In an email to me Debbie asked, “Seems most other nomadic families only travel for a short time and/or smaller areas. Know any traveling the world overland, like us?”

Well, I do know of some other long-term traveling families, but after interviewing Debbie, I can safely say that I know of nobody else remotely like the Joneses. They describe themselves as a “bizarre collection of individualists” and I’d say that hits the mark. What a crazy, fun-loving, creative family. Spend some time on their blog after reading this interview and you’ll see what I mean.

the Jones family in their rock star pose

In my interview with Debbie, you’ll learn:

• what it’s like going from living with ex-prostitutes & drug addicts one day, to a 4-star hotel the next day, to a New Zealand yurt…
• Debbie’s original take on minimalism vs. materialism
• how seven strong-willed, creative individuals manage to get along in a 29-foot truck
• how each of the five Jones children is choosing to pursue a non-traditional education

Without further ado, here’s the interview.

1. In your about page you say “We do not see ourselves as being on break from our lives but finally finding out what we are better suited for.” This really struck a chord with me as I’ve noticed that people often perceive travelers as being on perpetual vacation. What is it specifically about the travel lifestyle that is a good fit for you?

Just before we launched out this time we were trying to be “normal” on an island off the north coast of Scotland, Orkney. We had a pretty good life. Not a lot of money coming in but enough. We were renting a 2 story apartment and a big room downstairs for my pottery business.

When I mentioned to a close friend that we were buying a truck and going back on the road she said, “What fun! Oh, lucky you. I wish I could do that.” In the middle of the night she rushed into our house grabbed me by the shoulders and said, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT. IT’S GOING TO BE HARD. YOU’LL DIE.”

You see, we aren’t on vacation, we are continually re-adapting to our continually changing surroundings while trying to maintain a sense of family continuity. Hell on earth, for me, would be being a perpetual tourist. We hate tourist stuff. What we love is seeing our amazing world. Celebrating varying cultures. Validating the beauty and Challenging the bad. Finding quietly growing seeds of beauty and goodness and finding ways to help it grow. In continually changing environments we learn to all see ourselves with more truth. Who we are outside of our cultural baggage.

shopping at a Bali market for a Thanksgiving celebration

This week we are in Indonesia. We are in a community called “Xtreme.” We are living with ex-prostitutes and drug addicts who are HIV+ and the orphan kids that their friends left behind when they died. We are sleeping on mattresses on the floor with no privacy and lots of noise. Authentic time with real people who have had hard lives. We are struggling with communication. A woman down the street brings in amazing, home-cooked Indonesian food. We go shopping for food in dark, damp local markets. It is really hot and sticky. We are eating amazing local fruit and veg. Exotic fruits that I have never seen before.

In the middle of next week we will still be in Indonesia but staying in a 4 star hotel with friends. These friends are flying in from around the world to try to find ways to help “Xtreme” start businesses to support themselves. We will be meeting with a real estate investor from Asia, a local restaurant owner and investor, a businessman who has started many award-winning hostels in Europe. We will be going to nice restaurants and sleeping on soft beds in air-conditioned rooms.

After that we will go to New Zealand where the beautiful fruit and veg will be but a memory. Food will be expensive and we will be living in a storm-damaged yurt for 2 months on farms belonging to our friends because we left our truck in Turkey and we can’t afford to even stay at a campground cabin much less rent our own apartment.

Life is always changing. We need to continually adjust. It is great fun but can be very difficult sometimes.

2. Many travelers pride themselves on being minimalists. You seem to have struck a healthy balance between having no more is needed, but also not embracing minimalism for its own sake. How has your relationship with “stuff” changed since the days when all your earthly belongings fit into a few backpacks?

I don’t know if I would really consider ourselves minimalists. We have way too many books and I can’t travel without art and sewing supplies. I even have a hand-crank sewing machine in our truck!

However, we are always trying to see how little we can live with. The prospect of traveling east, in our truck, and needing to take everything out of our truck and placing it on the sidewalk makes you really think about how much you need.

inside Maggie the truck

At first, I noticed that the smaller amount of things that I possess become more important to me. I actually became MORE materialistic rather than less. A ring or a cup or a piece of cloth.

Because of our lifestyle, things got destroyed or lost. Over the years I have learned that I don’t need to possess something beautiful in order to fully enjoy it. Yeah, I think that would be my biggest step. I still love to see beauty and to create but I am much quicker to marvel at it where it is and walk away or to give something away so the next person can enjoy it.

