europe were at least 2 to 3 times what I had been paying in Asia. There were a lot of moments in France when fear and self-doubt crept back in, and I resumed asking myself if I had torpedoed my career for nothing. I’m not hugely superstitious, but on one of my darkest days I remember having two people reach out to me on the same day to see if I’d be willing to take on some new consulting work. It almost felt like someone knew I needed help to get back on track.

Needless to say, I said yes to the consulting gigs, again at the expense of working on my own projects. I worked on a small project for the Robin Hood Army, built a website for my sister as a graduation gift, and starting working on the first version of I’m With Them. Along the way, I picked up another client building productivity software for a professional services firm in Hong Kong.

I didn’t intend for it to happen, but consulting for various clients turned into my full-time profession for awhile after that. It was reassuring to me to realize that my career was far from over just because I left Silicon Valley, and I found that it was much easier for me to be super self-accountable when I knew I wanted to impress my clients with my skills. It wasn’t what I had set out to do, but I learned that I could re-create my job in Silicon Valley on my own terms.

The New Stuff

Now we’re more-or-less caught-up to the last time I posted a real update. Since then I’ve spent 3 months in Morocco, a month in Bali, a month in India, a month back in Chiang Mai, almost 4 months in Taiwan, and am now writing from Medellín, Colombia. There’s still a lot of ground to cover.

Morocco

After 3 months in France, my visa finally ran out at the end of August. (As a US citizen, a standard tourist visa gives me 90 days out of every 180 in the Schengen Area, which covers pretty much all of Western Europe.) I moved to Morocco, thinking that it was the nearest non-Schengen French-speaking country, and vaguely recalling that a friend had long ago joked with me about moving our startup to Morocco to extend our runway.

Marrakesh

My first stop in Morocco was Marrakesh, where I spent 2 weeks. Speaking candidly, I hated Marrakesh and my time there left a bad taste in my mouth toward both Morocco and Moroccan people that took weeks to go away. The best way I can describe Marrakesh is as the living image of what Moroccans think Westerners think Arabian Nights should look like. In my humble opinion, the city has completely sold its soul to tourism, which makes up the majority of the local economy. I’m sure it’s not actually all Marrakeshi people, but most of the locals you’ll meet in the streets give you in the impression that you’re a walking money bag–they want your money, and they have no qualms about lying to you or scamming you to get it. Given the maze-like streets and markets in Marrakesh, an extremely common tactic is to tell foreigners that streets are closed so they get even more lost and confused and ultimately pay for assistance. Most of these offers for assistance are phrased as a friendly favor, not as a service being sold for cash, so you’ll often feel confused when they flip and pressure you to compensate them for their time. Additionally, unlike most mature tourist economies, many vendors in Marrakesh give off a distinctive sense of entitlement–nowhere else in the world have I heard a street food vendor go so quickly from trying to hard sell you on buying his food to cussing you out in every language he knows simply because you weren’t interested in what he had to offer.

Marrakesh was also the first city where I felt actively unsafe and on edge, despite having spent time in a lot of places that other people might not consider totally safe–Ho Chi Minh City or Marseille, for example. It’s awful, but I often tell people that my time in Marrakesh has given me more empathy for what it’s probably like to be a woman in today’s world. It was incredibly uncomfortable to feel like a target every time I’d walk around in public, and like everyone I met secretly or not so secretly wanted something from me. It was scary to feel like people might get aggressive if I did not or could not give them what they wanted.

Essaouira

All of this is to say that I was positively relieved to leave Marrakesh for Essaouira, another touristy town, this time on the coast. Essaouira is a beautiful walled city, once occupied by the Portuguese. Some people may actually recognize Essaouira as the set for Astapor in Game of Thrones.

For 5 weeks, I lived in a huge, beautiful apartment with a rooftop ocean view. Calm and relaxing with the sound of crashing waves and the occasional sea breeze, Essaouira was a welcome contrast to the hustle and bustle of Marrakesh. Gradually, I began to let my guard down and opened myself up to experiencing a different side of Morocco and its people.

I had other challenges in Essaouira, however, chief among them being a lack of community. The sense of social isolation that had begun in France deepened severely here, as I began to realize that my only potential friends were either locals, who I had trouble communicating with and relating to, and extremely transient tourists typically just passing through Essaouira for a couple of days. The closest things I had to friends were the staff at my favorite spots for breakfast and dinner. My loneliness was compounded by the void left by my ex-girlfriend, a wound which was still healing at the time, and which had been opened again by some recent communication with her. At times, I felt depressed and struggled harder than ever to keep myself focused and motivated. I spent a lot of time cooped up in my apartment, usually only leaving for breakfast, dinner, and the occasional coastal sunset.

Despite everything, when my AirBnB lease ended, I didn’t want to leave. For the first time in a long time, I had no idea where I was going next, and the uncertainty daunted me. I would almost have rathered the certainty of my notably dreary existence in Essaouira to the effort of facing the uncertainty and figuring out what to do next. Given my experience in Morocco up to this point, I might have considered leaving the country, but I had been talking to one of my clients in Hong Kong about the possibly of flying me out there to work on site for a month as part of my next contract with him. Not knowing yet whether or not that was going to pan out and the hope that if it did it would cover the long flight back out to Asia left me feeling kind of trapped in Morocco.

Taghazout

When I finally pulled myself together, I decided to move further down the coast to Taghazout, a touristy little surf town so small that you actually have to take a taxi to the next town over to find an ATM (and, of course, cash was king in Taghazout regardless). Though I grew up in San Diego and surfed when I was younger, I’m not actually much of a surfer these days, which should leave any reasonable person wondering why the hell I moved myself to a middle-of-nowhere surf town. The answer is that Taghazout is also the home to a reasonably well-known coworking and coliving spaces called SunDesk, which I wanted to try thinking that it might solve my isolation problem.

Fortunately, it did. While I have a lot of gripes about Taghazout as a place and am not honestly sure I’d go back, the community at SunDesk was wonderful–I got to know a lot of people pretty well, and was relieved to have interesting people to spend my meals, evenings, and weekends with.

While in Taghazout, I finally decided to stop waiting for my client to potentially send me to Asia, and instead bought a ticket to meet my sister in Bali, where she planned to do Yoga teacher training. With my dates set, I got serious about finishing my sightseeing rounds in Morocco, especially because I had a feeling I’d never be back.

Sahara Dessert, Fez, Chefchaouen, Tangier

Before leaving Morocco, I had a chance to spend almost a full week trekking in the Sahara Desert, which was an awesome experience. I went to the desert in Zagora, to the south, where the desert covers more area and the terrain is more varied. As we trekked, the scenes changed from a stony dryness to a fine-grained sand, and, finally, to a sea of sand dunes as far as the eye could see.

I made good friends with my guides, and we passed the time trading words in English, French, and Arabic. At night we would gather around the fire and enjoy a bowl of harira, a hearty, tomato-based soup that still makes my mouth water to think about.

The climax of my dessert experience was Erg Chegaga, a huge, nearly quarter-mile high sand dune that feels like a small mountain of sand.

I also ventured north to Fez, Chefchaouen, and Tangier before boarding my flight to Bali.

I actually really enjoyed Fez. It felt like it had all of the trappings, culture, and attractions of Marrakesh, but with an overall cleaner and safer vibe. Unlike Marrakesh, tour guides and vendors in Fez were very respectful and professional. Many of them seemed almost aware of Marrakesh’s horrible practices and would almost go out of their way to leave the opposite impression. If I could do it again, I would have spent more time in Fez and next to no time in Marrakesh. It was, however, super cold in Fez–much colder than I had ever expected any part of Morocco to be–and my wardrobe was not prepared for it.

Chefchaouen, famous for its distinctive blue streets, was another highlight for me. The town was very, very touristy, and I was given the distinct impression that they simply continue to re-paint the walls blue to continue attracting foreigners, but the vibe was calm and relaxing, much like Essaouira but up in the mountains instead of by the sea. I had the opportunity to go on some spectacular hikes in the nearby mountains of Akchour.

Tangier was a strange but interesting place. As the northern-most major Moroccan city, Tangier is a sea-side gateway to Europe, and the influence is obvious. However, since Morocco isn’t a terribly wealthy country, there was often a kind of funny juxtaposition of classic-though-poorly-maintained European architecture and a sense of poverty and squalor common to countries in the developing world. It was cool to see, but I’m not upset that I didn’t have much more than a night in Tangier.

Reflections

I can’t claim to have had the best experience in Morocco overall, but living there did challenge me in some interesting ways.