3. You know the old saying, “You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.” I imagine that when home is a 29 foot long truck, it’s pretty important to stay good friends with your family! How do you iron out differences of opinion on the road? Would you describe your family as a democracy or an autocracy?

Spend just a small amount of time with us and you will realize that we are all painfully imperfect people and we don’t always see eye-to-eye. We are all strong, creative people. However, these are some things that help.

Communication is really important. I know everyone says this but it is life for us. Because we have such a small living space we can catch problems quite quickly and address issues. If we don’t catch problems quickly they become unbearable.

Some questions that can be heard quite frequently around our truck. “Would YOU want to be treated that way?”, “How can you make it right?”, “How can you create your own special space right now?”, and “How can I help you with that?”

When things seem to be getting out of control we pull back. We consider that we might have lost our “center”. We have a family meeting and everyone gets a chance to “check in” and say what they need.

4. Your truck Maggie’s story could have been very different if her original owner had managed to convince his wife to go to Nepal. In your own lives, can you think of any “stories that didn’t happen” – missed opportunities, major regrets or the like?

Hard question. So many “stories that didn’t happen.” Sometimes I wish that we would have spent more time in “The Developing World.” I wouldn’t trade a single relationship or day that we have had in the West. If I focus on what could have been I would have less ability to live in the present and enjoy the journey.

We do have regrets, we will discuss them a bit and then move on. My mom always used to say, “Hind sight is 20-20″. We also pay “dumb tax”. Dumb tax is money wasted because we didn’t know better. Paying too much for something. Buying the wrong sticker for the windscreen, etc.

5. The one I ask everyone: How do you afford to maintain a travel lifestyle? Do you earn money as you go or are you living off savings?

We earn money as we go. Andrew is a writer, teacher, blogger and researcher. I am an artist.

Some people also give us money because they like the things we do and the people we help. We are told we can also take a commission for money we raise for good things we see and for people we introduce to each other, especially when people make money out of the new relationship but we don’t. Sometimes the latter give us something but that is up to them.

We aren’t very good at making money. However, we love the challenge of learning to live with less and keep challenging ourselves to live more and more frugally. On the road, we are frequently meeting people that are living on less than us. That french “pirate” in his truck heading east who dumpster dives for food and fixes his truck with trash. He has taught himself to juggle fire and weld so he can trade for goods and services. We are now living among those who have no choice but to live simpler and are teaching us heaps.

6. In our emails, we were discussing synchronicity, which is a topic that really interests me. You mentioned that you are now in Olympus, Turkey and recently ran into a friend you met in Vama Veche, Romania! What other unlikely coincidences have emerged in your journeys?

When you live on the road, weaving in and out of so many worlds synchronicity is expected. We often refer to it as “Serendipity.” When we part with new friends, more times than not, we make no plans to meet again. We know if we are meant to see each other again we will and we will find each other at the right time.

A friend running out of the desert waving his arms in the Sahara.

Sleeping on a woman’s living room floor, in Istanbul, and finding we have close, mutual friends, in Texas.

Walking down a hill in Olympus, Turkey and hearing the familiar sound of a truck that we left in Vama Veche, Romania.

Like minded people find each other when they need to so there is no reason to be sad at partings.

7. I read on your site that Lizzie is attending university online while traveling with you and Sam is studying film in New Zealand. How are Abi, Hannah and TJ getting an education? Do you have any tips for families who are nervous about pulling their kids out of school to travel?

the kids sort through multiple currencies as part of their homeschool experience

At 16 years old Abi has declared that she is ready to finish and move on to more adventures. When I went to the U.S.A. last year I bought Abi a ridiculously enormous book that is preparing her for her GED Exam. I could just see the gratitude on her face : ) When she is ready we will book her in for an exam at a United States embassy/consulate. She thinks she will be done in 6 months.

Hannah and TJ are working through workbooks from New Zealand as it is our “base” and it is the most likely place they will continue their education. We have previously homeschooled based in the UK and before that USA. I have my favourite books. For math I love “Life of Fred” or the “Key to …” series. For Spelling I love “Spelling Power.” Presently we are just doing the workbooks from esa.co.nz so they can learn the New Zealand curriculum. I like the New Zealand science. It includes lots on farming.

the 5 kids at the Freakstock Festival in Germany

We are very aware that the real education happens outside the workbooks and are continually taking opportunities as there is interest and as they present themselves. Too structured of a program and you miss out on the really great, life-changing parts of travel. I am a strong advocate of “active learning” over “passive learning” and am continually looking out for “learning readiness” in my kids. If they are particularly interested in an area they will learn and retain more. Looking for “Learning Readiness” is a great way of connecting to my kids and helping them through childhood and into adulthood.