This was my first experience living in a pre-dominantly Muslim country so it took time to get used to things like the call to prayer from all of the nearby mosques. I was also surprised by how deeply religious and conservative the local culture is, and how much that seemed to dictate social norms. Many countries can point to a major religion as foundational to their predominant culture, but most of the time that influence feels more in the background at this point–you can find it if you go looking for it, but aside from the occasional temple, church, or shrine, you won’t constantly be reminded of it. In Morocco, on the other hand, religion feels very much in the foreground. I left with the impression that no sane Moroccan would ever be caught admitting to being anything other than a very devout Muslim. The rare secular Moroccan locals that I befriended confessed to me that they likely wouldn’t admit their atheism even to some of their close Moroccan friends. One friend even recounted for me how he had to hide the sounds, smells, and sights of his cooking during Ramadan–normally a time of ritual fasting–to avoid being persecuted by the local authorities for disobeying religion custom.

Morocco was also my first time visiting a country with a culture so different from my own that it was difficult for me to relate to people or predict their behavior. As an Asian-American, I feel pretty comfortable in stereotypically Western countries where my own Western upbringing can help me relate, and I also feel pretty comfortable in Asia where my loosely Chinese upbringing (thanks, Mom!) helps me to understand cultural values. But in a place like Morocco, where much of the local culture and values are derived from Islam, a religion and philosophy I haven’t spent much time with, I occasionally felt like I just couldn’t fathom what was going through peoples’ heads. Sometimes I think this cultural divide contributed to my feelings of unease or indignation in certain situations. Unlike in Asia where most places I go people assume I’m a local and likely treat me better for it, I always stuck out like a sore thumb in Morocco. Being so conscious of being different certainly put me more on the defensive. I now wonder if this is what my Europeans friends experience in, e.g. Vietnam, where they feel hyper aware of and hyper sensitive to being scammed in any way.

I doubt I’ll make a special trip to return to Morocco, but that doesn’t mean Morocco doesn’t have many great things worth seeing and experiencing! In particular, I’ve come away with a huge appreciation for Moroccan cuisine. Many of their dishes are an absolutely ingenious merger of sweet and savory flavors. For example, pastilla, one of my absolute favorites, is kind of like a perfectly spiced puff-pastry Moroccan chicken pot pie topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar. It sounds strange at first, but is absolutely amazing when executed correctly. Additionally, despite some of my initial impressions, I met quite a few Moroccan people who blew me away with their kindness and cheer.

Bali, Indonesia

It hadn’t really been my intention to return to Asia in 2018. After things broke down with my Vietnamese ex, I had this funny idea that she could have the continent for awhile, and that I’d instead head to South America. Part of me admittedly worried that I wouldn’t have the strength and good sense to stay away, despite lingering feelings of pain and disappointment.

My sister talked me down, though, and lured by the prospect of traveling with her for a little while as well as the possibility of traveling in India with our parents, I boarded a plane to Bali, Indonesia in mid-November.

In the ~month I spent in Bali, I spent about 2 weeks in Canggu, about a week in Uluwatu, and another week in Ubud. It was all a bit of a whirlwind as I moved around with my sister a little more frequently than I’m accustomed to. I also had a major client deadline to launch I’m With Them in December/January, so I was working quite a bit between obligations to sightsee and spend quality time with my sister.

Overall, I enjoyed Bali–the cost of living is fairly low, there are plenty of cool things to see and do, and there are lots of other nomads. There’s a strong subculture in Bali centered around things like yoga, spiritualism, and health–not exactly my typical crowd, personally, but still cool all the same.

For those who like to surf, Canggu and Uluwatu on the coasts have a number of popular spots, with beaches often either walking distance or a short motorbike away. Ubud, more in the center of the island, has good access to a lot of cool nature spots and some of the more famous views of Bali’s rice terraces. I can particularly personally recommend a sunrise volcano hike up to the top of Mt. Batur.

Particularly relevant to a young, eligible bachelor, there are also a lot of single nomad women in Bali, which was a surprise because my experience so far had taught me that the nomad scene is predominantly dudes with the occasional woman traveling with her long-term boyfriend. It sort of makes sense–solo traveling isn’t as common for women as it is for men due to safety concerns, so one can reasonably expect there to be fewer nomad women as well. In some ways it felt like all of the single nomad women that ever existed had somehow conspired to congregate in Bali.

It was also awesome to spend time with my sister, though she and I would occasionally argue over travel styles–by then I was pretty tired and fairly content to see or not see whatever, and she would sometimes become frustrated with my lack of strong enthusiasm or opinion. She and I have always been close, and particularly after my more recent spouts of isolation in France and Morocco, it was nice to have a constant companion.

Bali did, however, feel kind of overrun with expats and foreigners. Many of the major destinations had a very gentrified feeling to them, creating a tangible privilege gap. It’s hard to know what to feel when you talk to hard-working Balinese business owners who want to travel, but have to literally save for a decade to afford even a shoe-string vacation to somewhere like Europe. Where is the fairness in that? What have we done to deserve what so many will never be able to afford? And what must it be like to serve people everyday who take privileges like these for granted?

India

After Bali, my sister and I flew into New Delhi, India, in early December to meet our parents for 3.5 weeks of sightseeing in India. I won’t say much in detail about this, but this was essentially all time off for the holidays. While I got to see a lot of really cool sites in India, I have to say that I really didn’t enjoy the experience of being a full-time tourist for so long. I’ve become rather accustomed to my typical mode of travel–long stints of time in one place, with most of the sightseeing spread out over the occasional weekend. It’s ironic because, as my sister is quick to remind me, I used to very much be the type to “maximize” every minute in a new place. My mentality now is a lot more… relaxed. I don’t feel nearly as scarce about my vacation days or about my ability to return to places I’d like to see again as I used to. These days I would prefer learning what it’s like to live my life, embedding in the local culture, and establishing a routine in a new place over checking tourist sites off of a list as efficiently as I can.

I know visiting India for the first time is a life- and perspective-changing experience for many people, but I didn’t really feel that way myself. Perhaps it’s simply because our itinerary mostly took us through tourist traps, or perhaps it’s because I’ve seen and experienced enough at this point that the perspective-enhancing returns are diminishing. That said, here are a couple surprising (though shallow) learnings from India:

• Contrary to my previous stereotype that all Indians love super spicy food, most Northern Indians don’t seem to actually eat spicy (at least, not in the hot sense) and will even actively shun spicy food. I couldn’t find a spicy option at virtually any restaurant I ate at.
• From many of my tour guides, I learned that the food we typically think of as Indian in America is actually Mughlai, heavily influenced by the Mongol conquerers of India.

After nearly a month of sightseeing, things really started to blur together, but some of my favorite memories were:

• Trying Jalebi, one of my new favorite simple desserts :d
• Visiting the Taj Mahal.
• Visiting the kitchen of a Jain temple where they produce thousands (maybe more?) of free meals during every service.
• Spending a day on a house boat in Kerala, in the south of India.
• Watching the local Keralan custom of burning an effigy of an old man to ring in the new year. (The figure looks a little like Santa Clause, but I think is meant to just represent leaving the past year behind.)

Chiang Mai, Thailand (Reprise)

Coming back from India, I was kind of sick of sightseeing and feeling very ready to get back to work. One of my clients had finally given me a definite launch date for I’m With Them, and I knew that January was going to be busy a month getting everything ready. I had also previously planned to meet two close friends (my original roommates back in Chiang Mai the first time!) in Taipei early February, so I only had a month wherever I went next.

I chose to return to Chiang Mai because a few friends were there already (community? check), and because I knew exactly what I was going to get. My sister decided to tag along for a couple weeks, not totally sure where she was going to travel next before returning to the States.

I hit the ground running in Thailand and worked pretty long hours to support the big product lunch. At one point, I had to switch to a nocturnal schedule to be sure I’d be awake during Pacific business hours in case anything spontaneously combusted. Most of my time was spent in my favorite spots to work, like Nine One Coffee, Barisotel, and Camp. Occasionally I’d get away long enough for a session training Muay Thai or to take my sister, who had come with me after India, to one of Chiang Mai’s many night markets.

I didn’t have much time for anything other than work in Chiang Mai this time around, which was fine since I’d seen most of the things I wanted to see the first time I came. I did visit Chiang Rai, another popular town in northern Thailand with a few famous temples and art emplacements. I also executed my first legit border run by driving a motorbike north to the Burmese border and crossing for lunch in another country before walking back across to Thailand.

Taipei, Taiwan

In February, I moved to Taiwan for ~4 months with the intentions of:

1. Improving my Mandarin Chinese
2. Better understanding my cultural roots
3. Reconnecting with extended family abroad

Much of the recountable history on both sides of my family traces back to Taiwan. My mother was actually born in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, and lived there for about 7 years before immigrating to the States. Ironically, despite not speaking a word of English when she got here, my mother went on to become an editor, and then a marketing executive. Despite the best efforts of my English teachers growing up, I learned pretty much everything I know about writing and communication from my immigrant mother–you’d never guess her first language wasn’t English.