I think we all have a balance of “traditional homeschooling” and “unschooling.” We need to find the balance that suits us and our kids. We know it right away when we get it right.

8. Travel of any kind is often punctuated with unexpected events, changes in plan, and the odd disaster. How do you stay grounded and sane when life throws you a curve ball? Do any specific spiritual or philosophical beliefs contribute to your modus operandi?

We seem to expect the unexpected. Living on the road we ARE more vulnerable and the unexpected becomes expected. A couple of weeks ago I wrote in my facebook, “I think it is the best traveling companion who says she can be disappointed and even bored if all goes as planned.” I wrote this about a German woman who joined us expecting to travel with the family in the truck and is now flying with us to India, Indonesia and New Zealand.

We do hold to specific beliefs in a Creator God who cares about us,looks after us and directs us, when we are listening. We are from Christian backgrounds but don’t care much for the religious baggage. We see things in the Bible that we call “Kingdom Values” or “Things that make God Happy” and try to live by them. We believe in a God that loves us so much that he leaves clues all over the world for us to discover more truth about Him/Her. It is the most amazing adventure to find these clues in some pretty unexpected of places.

delivering supplies to the survivors of the Turkish earthquake

9. I just noticed the new link on your site – Turkish Earthquake Relief. You’ve moved all your personal possessions out of Maggie and are using her to transport supplies to the 50,000 people left homeless by the earthquake. Where do things stand now and how can my readers help you help the earthquake survivors?

Andrew and Priscilla went to the earthquake zone and brought blankets, coats and baby food. Andrew has always dreamed of doing that and we continually look for opportunities to help wherever we are. Our truck was perfect for the initial days when the roads were bad but now bigger can get through with supplies and we are not needed so we only did one trip. If people still want to help we have discovered some amazing people that are continuing to do a great job. Just email us and we will link you up.

(end of interview. all photos on this page are copyright Jonesberries.com.)

Thanks Debbie for such honest and genuine answers.

I have a funny feeling I will run into the Jones family on the road one day. I’ll tell you all about it when I do, but until then, you can follow their family adventures at jonesberries.com.

What do you think of the Jonesberries approach to family travel?

In the winter of 2010, Tim Murphy and his wife Oa pulled their 3 kids out of school, rented out their San Francisco home and headed to Thailand. They plan on traveling the world indefinitely. They blog about it here.

Oa with 8-year old Tawan and 5-year old Plyfaa riding an elephant in Maehongson, Thailand

According to Tim, the experience of traveling together as a family has been profound. “We have become a close-knit family and have learned to appreciate the beauty of the world all around us,” he writes.

I was so intrigued by their story, I asked Tim for an interview, which he generously agreed to. In this interview, Tim reveals:

• why losing hundreds of thousands of dollars was the best thing that ever happened to him
• how anyone can spend more time with their kids if they choose
• what coping strategies his family uses to transcend stressful situations
• how they can afford to travel the world on $67 a day

Here’s the full interview. I hope you’re as inspired as I was.

1. You’ve probably seen those “spot the difference” puzzles where you have to identify the ways in which two similar pictures differ from each other. If an imaginary observer had taken a snapshot of you and your family ten years ago, and then took another snapshot today, what are the most important differences that we would spot? And how did you get from there to here?

Ten years ago. We didn’t have kids yet but I was working like a madman. I was teaching full time, investing in the stock market, and building homes. I kept up this crazy pace for a decade working 60-70 hours per week.

The dot com bust came and I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was the best thing that happened to me. I examined my life and I realized that I was not happy. It felt that I wasted 10 years of my life. A few years later, I quit my teaching job and stopped the real estate business.

I married about 10 years ago and a couple of years later we started our family. I never turned back. We live frugally but we have our lives back. I am so very grateful that I can spend my time watching my kids grow up. Our kids are great teachers to us. They are teaching us how to view the world through their observations and questions. Life is too short to be concentrating all your energy on possessions.

with Thai homeschool group in Kanchaburi, Thailand

2. You must come across some amazing people in your travels – and I bet people tend to be pretty amazed by your family as well. What about your lifestyle seems to interest people the most?

It’s quite funny traveling with kids. Everyone is happy to see them and you end up having an extra 20 sets of eyes looking after them. Our kids are treated like movie stars sometimes – lots of people are snapping their pictures and coming over to them. There is never a shortage of warnings when they think your child is doing something unsafe.

A few days ago, my son, daughter, and I were on our bikes waiting to cross a street. It was filled with traffic. We usually just wait it out. A man pulled his car over, got out, and helped us cross the street! Acts like these are very typical and not out of the ordinary.

There are 3 things that surprise people.

1. We don’t work because we are full-time stay at home parents.
2. We homeschool and are traveling the world.
3. We opted out of a consumer orientated lifestyle and live frugally.

All the people that we meet wish that they could spend more time with their kids. We tell them that they can if they make choices and prioritize. It’s a hard choice to break away from this mindset but we hope we inspire some people. If we can do it then anyone can!

Rafting with Thai homeschoolers in Kanchaburi, Thailand

3. Let’s talk nuts and bolts for a minute. How exactly are you traveling at the moment? Are you camping or do you stay in rented accommodation? What sort of equipment, materials, tools, software etc do you find indispensable?

We had lived in Thailand from 1999 – 2002. It was the Asian economic crisis and during that time the dollar was worth about 60% more than it is today. We bought a condo and we’re using this as a base to explore Asia.

In the US, we drove a minivan and we had it loaded up with tents and camping gear. My big advice is to buy quality camping gear because it will last a life time. In the beginning, we had bought cheaper equipment and it quickly fell apart and it ended up costing more because of the replacement cost. Buying 2nd hand on craigslist is also a great place to look.

We also have a Kindle and a laptop. I suppose we could do without these items but we use them to teach math, read books, and to stay connected with friends and family. It’s really not necessary as there are loads of places to use the internet. The kindle is great because children books are hard to come by in non-English speaking countries.

When traveling in the US we relied heavily on our GPS. We used it all the time to locate parks and libraries in towns. We visited hundreds of libraries across the US.

4. Something I hear a lot from my readers is, “I’d love to travel but I can’t afford it.” How do you afford to travel?

Our budget is $67 per day for a family of five. We own a duplex in San Francisco that we rent out. It pays the mortgage and gives us around $2100 per month. We have learned to budget and we save a lot of money by eating at home or eating street food which is very inexpensive.

On a cave tour in Kanchaburi, Thailand

Last week, I met a young Russian family with a young child. They don’t speak English very well and they homeschool. He’s a computer programmer and the wife stays at home. They split their time between India and Thailand. The cost of living is very low for them. They rent a furnished house in Northern Thailand for $150 a month (I know because I helped them find it). I think their budget is about $500 or so a month. He tries to get jobs locally.

So the point is that there are places all over the world and even the US where you can travel and live cheaply. Americans can teach English all over Asia and there are plenty of jobs.

5. One of the biggest challenges for someone trying to travel fulltime isn’t just making the logistics work, but also dealing with others in your life — for example, other family members, naysayers, and people who don’t understand or support your lifestyle choices. How do you deal with that?

I suppose we are lucky. Our families respect our decision. I think it is because of all the negative news about public education in both the US and Thailand. They do worry about natural disasters and such.

For example, we made a tour during the rainy season in Northern Thailand and there were a few mud slides and a river flooding. It was really no big deal if you use common sense. We were never in any danger. A joke we make to our families is that it is far more dangerous in San Francisco then a small village in a developing country.

6. I’m fascinated by how children seek out and internalize new information if left to their own devices. On your blog, you refer to both homeschooling and unschooling. Is there a difference between the two? Please share some concrete examples of how your kids learn. Down the road, do you think they will want to go to university or do you foresee a less structured path for them?

University? Absolutely! However, it is their choice ultimately. College for them is our dream and all we can do is hope that they find their passion in life and be able to pursue it. My wife and I both have college degrees and we enjoyed college life. We hope all our children have a chance to experience this as well. But, it is their choice, not ours.

Homeschooling takes many forms from classical education to letting the children teach themselves (unschooling). We do a hybrid form which is a little bit of both.

My 2 and 5 year old do little sit-down work (sometimes math and phonics computer lessons). The emphasis is on play but we do a great deal of oral reading to them. My soon to be 8 year old is given academic work in math, grammar, spelling, writing, and science. The total amount of lessons never amounts to more than 6-7 hours per week or 90 minutes per day. However, I never force her to do work unless she is up to doing it.