My maternal grandfather was a well-respected Taiwanese businessman. He owned a successful import/export business, but lost much of his wealth after moving his family to the States. Through my grandfather, my mother’s family counts Terry Guo, the founder of Foxconn and one of the richest men in Taiwan, as a family friend. Apparently Terry Guo’s father worked for my grandfather in some capacity, and my grandfather always went out of his way to help him and his family.

On my father’s side, both of my grandparents emigrated from Taiwan to the States. My grandfather’s grandfather was a man named Qiu Fengjia (丘逢甲). During the First Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Empire ceded the island of Taiwan to the Japanese, but there were many Chinese nationals that weren’t willing to give up Taiwan so easily. Qiu Fengjia was a leader in the resistance movement against the Japanese, and became the Vice-President of an independent Taiwan that existed briefly in 1895 before the resistance was crushed. Taiwan was occupied by the Japanese for about 50 years after that, ending only after Taiwan was returned to China when Japan surrendered at the end of World War II. I’ve never been able to learn much about my great great grandfather on my own, but he apparently appears in Taiwanese history books and even has a university named after him in Taichung. I gave a talk to a group of high school students while I was in Taiwan recently, and when I mentioned my relation to Qiu Fengjia in order to help introduce myself the whole room went up in excited ooh’s and ah’s–a much larger reaction than I would have expected for what seems like a fairly minor historical figure.

Anyway, the last time I had been to Taiwan was in 2015, shortly after graduating from college. I remember loving my trip, but feeling a strong cultural disconnect–like there was so much more I should be able to understand and experience in this place that I simply couldn’t because my Chinese was nowhere near up to par. I wanted to feel like I could belong in Taiwan because I knew some of my recent ancestors were so in love with it, but I couldn’t help but feel like a complete outsider. I think it was probably after and because of that trip that learning Chinese started consistently appearing in my annual goals.

My Chinese is still a work in progress, but I learned a lot, and I had a fantastic time in Taiwan this time around. So fantastic, in fact, that I’ve already loosely blocked out 3 months out of each year to return to Taipei.

Particularly from a nomad’s perspective, Taipei is truly a magical place. For a developed, first-world capital city, Taipei is shockingly affordable–I paid $600/mo for a private room and shower in one of the most centrally-located parts of the city, and I probably could have gotten the same for cheaper. The food scene in Taiwan is amazing and also very affordable–the night markets are world-class, and you can find an array of Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese delicacies pretty much everywhere you go, often for as cheap as $3-5 for a meal. There’s a good amount of English in Taipei, but it can be hard to get around if you don’t speak some Chinese. That said, people in Taiwan are super friendly. I often like to joke that if you get lost in Taiwan, not only will someone patiently help you find your way, they’ll probably also give you a puppy. Ok, they’re not quite that nice, but seriously, of all the places I’ve been, I’ve probably felt the safest in Taiwan, and that owes largely to how friendly, hospitable, trustworthy, and honorable the average person is there.

Because I had been to Taiwan, and because I knew very quickly that I would be definitely be back, and soon, I didn’t actually spend that much time exploring in Taiwan. There’s a lot of spectacular nature, and amazing mountain hiking that I’d still really love to do in Taiwan, but most of my time there was spent working hard towards my goals–launching projects, growing my business, learning Chinese, getting in shape, etc.–or hanging out with friends. I’d say my life was pretty normal, and pretty average, and I honestly found it really nice.

While in Taiwan, I signed a new contract with an existing client, and finally started having about half of my time available to work on my own projects. Using everything I’ve learned in the last 2 years from numerous client projects, I’ve started working on the next iteration of Serenity. I’m going to nerd out for a few seconds here, but I’m really excited about the technology I’m working with right now–I’m experimenting with efficient workflows for simultaneously building for both web and mobile to see if it’s possible to quickly get to market with both (Serenity, particularly, requires at least a small mobile component in order to compete with existing solutions). Things are going pretty well, though I invested a lot of the time while I was in Taiwan into my tooling rather than features. While in Taiwan I also started working on a project for nomads with two close nomadic friends. The projects been evolving, and has turned into something we’re calling Tribe. I’ll describe it in greater detail soon.

Where Am I Now?

I’m down in Medellin, Colombia, where I’ve been living for almost the last 3 months. I’ll be moving again soon, this time to Mexico City, Mexico, where I’m also hoping to spend about 3 months. Mostly, I’ve been working on my Spanish, learning to salsa dance, and working a crap ton. In the coming weeks, I’m hoping to launch a beta version of Tribe. Ideally by the end of September, we’ll launch an MVP and see if it sticks.

I’ve got a lot to say about Colombia, but it’s going to have to wait until next time. (Not too long, though, I promise!!)

Why Haven’t I Been Writing More?

I imagine that some people have it in their heads that I’m constantly traveling, exploring, and adventuring–that my life consists of tromping through jungles or wrestling sharks or seducing beautiful and exotic women (I don’t know, whatever passes for your probably overly masculine ideal of adventure these days). At least, this is the impression I sometimes get from my friends and family who always seem surprised to hear that, yes, I do actually still work and, no, even though I technically could take way more time off than the average individual, I usually don’t because I still have my own professional goals and priorities to focus on, too.

The truth is often my daily life is pretty mundane, and on average I’m quite happy with that. I recently spent almost 4 months in Taipei, Taiwan and often when people would ask me what I’d had a chance to see since coming to Taiwan I’d have to say that mostly I spent my time in the same two or three rooms, eating more-or-less the same two or three meals. I’d work during the day, go the gym, hang out with friends in the evening. On weekends I’d go hiking, read a book, play some video games, or cook a fun meal at home to share. In short I was just… living my life the way most people would do just about anywhere else.

At first, I felt almost ashamed and embarrassed that I hadn’t been on the grand adventure I knew people were expecting me to tell them about. Given time though, I realized that I’m pretty happy right where I am doing exactly what I’m doing despite the relatively unremarkable repetition. Perhaps that by itself is a pretty remarkable thing, especially given that that certainly hasn’t been true everywhere I’ve been. As a wise friend once commented, if our lives are mostly made up of average, unremarkable days, then maybe the best we can hope for is to make our average, unremarkable days as fulfilling as they can be.

All of this is to say that I don’t always have so much to say about my travels so sometimes I struggle with what to write. I tend to prefer to err on the side of silence rather than monotonous repetition.

I’m already planning my next post about Colombia and I’m hoping it’ll include a narrative of my impressions, as well as a breakdown of my lifestyle, routine, and budget–I’ve started tracking it more closely so I can start doing this in each country!–and, if I work hard at it, maybe a quick plug for a few new projects I’m working on. So I’ll be back again soon, once I feel that there’s another complete chapter to write about. In the meantime, if you got down this far and you enjoy reading my musings, please consider subscribing to my email list both to be the first to hear about my next post, and to remind me that there may actually be people waiting around for it. I’d also love some feedback! In the comments below, please take some time to tell me: what aspects of these posts do you find most interesting? What do you want more of?

The last few months since my last entry in this series have been eventful, though, perhaps not terribly productive in a traditional sense. After a month of respite in California and then New York City, I have, at long last, made my way to France where I am endeavoring to reach conversational fluency in French while also making progress toward business profitability.

In the intervening months I have:

• Become a licensed motorcyclist in the state of California
  

  A view of Half Dome in the distance in Yosemite Valley.

• Organized a trip to Yosemite with many of my friends from Silicon Valley
• Attended my sister’s graduation from NYU
• Explored the wilderness in rural Pennsylvania
• Stayed in Marseille, France for 2 weeks
• Mastered driving a stick shift while driving thousands of kilometers across France to visit Lyon, Haut-Jura, Auxerre, Beaune, Dole, Dijon, Fontainebleau, Paris, Mont Saint-Michel, Tours, Amboise, and Chambord
• Lived in Bordeaux, France for nearly 2 weeks
• Taken on two small consulting projects with a potential third on the horizon
• Attended 2 weeks of the summer mindfulness retreat at Plum Village
• Gone from absolutely terrified to speak to anyone in French to being able to hold a reasonable conversation provided some effort on both sides

As is the nature of things, along the way many things have gone wrong including:

• Having my prized Google Pixel 2 smartphone stolen while I watched the sunset in Marseille
• Enduring a difficult and complicated breakup with my Vietnamese girlfriend (the circumstances of which, both for my privacy and out of respect for her, I won’t be elaborating on at this time)
• Having my expensive and supposedly high quality Samsonite suitcase completely break in less than 6 months of—admittedly heavy—use

France

I, of course, have much to say about France in general, and the cities I’ve had the chance to get to know, but for concision—and for SEO :P—I’ve decided to separate these thoughts into a yet-to-be-written series of posts about what it’s actually like to be a nomad in different cities. In these posts I’ll aim to answer questions about the cost of living, finding internet and good places to work, securing housing, social outlets, and just cool things to see and do. I’ve found that there are lots of high-level resources like NomadList for nomads to choose new destinations, but there are never enough narratives to give life to the statistics, especially in less common and ostensibly less affordable destinations like the vast majority of Europe.

For now, it suffices to say that France is expensive and good internet is surprisingly hard to find. It doesn’t even begin to compare to how expensive it was in Silicon Valley, but it’s certainly 3-6 times more expensive than Southeast Asia, which I’m increasingly realizing has completely spoiled me. From a lifestyle perspective, I’ve found that since I’m not willing to pay 10€ for an average meal out, it’s advantageous to cook or buy simple picnic ingredients from grocery stores. In a funny way, I’ve been really pleased to find how much joy I can get out of a simple meal of bread, cheese, fruit, and a little bit of meat (<3€/meal). I find it liberating to learn how little I really need to be happy, which leaves me yet again questioning the typical American ethos of working hard for the sake of work or for the sake of money to purchase possessions which we often become convinced will somehow magically produce happiness and joy.

Despite its status as a first-world nation, internet infrastructure in France is surprisingly pitiful in comparison to Thailand and Vietnam. Perhaps this difference is more cultural than anything, but most French cafes are not very accommodating for those seeking a nice environment to hangout with coffee, power, and a good internet connection. Even those cafes which are more stereotypically configured for this use case (i.e. pretty much just Starbucks) have laughable speeds and questionable reliability. The coworking spaces are also typically much more expensive here (200-300€/month) than what I’ve become accustomed to finding in Asia (70-150€/month).

Learning French

I’ve spent much of my time on the ground here in France trying to take advantage of the immersive environment for learning French. On good days, I’ll find myself spending nearly 4 hours a day learning French with a mix of book studying, language exchange meet-ups, reverse and ladder trees on Duolingo, reading on LingQ (affiliate link!), listening to French podcasts (e.g. Coffee Break French), and re-watching my favorite Netflix series in French audio (sometimes with, sometimes without French subtitles).

Sometimes it’s hard to see the difference day-to-day, but reflecting on it I’ve realized my French has come a long way. When I got here, I experienced a sort of social anxiety around speaking to anyone because I was pretty terrified of embarrassing myself in French but didn’t want to speak English either. It used to be a big deal for me to even buy something small from a store in French and not go deer-in-headlights a little when someone asked me if I wanted a bag using a word for “bag” I had never learned before :P.

Now I’ve had a bit more experience and, though fast-talking native speakers still give me a lot of trouble, I’m finding I understand enough to hold reasonable conversations. I often have to stop and ask for a repetition or the meaning of a word or ask how to say a word in French, but I can do all of these things in French at this point. Sometimes I also still struggle with piecing my sentences together, but I’ve noticed that some sentences and sentence structures have become surprisingly fluent.

There’s a long way to go still, but I’ve been able to accomplish things like getting tourist information about a new city, teaching a child how to play chess, and holding a 45-minute introductory conversation with a fellow software engineer using nearly nothing but French. People are generally finding me understandable even when I struggle to express complex ideas. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve moved into a phase where I can now truly learn new words and phrases from real conversations with native speakers where we’re actually trying to get to know each other.

Plum Village

I’ve just returned from 2 weeks at Plum Village, a Mindfulness Practice Center and Buddhist Monastery founded by the famous Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh, a Nobel peace prize nominee (nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr.!) and an important advocate for peace during the Vietnam War. I was fortunate to find space at Plum Village—when I had checked originally it was completely booked. I ended up finding a way to nab a one-week stay in Plum Village, and then once I was there I found a way to extend my stay by an extra week.

A full accounting of my experience at Plum Village is also going to have to wait until next week. For now I’ll say that it was one of my goals this year to deepen my mindfulness practice, which is the primary reason why I made my way to Plum Village in the first place. All-in-all, my experience there was magnificent and I feel as if I view myself and the world differently in subtle but very important ways. I feel as if before I had only just scratched the surface of what mindfulness could do for me and now I’ve been exposed to its full potential. I’m more focused, more mindful, and more present than I ever was before. I’m increasingly aware of my own unmindful and potentially self-destructive habits and aware of important sources of unhappiness in my life which I’m now committed to resolving rather than perpetually avoiding. I feel more competent in handling my emotions and anxieties, including the stresses related to my current occupational choices. Time will tell how long these effects will stay with me.

Where I Am Now

I have returned to Bordeaux for a bit of sightseeing before I take a train to Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France, where I intend to spend my remaining 5 weeks in France before my Schengen tourist visa expires and I’m forced to migrate elsewhere. I’m excited to have my own apartment in Lyon after successfully negotiating the price down by ~25% from its listing price on AirBnB.

I haven’t made much progress on my own projects of late, and my lack of a live product continues to be a source of frustration for me. In the States, my time was focused on things I could only take care of while there or spending time with family. Since coming to France, much of my time initially was spent on dealing with the emotional fallout of my recent relationship or on learning French. The few times I’ve taken the time to open my code editor and start to work on Serenity, I’ve found it overwhelming to consider the amount of remaining effort to launch the product along with the potentially low likelihood of a successful outcome.

I must admit that prior to going to Plum Village, my mood had been fluctuating and occasionally visiting some deep lows. The combination of emotional stressors from my recent breakup along with the anxieties involved with having to speak French and starting to get back into my own work was a lot to handle, and I’d guess that I came the closest I’d ever been to wanting to abandon my present course. I knew the emotions would pass however, and, somewhat serendipitously, in my lowest week I had two people reach out to me in the same day asking if I’d be willing to consider some short-term work on a consulting basis. I’ve agreed to one, and am still working out the details of the other, which may involve my returning to Asia later this year. I’m also currently helping my little sister implement an online portfolio for her creative work so that she can use it as a resource to send to potential employers. Helping her get situated in her post-graduate life in this way was one of the gifts I offered her upon graduating.

Having outside work recently has helped a lot to remind me that I have a valuable skill set in high demand and that I’m good at what I do. I’ve found it comforting to have a few more concrete and complete projects to show for my time (now almost a full year!) being self-employed. Combined with the emotional bolstering of my experience in Plum Village, I’m back in a good place and am excited for the challenge of learning to apply mindfulness to my unorthodox lifestyle.

The “Plan”

In my remaining 5 weeks in France, I’m hoping to wrap up work for my sister (her dream job was just posted, so we’re now operating on a clock), potentially take on another small project for an existing client, work out details for another potentially larger project for a new client, and attempt to launch Serenity to at least friends and family if not to public beta. All the while, it will continue to remain a high priority to make use of my time in France to improve my French.

I’m still exploring the possibilities, there’s a possibility that an opportunity will bring me back to Asia after France in mid-September or early October. I’m thinking that in the intervening time I may go to Morocco as originally planned, though I haven’t chosen a city yet (Essaouira maybe?). If I end up back in Asia, it probably makes sense to stay for a number of months, so I’m considering returning to Thailand, visiting India and Nepal, spending some time in Hong Kong or Malaysia, or even living in Taiwan or rural Japan for a few months to learn languages. If the opportunity doesn’t shake out the right way, I’ll likely spend 3 full months in Morocco continuing to work on my French before considering a return to France or moving on to South America.

I’m finding I plan less and less far ahead travel-wise, and this no longer makes me anxious the way it would have last year. In fact, the flexibility this sort of seat-of-pants traveling has afforded me seems to have far outweighed the possible price increases from last-minute bookings (at least on everything other than air travel).

Vietnam is a country with a rich but turbulent history. It’s lived through occupation by the Chinese, the French, and the Americans as recent as two generations ago. Foreign cultural influence and scars from not-yet-forgotten conflicts blend to make Saigon, known at its peak as the “Pearl of the Far East,” a complex and deeply interesting city.

Amongst digital nomads, however, its southern capital, Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City), is a polarizing and controversial place: some love it enough to settle here for months or years at a time, while others leave quickly and never give it a second thought. A short walk down any street obviates the reasons for this: one’s senses are swiftly overloaded–motorbikes whiz around, narrowly missing each other and any uninitiated pedestrians who dare to cross; the sounds of horns and honking are present at all hours of day, as are the clarion calls of street side vendors; smells of delicious meals from any number of amazing local joints waft through the air, mixing with and ameliorating the common odors of waste, vomit, and urine; heat and humidity compound with dust and debris to create an often hot, dirty, and uncomfortable environment.