Now, we are writing a book together. It’s an adventure story. The plot is being stranded in Burma with her brother and sister. We have incorporated things that we learned from our travels. It’s a lot of fun and we are learning how to develop the plot and the techniques of writing. We do a lot of proof reading and re-writing. We are on chapter 6 now and I think we will get the girls to do all the drawings. Who knows? We may even publish on Amazon as an e-reader book.

We sometimes do a 2 minute lesson on money, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and percentages. My girls are always on the prowl for loose change that I drop around the house (sometimes I do it on purpose). They taught themselves the value and names of the (Thai money)1 baht, 5 baht, 10 baht coins and the 20 baht, 100 baht, and 500 baht paper money. They go to the shop by themselves. Now they are counting money and buying the usual stuff kids like such as ice cream and drinks. I smiled the other day when they came back a little upset. “Daddy they raised the price of Mentos by 2 baht” they said. We did a quick lesson on inflation and percentages.

7. On my blog I write a lot about finding your calm center and using contemplation to diffuse anxiety. Traveling with 3 kids under 10, I imagine you come across your share of potentially stressful situations. Do you have any specific coping strategies for those times?

Haaa. What an understatement. My wife is a Buddhist so she is always trying to center herself. I am an older dad so I am pretty calm. But, kids will be kids and our patience will be tested every now and again. We try to get the kids to settle their own disagreements. We tend to ignore undesirable behavior and we try to use positive reinforcement. Whenever one of us feels frustration, the best policy is to let that person get away for a break. However, I am human and I sometimes get upset at my middle girl who is going through a stage right now.

We spend a lot of time with each other and we really enjoy our time with each other. I think we make it work by respecting each other, letting everyone voice their opinion, and most importantly to listen to each other.

We find that breathing exercises work wonders. We often try to diffuse a stressful situation by remaining calm and talking through it. Kids can pick up on parents’ emotions so it is important to be aware. We find that if we are calm and relaxed then our kids will be as well. We strive to explain rather than dictate good behavior.

8. In your last blog post you described visiting an orphanage, and in an email to me you mentioned that you are going to be joining an NGO soon to install clean water filtration system in a refugee camp. Giving back to the local community is obviously important to you. If you could do one thing to leave the world a better place, what would it be?

2-year old Panmai hiking in Maehongson, Thailand

Great question. A lot of people tend to get over whelmed with the sheer size of poverty, disease, and other social issues in the world that they shut down, turn a blind eye, and convince themselves that nothing can be done because it affects so many people.

I met a young women in Mae Sot that is single and is running her very own small NGO. She raises a few thousand dollars a year back in Switzerland and she has built a concrete fish tank for a small village of refugees to raise fish. It was a small gesture but she said that if everyone tried to do something, however small, then it would eventually cause change. I think she is right.

My wife and I hope that we raise our kids to be caring global citizens free from nihilism. We are educating my kids not be slaves to consumerism and to become independent thinkers. We teach them to respect all people, cultures, and most importantly the planet. We hope that this simple philosophy spreads.

9. On a related note, do you have a personal philosophy or guiding spiritual belief that helps you plot your course in life?

We see the world filled with beauty with amazing people and culture. We teach our children to appreciate this wonderful world and to cherish and respect these natural wonders. We tend to use the Buddhist teachings more of as a philosophy and guide to moral behavior.

10. After several stints of tent camping across the US, you began your world travels in Thailand, the birthplace of Oa and Faa. Do you know where you will go after Thailand and why? If not – how will you make the decision? After all, there are SO many wonderful places to choose from…

We are looking at a 2 month tour of Cambodia-Vietnam-Laos. Later a short trip to Malaysia. Next year we want to visit Nepal and India. We need to save up for the air tickets but I think we will start in Katmandu and work our way down to Goa. We will probably take 5-6 months for this trip.

(end of interview)

This interview with Tim reminded me of why I love travel. It’s not about superficial experiences, but about widening your horizons and making a difference to this beautiful world we live in. I was especially stoked to hear that Tim’s family may be in Nepal and India next year, as Kathmandu is one of the places I spend a lot of time in (and one of my favorites in the world).

Please feel free to share this interview with friends, family and anyone who would be interested. Help spread the word that it’s possible to travel the world without being consumed by stress, materialism and debt.

I had an art teacher once who said, when you make a mistake don’t erase it. Don’t erase it. Just make it part of your drawing.