To an outsider, Saigon can look and feel like untamed, unfettered chaos. And yet, in the time I’ve lived here I’ve found myself mesmerized by the energy of this city. It’s chaotic, yes, but it makes me feel alive. So much so, in fact, that I decided early in my stay here to skip spending the month of April in Penang, Malaysia, and instead extended my time in Saigon to two months. (There are, of course, other good reasons for having done this: the time, financial, and mental costs of switching locations every month turn out to make 2-3 months a more ideal amount of time to spend in each place when also trying to get work done.)

Unlike Chiang Mai, which, despite being the second largest population center in Thailand, had a distinctively “small town” feel to it, Saigon is a true, full-blown city, and it turns out to be the first city I’ve ever lived in for any real amount of time. I’ve been surprised by how much I enjoy the city lifestyle here–in the past I’ve always preferred sleepy college towns and quiet suburbs with easy access to nature. While Saigon doesn’t have much to offer tourists passing through for

just a few days, it does have a slew of interesting coffee shops, bars, and live music venues for the slower-paced traveler or longer-term expat to experience. There’s also a lush variety of foods to sample from all over the country–Vietnamese food is, as it turns out, much more diverse than the typical phở and bánh mì sorely under representing this cuisine in the States–certainly more than one could experience in weeks, months, or even years here.

 

Contents:

• Cost of Living
• People and Community
  • Locals
  • Entrepreneurs and Expats
• Dating
• Exploring
  • Live Music
  • Craft Breweries
  • Weekend Adventures
• Work
• Sanity

Cost of Living

Despite being a city, Saigon is quite affordable, making it a prime location for potential expats and digital nomads. A month’s rent in a serviced apartment close to the city center runs typically between $300 and $400/mo, while meals can be found for anywhere between $.75 (street food) and $30/meal (an upscale restaurant). A membership at a good coworking space with a flexible desk runs $90/mo. Braver travelers can rent a motorbike for ~$60/mo or purchase and re-sell for around $250. By my estimation a nomad really looking to save, or an entrepreneur seeking to extend her runway could live a decent life in Saigon for under $700/mo (less, even, if you’re willing to pinch pennies).

People and Community

Frustrated and angry bloggers sometimes give Vietnam and the Vietnamese people a bad wrap. Personally, I’ve had a lot of great experiences with both Vietnamese locals and the expat community in Saigon, so I feel I have a responsibility to set the record straight.

Locals

Some people hear stories about swindlers and hustlers in Vietnam–people who will overcharge tourists because they don’t speak the language, for example–and imagine that all Vietnamese people are liars and cheats. Of course, as is the case anywhere one might go in the world, these people do exist, and one should exercise caution and common sense when traveling. These people are, however, far from a majority. Most Vietnamese people I’ve met–business owners, students, Viet Kieu–have impressed me with their kindness, their generosity, their work ethic, and their optimism. One student even befriended me, showed me around, and came back to help me when my motorbike broke down during a long road trip back to Saigon. I would honestly not have known what to do without his help.

As an American, I find it especially encouraging how little animosity anyone ever showed me despite the fact that the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the American War) happened so recently–if anything there was a distinctly pro-American sentiment, especially among the younger generation. Though war is terrible, I find myself hopeful knowing that in just a few generations two peoples that were previously in conflict can so easily forgive and forget the transgressions made by their forebears.

To be fair to all involved, however, as an Asian American I likely have a different experience in Asia than other Western travelers do. Everywhere I’ve visited in Asia so far I’ve been mistaken for a local until I opened my mouth to speak, and since most Asian cultures have similar customs and values, my pseudo-Asian upbringing helps me relate to these people more naturally.

Entrepreneurs and Expats

One of the initial reasons I chose Saigon is because I read that it has more of an entrepreneurial community than some of the other hubs for digital nomads like Chiang Mai. Saigon is, indeed,  home to an up and coming tech scene in one of the fastest growing economies in the world. There is, however, still much room for the entrepreneurial scene in Saigon to grow and evolve–it doesn’t yet have the same energy, infrastructure, or prevalence as it does in Silicon Valley.

Nevertheless, there are at least a few pockets of very interesting people. In my opinion, Start Coworking Campus, where I chose to both live and work for the majority of my time in Saigon, is one of those places. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Start when I booked my room there in December–I chose them because I wanted to try something new with coliving, and because their marketing promised a heavy emphasis on community, which can be hard to find while moving around. I was super pleasantly surprised by Start, and I honestly can’t rave about them enough. They deliver well on their promise of community, with daily community lunches and plenty of events throughout the month.

Most, but not all, of the people I met at Start were somehow related to tech, though not all of them were actually nomads. Saigon is home to quite a few long-term expats–sometimes former nomads–many of whom form a consistent backbone for community at Start despite a constantly rotating cast of travelers. After just a few weeks there, I really felt that I knew all of the regular faces, and after two months I felt that I had made some cool friends with whom I hope very much to keep in touch. Over lunch and during random breaks throughout the day, I’d often find myself engaging in deeply interesting conversations about a wide variety of topics, including political theory, global economics, philosophy, and current trends in tech. I can’t be sure because I haven’t yet seen that much, but I have a strong hunch that communities like this are pretty rare to find.

Dating

Just as I’ve been searching for a sense of community while abroad, I’ve also been experimenting with dating and romantic companionship. When I left the States to become a nomad, I expected that doing so meant I’d realistically have to put romance on hold until I settled back down in a single place. I felt that the odds of finding someone right for me while abroad, and the difficulty of pursuing something serious or long-term while moving around simply left real romance out of the question, but perhaps there was no reason not to experiment anyway. Much to my surprise, this turned out to just be the latest in what’s becoming a long string of false assumptions I made about traveling and the nomadic lifestyle–it didn’t take me long to fall in love with a beautiful, intelligent, and deeply reflective local Vietnamese entrepreneur.

When I landed in Vietnam, the differences in the dating scene struck me almost immediately–whereas in Chiang Mai and Silicon Valley I’ve often found dating frustrating, I quickly had four dates scheduled for my first week in Saigon. For the first time in my life I felt like I had more dating prospects than I could possibly have time to talk to, a complaint I normally only ever hear from my girl friends. It also felt easier than ever to open conversations and get dates scheduled.

Some of the difference could perhaps be attributed to me and a general mindset shift on dating: in the interest of putting myself in uncomfortable situations and learning more about dating, I decided to be more open-minded about first dates and made it a goal to quickly push for an in-person meeting with any girl I messaged back and forth with. Most of this, however, is likely attributable to Saigon and its particular dating pool: I tend to be more popular with Asian women, and densely populated international cities tend to have more young single women who speak English confidently enough to communicate. (By contrast, Chiang Mai was a much smaller city notably lacking in English-speaking confidence.)

Despite having more options than ever, I met the woman who would become my girlfriend on literally the second night I was in Saigon. In fact, she was the first date I went on in my new city, and probably the first local Vietnamese woman I’d really interacted with.

As is becoming more and more cliché these days, we met on Tinder. My expectations were pretty low, and our pre-date conversation barely had an ounce of substance to it, but I wanted to push myself out of the comfort zone so I asked her on a date anyway. To my surprise, she agreed to a hastily scheduled date for later that same night, and not two hours later I found myself walking anxiously to a craft brewery in the center of town.

I remember being terrified on my way to our first date–not because I felt nervous about impressing her, but because a couple of things she had said and done left me super confused about what to expect. Most of my pre-date anxiety centered around the fears that she wouldn’t look like her photos (this happened to me in Chiang Mai), that I’d get stuck in an awkward conversation with a weirdo or, worse, that I’d somehow get murdered. (Hey, I’m not proud of that thought, but I was in an entirely new city and my brain was running wild with catastrophic worst-case scenarios :P.)

When I walked in I was pleasantly surprised to find a woman whose beauty and personality would be hard to fully and accurately portray in still photography. She was funny and made me laugh easily (she’d later tell me that she thought I was laughing way too hard at her shitty jokes, but I honestly found them that funny). It turned out we’re both tech entrepreneurs–her as a designer and a product manager, me as a jack-of-all-trades software engineer–and could understand each other’s careers and daily job struggles. She shared a lot of my interests as well, and it quickly became apparent that we had extremely congruous mindsets, perspectives, and worldviews.

In short, I wasn’t sure what to expect at first but I was totally and completely blown away by the time I parted ways with her nearly four hours later. In fact, I was so blown away that I was almost scared in the opposite sense from before–things just seemed too uncannily similar and way too good to be true. I felt like either I had been super thoroughly stalked or the perfect woman had somehow just manifested before my eyes.

For awhile now, I’ve professed my belief in the law of “fuck yes or no”–if my gut doesn’t scream “fuck yes” about someone I don’t pursue them further. At that point, however, I’d never experienced a true “fuck yes” after a first date with a total stranger, and I’d been on enough first dates to begin to wonder whether or not the bar for going on a second date had been set too high–after all, maybe sometimes one just needs a couple of lukewarm experiences before a deeper connection can occur. My first date with this girl proved to me that the bar for second dates was, in fact, not set too high. She was a total and complete “fuck yes,” and now that I know that that’s possible I don’t think I’d ever want to settle for less.

Though I did go on dates with a few other women, I very quickly lost interest in anyone but her. She continued to be a “fuck yes” for me for many, many more dates and I’m now proud and excited to call her my girlfriend. She understands, challenges, pushes, and inspires me all in ways I didn’t know I could expect from a partner. Meeting her and choosing to enter a committed relationship with her has also tested some of my self-perceptions and my worldview.

Some of my past dating experiences left me questioning both my adequacy and my competency to meet and charm a potential partner through the silly, awkward dance we call modern dating. In particular, the last time I dated someone with serious intentions, through no purposeful fault of either party, it left me feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing, and like experiencing the kind of connection I hoped for with someone I found extremely attractive might be impossible for me without further growth. With my new girlfriend, though, I’ve come to realize that I am already enough, and that, with the right person, it should always feel that way. I shouldn’t need to feel like I have to constantly pursue someone to win their approval–the attraction can and should be mutual enough that a connection develops smoothly and naturally on its own.

Wanting something real and serious with my new girlfriend does leave me with new questions about where and how love fits into my larger worldview, however. Much of my personal philosophy centers around maximizing authenticity and growth. These are easy things to solve for independently, when one has no responsibilities or other people to consider, but they become complicated when a romantic partner enters the picture. Prior to coming to Saigon and meeting my new girlfriend, I thought that I might travel around the world and work for myself for a few years, chasing growth and adventure wherever it waits to be found. I thought I’d have at least a few years before I might meet anyone serious (I never expected to fall in love on the road).

Having found her though, I find myself faced with the serious question of returning to Saigon to spend more time with her in the near future. I know that successful relationships occasionally require sacrifice and compromise, so I find myself asking what I can and can’t authentically compromise on. If being with her means sacrificing some amount of travel and exploration, can I justify that at this point in my life? But even as I consider giving up on growth from exploration, I find myself wondering how our relationship might allow us to help each other grow and become even more authentic versions of ourselves. If we’re not careful, though, could it do just the opposite?

I also find myself asking questions about the implications of falling for a foreign woman in a land far away from where I previously called home, though I know it’s too early to be thinking super long-term about such a young relationship. Before meeting her I always just assumed I’d probably meet a nice American woman some day, and we’d probably settle down in the States. I never really had a good reason to think this, it’s just one of those assumptions that fills a space and goes unchallenged for a long time. Now, however, that idea is being questioned and replaced with a more globally inclusive idea of what it might mean to settle down with someone someday.

Some of these questions frighten me, and I don’t have great answers to most of them. I am, regardless, excited to find myself and my perspective being pushed in new and completely unexpected ways–ways they never could have when I was just an unattached solo traveler. My girlfriend and I are long distance right now, as I’m back in the States and still have plans to travel to France for at least 3 months before I might consider returning to Asia. Though I know the distance will be hard, and relationships are an art, I’m very much hoping that she and I will have a chance to explore answers to these questions together, one step at a time.

Exploring

Saigon is a large city, organized into 12 numbered districts and several more named ones–this sometimes gives running around the city an oddly Hunger Games-like feeling–but even so is less of an adventure-driven place than Chiang Mai, with fewer grand, iconic, and touristy things to do. It does, nevertheless, make for a great homebase to explore the South of Vietnam, and if you’re willing to dig a little bit there are fascinating and beautiful remnants of a culture extant in Saigon before much of its recent history, which hauntingly feels as if it is slowly slipping away as the younger generations forget. Since I spent a lot of time dating in Saigon, I also found that it can be a very romantic city, though many of the city’s best spots are hidden away off street level, and would have been very difficult for me to find without a local.

Live Music

Saigon turns out to be a city full of music, and there are quite a few cool places to go for different kinds of music. My personal favorites were the places where they’d sing old Saigonese songs from before the War. Most of the music in this time period is incredibly beautiful even not being able to understand the music, and really creates the sense of haunting nostalgia I alluded to earlier.

Cafe Vừng ơi, Mở ra

17 Ngô Thời Nhiệm, phường 6, Quận 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

In English, the name of this place translates to “Open, Sesame.” My now girlfriend brought me here on our fourth date and it blew my mind. To find this place, one has to walk through a pretty sketchy alleyway, then through a rather nondescript door and up several flights of stairs. I like to joke with my girlfriend that she brought me here to murder me, but then thought better of it and took me to hear some live music upstairs instead. Step through the door here and you’ll be transported to a different world, full of candle light and beautifully romantic music. The artists and the music here are top notch and they play a mix of beautiful Vietnamese classics and popular romantic songs in English.

Le Saigonnais

9 Thái Văn Lung, Bến Nghé, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

This one’s hard to find because it’s not actually listed on Google Maps, but it’s in the same building as the Bâng Khuâng Café at the address listed above. This place is truly a window into old Saigon, even down to the furniture and decorations. Many of the patrons here are Saigonese people who either lived in the old days themselves, or remember them wistfully. There is almost an underground resistance-like vibe to this place, as if this is where people would meet to plan the second coming of Old Saigon. The music here is, of course, beautiful, and they play mostly classic Vietnamese songs from Old Saigon.

Craft Breweries

Saigon has a burgeoning craft brewing scene, which is heavily influenced by American expats and packed with loads of interesting, delicious beers. My favorites were:

Heart of Darkness

31D Lý Tự Trọng, Bến Nghé, Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

I’m biased because I also met my girlfriend here, and we went back to hang out a few times, but it does have the most cozy, intimate, and well-decorated vibes of any of the breweries I visited in Saigon. My personal favorite here is th Eloquent Phantom Imperial Stout.

East West Brewing Co.

181 – 185 Lý Tự Trọng, Phường Bến Thành, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

I actually had their beers here a couple of times before I went to visit their brewery. The venue is nice–a well-decorated and mood lit warehouse with seating on the roof for those willing to climb the stairs. I’m not usually that into Belgian beer styles, but their Belgian Blonde and Belgian Darks are both very good, and their Independence Stout is fantastic.

Pasteur Street Brewing

144 Pasteur, Bến Nghé, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

Pasteur Street is iconic in Saigon as one of the first craft breweries to crop up there. There beer is quite good, and they try some interesting things there–I tried a dark beer here with jalapeno and other distinctly Mexican flavors. The place itself, though, is, unfortunately kind of sterile, so I wouldn’t personally recommend hanging out here.

Weekend Adventures

Some of my favorite memories from Vietnam are from riding long distances on the back of my trusty motorbike on my way to some weekend adventure somewhere. While I didn’t spend all of my weekends in Vietnam off on adventures, there were quite a few memorable ones.

Mekong Delta

The Mekong Delta actually describes a very large region in the South of Vietnam. Many people, myself included, initially make the mistake of thinking that it’s a single place or attraction that one can visit. In reality, you could drive for nearly 8 hours from Saigon and still not reach the end of the Mekong Delta.

That said, one of the most popular attractions in the Mekong Delta are the floating markets–markets run on clusters of small boats in wide rivers connecting trade between villages that until very recently had no easy road access to each other. The most widely publicized place for tourists to see the floating markets is Cần Thơ, though many of the locals will express that they feel the markets here are overly commercialized for tourists.

I personally didn’t have time to venture further into the Delta than this–Cần Thơ is already a 5 hour drive out of Saigon–but I enjoyed both the drive there and the tour I took of the markets. I would love for my tour to have spent more time moving in and through the market itself so that we as passengers could participate in it a little bit more, but it was nevertheless a very cool experience to have coffee and phở made and then served to me on a boat.

If I had more time, I would have considered going to An Giang province, further into the Delta, in search of a more local floating market and the Trà Sư forest.

Đà Lạt

Đà Lạt is an old French vacation spot nestled in the mountains to the East of Saigon. It’s a ~7 hour bus ride to get there from Saigon, but it’s a worthwhile break from the city routine. Temperatures in Đà Lạt are usually quite a bit cooler than Saigon, and this time of year a typical day in Saigon is humid and hot (90+ degrees F). People are much more laid back in Đà Lạt, and if you plan for it there’s plenty of nature to explore.

Cu Chi Tunnels

The tunnels are an old remnant of the war located about an hour north on the outskirts of Saigon. It’s interesting to experience, and it’s one of those

things that you “should” do while you’re in Saigon, but I honestly felt a bit

underwhelmed by them. I got the idea pretty fast after 20 minutes, did find the engineering behind the intricate tunnel systems fascinating, but then was quickly over it. If traveling on your own by motorbike, however, one can keep driving north to find more interesting and less staged things. I ended up at a very colorful buddhist temple overlooking a large lake and had a good time.