Mistakes are inevitable when you’re traveling. You can waste a lot of time & energy trying to erase mistakes. Making expensive phone calls to indifferent officials, waiting in endless queues, filling out forms, looking for someone to blame, backtracking, cancellations, you know how it goes.

Or you can incorporate the mistake into part of the pattern of your journey. Weave it in, embrace it, add another line, add some color, step back and look at it with new eyes. Well? Still a mistake? Or something else?

Remember this the next time you board what you think is the bus to Narathiwat and end up in Bangkok. Or miss the last night train to Paris because you read the timetable wrong. Or lose your passport in a park and have to stay an extra week in Cuzco.

Turn those “mistakes” into doorways: doorways to adventure, courage, growth; doorways to the invisible future. Weave them into your story, into your drawing that looks like nobody else’s.

Don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then “Ole!” And if not, do your dance anyhow.
~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The other day I wrote this post about the genius loci. On a related note, back in 2009 Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert gave an engaging and thought-provoking talk about creative genius:

I love this idea that creative genius is not an inherent part of us, but comes from outside, at the behest of some unknown force. It may sound whimsical, but as Gilbert points out, “Why not think about it this way?” It relieves the societal pressure on artists, writers, dreamers, to perform on command. It sets us free to show up and do the work, without worrying about outcomes.

How’s your relationship with your creative genius going?

Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name.
~ Alice Meynell

I once worked with a woman who approached travel like a scavenger hunt. She dashed through Venice, Paris, Prague and Rome, packing every hour full of activity. When showing us her photos, she’d say things like, “This is a park in….Venice? Oh…maybe it was Rome. I don’t remember. It’s all a blur.”

If your goal in traveling is to be able to brag that you’ve been to X number of countries, then the above strategy is a good one. It’s up to you. Would you rather have whirlwind sex with 30 people whose names you can barely recall or amazing, unforgettable sex with 3 people?

Even if you’re a slow traveler, your memories of certain places sometimes become hazy over time, especially if nothing dramatic happened while you were there. Perhaps you were too busy planning excursions, daydreaming about the future, or coping with emergencies (real or imagined). The more time passes, the more hazy your memories become. Precious moments recede into the fog of forgetfulness, never to be relived.

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.
~ Edward de Bono

On the other hand, if you are fully present in the moment, lucid memories of the place will sustain and inspire you for years to come. Do you want to preserve your memories of place? If so, start by identifying the genius loci.

The Genius Loci: Spirit of Place

A genius loci is the protective spirit of a place, often a sacred space. Sometimes it manifests as an animal or human; at other times, its disembodied presence can be felt if you sit still and listen.

At the Yog-Ganga studio in the hills of Dehradun, India, lives a tawny dog with chocolate eyes. When I visited the place a few months ago, this gentle guardian escorted me and my friends to the studio and waited outside for us. Every time I think of the restful hour we spent in this beautiful space, I feel his calm, welcoming presence.

Yog-Ganga in Dehradun, 2010

Yog-Ganga’s canine genius loci reminded me of two other dogs I met some years previously, in a flower garden in Cuzco, Peru. The garden was filled with the humming of bees and the wind rustling the wild grasses. I drank the bitter green juice of the San Pedro cactus, a healing plant with psychotropic properties. While my mind floated on the wind and colorful visions taught me the lessons I needed to learn, these calm and dignified shaman-dogs watched over me.

Huachuma ceremony, 2008

Making Friends With the Spirit of Place

If you make friends with the genius loci, it will make a home in your memory. When you cast your mind back even years later, the smells and sounds of the place will vividly surround you.

Here is a technique for making friends with the genius loci. It works whether or not you are in the place for a year or an hour.

Try this:

• Find a spot to sit quietly and look around. Is there a visual manifestation of the genius loci? Perhaps it’s an animal, like the ones I’ve mentioned in this post. (If it’s an animal, offer it some loving touch or food.) Perhaps it’s a statue or natural formation.
• If there’s no obvious visual representation, sit for a while longer and let the place seep into your bones. At first, you may find it easier to do this exercise by a peaceful lake or lonely mountainside, but it’s equally possible in a busy marketplace, amusement park, or shopping mall. No matter where you are, you can always touch into your own calm center.
• Cultivate a state of non-focused awareness. Don’t block anything out. In your mind – or on a piece of paper – list the sounds, sights, colors, sensations you experience. Try not to get caught up in feelings. “I am annoyed” or “I have a headache” is nothing to do with the place – just your transient states of mind.
• If you like, record your experience of the genius loci in some way: photograph, drawing, poetry, freewriting, voice recording. But if you are truly present and awake, you will not need a concrete record. Your memory will be enough.