Work

Having fewer touristy things to do in Saigon did help to make it a more productive setting, though this was perhaps balanced out by wanting to spend time on my new relationship. My overarching goals have not changed much over the past couple months: the aim right now is to launch a functional product and create product offering that might net me recurring paid customers or money in the bank. As expected, my previous consulting engagements have mostly wound down, leaving most of my time available for my own projects.

On average,

I spent about 6+ hours working each day, and though I do think I’ve accomplished some important things in the last couple months, I am feeling more and more behind on the actual feature development required to launch my initial product offering.

I had a Facebook Ads credit expiring at the end of March, so invested time in a marketing experiment to spend the credit on. My goal was to create the marketing site that I think I will use when the MVP of the product launches–past versions of the site advertised moonshot feature sets that likely would not exist for many months past my initial product offering. Doing this required me to think very critically about what will and won’t be in my MVP, and raised a lot of concerning questions for me about how I will differentiate my product from my competitors in its early stages. (I won’t have a mobile app for some time, and don’t plan for one in the MVP, and whether or not to include some of the cool differentiating features before launching the product has been a topic of some internal debate.)

In the process of doing research on my audience to improve my marketing copy, I concerningly learned that the potential market for my product is much smaller than I originally thought. Unfortunately, in total, the number of people interested in Getting Things Done on Facebook in the US is below 50k. For English-speakers globally, that number is still only about 200k. Unexpectedly, the largest market segment for my product appears to be Italian women

(600k), so I may actually want to consider translating my product into Italian in the future. (For those wondering, I used Facebook Audience Insights to find this information.)

Given the success of Getting Things Done and David Allen, I previously just assumed that my total market was somewhere in the millions, which meant I hadn’t been thinking super critically about market saturation for my ads or other experiments. With millions of people potentially interested in my product, I didn’t care much if I alienated a few thousand in the process of refining my product offering. My thought has also always been that I would really only need Serenity to hit 1000 paying customers for it to be a huge success, a number which I previously thought would be a very small percentage of the overall market. Now that I know the market is an order of magnitude smaller than I thought it was I need to think more carefully about how I expose the product to the market at every stage, and I’m a bit more pessimistic about the lower and upper bound earning potentials for this project.

Regardless, once I had a pretty a good idea of what my product roadmap looks like, I completed a design overhaul of the Serenity marketing website, split tested some of the information on the page, and added pricing information to the email sign-up page to loosely validate the price point I’ve proposed for my product. I wish I had thought of enticing people to give me their email addresses in exchange for a free month of hypothetical product usage before–this has turned out to be the simplest and most effective way to test my early pricing model.

The results of this experiment were positive–the ad click-through and on-page conversion rates were very reasonable, and I collected a fair number of email addresses despite the inclusion of pricing information. In retrospect, however, since Serenity is a product in an already crowded space, I could probably have just trusted my competitors’ pricing models (most of them do have recurring paying customers) and foregone explicitly validating pricing myself.

At this point it’s clear to me that I can make some money off of Serenity, but it’s not clear how much money, and it’s also not clear how much time I’ll need to invest in the product before the cash starts to flow. Even so, I’ve decided to move forward with the product for a few reasons: 1) the main investment I’m making in the product is my time and runway, both of which are still abundant 2) even if Serenity can’t get me to my income goals by itself, some relatively passive income is better than none and 3) I am actually very excited about the future of the product, and think it could have an important role to play in a larger suite of products I hope to create to help people set and achieve their goals.

My next milestone is to launch the product in public beta. Since the market is small and I don’t want to alienate potential customers, but I do want to start collecting signal about what is and isn’t working, I’ve decided that positioning the product as a free beta is more prudent than just slapping a payment portal on the thing and letting the market decide when it’s worth something. I will, however, be offering beta users the chance to pre-purchase subscriptions for the product at a significantly discounted rate, which should help me detect when the product is truly providing enough value that people are ready to pay for it.

By my current estimates, I’m a few weeks away from being able to launch the first beta version of the product in production. This month is going to be hectic, since I’m taking care of administrative things and spending a lot of time with friends and family while I’m briefly back in the States, but I am hoping to find a way to push to this milestone before the end of May. I’ll probably start reaching out to close friends and family to try out the product and give me feedback soon–if you’re reading this and that sounds interesting to you, please reach out :).

Sanity

Things have been pretty good lately. For the most part, I haven’t experienced much fear related to self-employment in the last couple months. The low cost of living in Vietnam, has helped me to realize that if I live in the right places, I could continue working on my own projects almost indefinitely. While this revelation does wonders for any money- or survival- related anxieties I might have felt, it’s tended to have the opposite effect on self-discipline and self-motivation. Not having external deadlines and not having any real external pressure to deliver means that my motivation really has to come from within. Connecting well with my deeper, internal drive still doesn’t happen consistently, but I think it’s slowly getting better.

Meeting my girlfriend has, for the most part, helped here. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly found myself sacrificing productive time to be with her, and she and I are trying to learn to balance that better going forward. But her belief in me does sometimes help bolster my belief in myself and, more importantly, some of the ideas she’s introduced me to–mainly the more secular sides of buddhism–have forced me to think a lot more about my fear of death.

It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of myself as someone who fears death, but when I really examined it I realized that my attitude towards the brevity of life is usually to shrug it off in a way that’s so dismissive it’s almost denial. In truth, I think that this is probably how most of us deal with the question of death, but it’s not necessarily the most healthy. Through buddhism, and to some degree through stoicism as well, I’m learning to embrace and accept the reality of my own impermanence, and the reality of the impermanence of any ego-driven legacy I might want to leave behind. While it is terrifying to remember that life is short, and that my stay here on Earth is really just a blink of an eye, it does provide a sobering reminder that, while I am still young and there is still time, there is no time to waste. There is a very real cost to spending my time doing or not doing something even if my savings could last me a decade or more some place in the world.

I’d say I’m optimistic. Most days, fear doesn’t visit anymore, and I do have some good tools for kicking myself back into disciplined focus when I find myself goofing off. Hopefully I can build that into a habit and use it to deliver my first product, and maybe many more.

It’s been about a month since I left the States, and, though I expect there will be many more twists and turns on my journey, I think I can already confidently say that leaving to travel was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Learning to balance work, tourism, and new friends has, indeed, been challenging. While overall productivity has slowed a bit, I can’t help but feel that my sense of growth and fulfillment have both accelerated.

Despite being on the learning curve, I think I did decently on my goals for the month. My consulting engagement has, unfortunately, stretched on a little bit, and I’ve only just recently reached a point where it no longer needs my focus full-time. I had hoped that I’d get back to my own projects and start making some non-consulting income in February, but alas that hasn’t been the way of things. I did, however, make a lot of great friends and a lot of great memories in Chiang Mai. Here are some of my favorites, pulled from my vlog:

• Going on a local bike tour
• Attending a local music festival with very strange music
• Road tripping to the highest peak in Thailand
• Learning to ride a motorbike
• Going to a rave in the jungle
• Driving into the mountains to go caving
• Driving my flamboyant pink motorbike with hilariously squeaky brakes back to Chiang Mai from the north

I’m in Ho Chi Minh City–aka Saigon–now (though I’ll wait until next month to write in-depth about this wonderful new city), and my plan for March is to buckle down and finish releasing my first product into the world. I’d ideally like to have my first paid customer before I leave Southeast Asia at the end of April, and more ideally would love to have my first paid customer before the end of this month. As was the case in Chiang Mai, however, while work is a high priority, I’m also hoping to find time to really experience Vietnam, and discover new ways to push my comfort zone. In particular, dating, which didn’t end up being a huge emphasis in February despite some of my efforts, seems likely to be a focus area for me in March.

Moving abroad has done wonders for my morale. Before I left, I had a lot of fears about traveling, especially while still trying to get my business ideas off the ground. I worried that I’d be isolated without friends out here, that it would be impossible to form meaningful relationships with people on such small timescales, or that living abroad would be devastatingly unproductive.

The reality has been almost completely the opposite of my fears. Though I was nervous about meeting new people abroad at first, I found that my fear of isolation really motivated me to push my social comfort zone. I’ve never been the social traveler hanging out with strangers in hostel lounges, so I arrived in Chiang Mai with the self-perception that I’m not the kind of person who usually meets other travelers. When I left Chiang Mai, however, I did so feeling confident in my ability to start new conversations, and connect with new people everywhere I went. It’s become something of a habit to make eye contact with people when I walk into a room, to smile, and even to ask them where they’re from.

Despite my short length of stay in Chiang Mai, I got to know some people very well. I’ve left feeling like I now have friends all over the world, who I hope to meet-up with as I make my way through and around the world. My roommates, Richard and Kat, in particular, have become close friends whose company and counsel I value very highly. I’ve also met, and gotten to know, other nomads from all over the world, working on various interesting things. I’m beginning to open myself up to the idea that, even in a short length of time, it is possible to create a meaningful and valuable connection with someone, and that it is worth my time to invest in these relationships despite their semi-transient nature.

Productivity has been up and down while traveling. Since I’ve been consulting an hourly rate, I’ve been tracking my time very carefully, and have found that I usually work about 6 hours on an average day. At first, I found this number disconcerting: I normally expect that I’m getting at least 8 hours of work done each day. In reality, however, with all of the breaks modern knowledge workers take for lunch and other things, 6-7 hours is probably closer to right for a business day. For me personally, being abroad has definitely meant more time spent out at lunch, especially when meeting new and getting to know new people. It’s also meant less time spent working after dinner, which is also prime time to be spending with new friends. For the most part, I’ve been able to find enough of a routine to stay on task–usually I’d work out of a coworking space for the entire day, or out of a coffee shop for the afternoon.

I have, however, taken a good amount of advantage of the flexibility that being self-employed provides: where necessary to accommodate travel activities, I’ve taken impromptu 3-day weekends or half days off. Calibrating my balance of all of this is something I certainly want to continue working on going forward. I think that as an explorer, the first time I visit a new place, there’s likely to be some overhead in my wanting to really experience and get to know the place. At this point, though, I feel that if I ever return to Chiang Mai (and I really hope to), it will be easier for me to focus on work.

Through traveling, though, I’ve also been exposed to a wealth of new people and perspectives. Chiang Mai is, itself, a very laid back place–the locals tend to live simple lives and prefer it that way, and the nomads are often also a little more chill in their working mindsets than I’m used to coming from Silicon Valley. Many of the Europeans I’ve met have helped me to understand how the American work ethic is often perceived by the rest of the world: there’s a subtle belief that Americans are willing to commit kind of a frenetic and, potentially, ill-conceived trade-off in quality of life against the desire to be productive and accumulate wealth. Some have even considered moving to the States for work, but thought better of it after learning of the insane hours and work expectations often implicitly upheld by employers in places like Silicon Valley and New York City. To be fair, I’m learning as well that American salaries are also often much higher than their global counterparts, but I’ve also heard enough to begin to question whether or not our quality of life improves proportionally. In fact, I’d say that my early conclusions are so far that we Americans may actually have disproportionately low quality of life when plotted against our wages–an average worker making minimum wage in America is actually making more than some of the highest paying jobs in some places, but isn’t able to afford many of the basic amenities that some people value. This, among other things, has deeply challenged my perspective, my worldview, and my workview.

Of course, it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses abroad. On my third or fourth day in Chiang Mai, I experienced an extreme amount of anxiety around my situation and my decisions–so bad, in fact, that I felt it necessary to do some research on remote therapy solutions, so I might be able to unpack my experience with an expert. I couldn’t believe that I’d left the States. I couldn’t believe that I was in a new country. I was scared that I couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt, that I’d find myself alone in a strange place. I was afraid that I’d just bet my career against the house, and that I’d never recover.

By the end of my first week, however, the crisis had passed. Quite counter to my fears, as time goes on I’ve been finding that travel has produced many of the growth side-effects I had hoped it might. I can feel myself becoming more comfortable with uncertainty, in part because I’ve placed myself in more unplanned scenarios, and gained more confidence in my ability to figure things out. Meeting other people like me–nomads and entrepreneurs making a living while traveling the world–who share my values has also helped me internalize a deeper sense of acceptance and contentment with my decision to leave the normal bounds of society behind. I think much of this still has yet to play itself completely out, as I am also still riding on the stability of a cash influx from my recent consulting project, but I’d like to think that my fears have started to quiet themselves, and that the way is becoming clear to achieve some of my business goals for the year.

Saigon promises to be a very different experience from Chiang Mai. The energy here is chaotic and frenetic–frenzied, even–but it makes me feel very alive. This month, I’m trying a stint in a co-working and co-living space in the heart of the city called Start, sort of an experiment for me with a new type of living situation. My experience has already been very positive, and I’m looking forward to new friends, new foods, and new avenues for growth!!

The adventure begins! (Not that everything before this hasn’t been its own sort of adventure.) I’m actually writing this while en route to Chiang Mai, Thailand, the first of 3 destinations in South East Asia. I’m going to be in Thailand for an entire month, and now that I’ve actually had time to stop, think about it, and do a bit of research, I’m really excited. Chiang Mai sounds like an adventure-seeker’s paradise: scenic hikes offering both cultural immersion and physical challenge and a flourishing food culture complete with street vendors in bustling night markets. So many new things to see and experience!!

I have to admit, though, that the jump abroad is bittersweet–most beginnings are also endings. While I’ve never found it terribly sexy to say out loud, I lived at home with my parents for a full 6 months. I hadn’t originally planned to spend that much time at home, and I had also mentally prepared myself to go a bit insane moving back in with my parents. While it wasn’t always perfect, and it did occasionally test the limits of my sanity, I’m surprised to find myself incredibly grateful for the experience. A wise friend pointed out that most people have already spent the vast majority of the time they’re going to spend with their parents by the time they leave for college, so getting to spend another 6 whole months with my parents was a rare opportunity to build a deeper adult relationship with them, and really get to know them better at a time in my life when I’m starting to be able to contextualize their experiences and their choices. While I’m excited to forge ahead, and ready for a new chapter, I can’t help but feel nostalgic that my time at home has, yet again, come to close.

So, how did I spend my time in January? I obviously completed my travel preparations, as I’m (finally) safely on my way to Thailand. I set up an LLC, opened a business bank account, and took care of a bunch of other little logistics to make everything work. It was a bit of a mad dash, and I was honestly packing and prepping virtually up until the last few hours before I left, but I’m off :). I also made significant progress on my first consulting project. I unfortunately wasn’t able to finish it out completely in January, but I’d say it’s 80% done. Now I’m kind of just hoping the last 20% doesn’t take 80% of the time as they say. I didn’t get around to slapping a payment portal on Serenity, but I did spend a few hours setting up a couple of unrelated experimental projects that will exercise my long-dormant artificial intelligence expertise (I have a Master’s degree in AI and Computer Security, but haven’t done much with either in a few years). In all honesty, dabbling with some new projects probably wasn’t the most objectively smart way to spend my time, but I’m nevertheless feeling really excited about the discovery that my AI fundamentals are strong enough to teach myself more and potentially to apply to future products.

Consulting has had an interesting positive effect on my morale. Working on a project for someone else temporarily removes a certain amount of the uncertainty and anxiety around being self-employed: there’s no question as to whether or not I’m wasting my time since value for work has already been pre-negotiated with the client. Knowing for certain that I do have a way to make money if I ever need it is also very comforting–I knew that consulting was a possibility in theory before, but now it’s more tangibly true.

There are also some really useful processes I go through when consulting that I think could be useful for my own projects. I’m finding that the drive to complete a project quickly, and to impress a customer has naturally re-activated some of the skills that I honed at Palantir, but which I haven’t been disciplined about applying when working for myself. In executing at a professional level for a client, I have to be good about planning, designing, and estimating the various project tasks, and then need to execute high quality work and show progress on a regular basis. Going forward, I’m hoping to treat my own projects as sort of mini-consulting engagements where I am my own client–I’m curious to see if doing so enables me to produce higher quality products more quickly.

February promises to be an action-packed month. With a little luck, this consulting project will only occupy me full-time for about another week, and past that will likely require my occasional attention as the project winds down. Once that’s done, my top priority remains slapping a payment portal onto Serenity and getting it out into the world. On top of all that, I have a hefty bucket list of things to do and eat before I leave Chiang Mai on March 4. It’s becoming increasingly clear that my biggest challenge in the coming months will be to successfully balance building a business with taking as much advantage of my exciting new surroundings as possible. I’m not entirely sure how this is going to work yet, but I’m excited to find myself naturally contemplating how to get things done more efficiently so that I can feel good about spending time adventuring. While there were sometimes troughs and crests of productivity at home, I think the call to adventure will apply constant positive pressure to make the most out of my limited time.

Should it interest anyone reading this, I’ve started to record some short vlogs about my adventures. My thought is that I’ll generally keep these short (~5 min max per day) and will do virtually no editing or post-processing on them. I’ll still be posting a broader update with reflections here on my blog once a month, and may start to do more in-depth travel posts about places or things I find really interesting, but for those interested in a video format at a (probably) higher frequency, consider finding me on YouTube. No hard feelings if not–both those videos and this blog are more a form of personal but public documentation of my journey for posterity than anything else.