This is a way of experiencing place that will deepen your memories, make your travel experience richer, and help you maintain inner tranquility wherever you are.

Where in the world have you made friends with genii loci? Which of your memories of place are most vivid and precious to you?

Bliss From Within: My Experience

I’ve practiced yoga using Bliss From Within every day for about two weeks. Here are my thoughts so far.

Pros:

• Unlike many other pre-natal yoga instructors, Zoe was actually pregnant during filming. Zoe and her two students are at various stages of pregnancy and demonstrate at least 2-3 variations for most asanas, so that you can follow along depending on your own stage of pregnancy.
• I checked out Active Birth from the library the other day and was interested to find that Zoe’s sequence is quite similar to the yoga-inspired sequence in the book. Active Birth is a bit outdated now but still worth a read.
• Professional, clean filming in a well-lit studio.
• Most of the asanas were easy to see and follow.
• 45 minutes is a nice length for a yoga practice.
• 2 sequences to choose from: hip & groin and chest & shoulders.
• The music is mellow and unintrusive.

Cons:

• Zoe’s butchering of the beautiful Sanskrit language. I don’t expect every yoga teacher to have an accent like Vyaas Houston, but the pronunciation of the word asana was so distorted as to be distracting. Every. Single. Time.
• Zoe has a tense, serious vibe. Her personality doesn’t come off as relaxed or loose, even when she’s urging viewers to relax. Her students looked strangely glum too; not blissful by any stretch of the imagination.
• Poor finishing sequence. Because of Zoe’s schoolmarmish manner, shavasana feels like we’re being ordered to follow a specific set of instructions rather than invited to relax. Worst of all, the DVD abruptly switches to the menu after a few minutes, meaning that if you want to take a longer rest you have to lie there and listen to the music loop fade in and out. I got in the habit of just pausing the DVD before Zoe starts talking and taking shavasana in silence.
• Too many twists with limited instruction on how to do them safely. Twists are not generally recommended in pregnancy, so it’s surprising that Zoe included so many. With the guidance of a qualified teacher one can do them safely, but Zoe skims over the technique without stressing the need for caution and patience.
• Zoe’s sequence relies heavily on props. This is fine in itself, but there’s not enough time for viewers to set up their own props. It’s as though whoever edited the DVD thought, “Oh, we can cut out all these boring shots of them fetching their blocks and straps and edit straight into the next asana.” Um…but in real life, I still need to physically stand up and get my prop, remember? Also, this makes the DVD less suitable for nomads & travelers. I can’t see myself trucking a chair and two bolsters around the world with me.
• On the same note, certain positions are held for dizzingly short periods. For example, Zoe extols how wonderful the foot flex is for relieving oedema…which would be true if she gave you enough time to do more than 2 flexes before moving on.
• Zoe’s use of negative language. This may seem really picky, but I truly believe that the words a teacher chooses leave a subconscious impression. Zoe says things like “If you suffer from sciatica…” quite a bit. Repeating the word suffer over and over again isn’t a particularly mindful approach to teaching. It is possible to be pregnant and to experience sciatica without labeling your experience as suffering. I found myself having to make a mental replacement every time the word suffer was used. I don’t consider any of the physical experiences of pregnancy to be suffering. They are simply sensations that we can choose to see as positive or negative.

My Take-Away:

Overall, I’d recommend that expectant mums at least give this DVD a try. It’s better than a lot of the yoga-related garbage out there. After practicing with the DVD daily for a couple of weeks, my hips are more open, I have tons of energy, and I’m sleeping pretty well. I also find myself looking forward to yoga practice every day.

Zoe’s sequence, while not perfect, certainly does more good than harm. If I had no other option, I’d continue using it happily. If you’re looking for a well-structured yoga DVD with easy-to-follow instructions that you can do throughout your pregnancy, Bliss From Within is adequate.

You can view some excerpts from the DVD here. Try and get it from your local library like I did, so you don’t have to pay for it before testing it out.

What yoga DVDs do you like – pre-natal or otherwise – and why?

Are your public and private life in perfect harmony?

Perfect harmony is an expression Paul Ekman used to describe one of the “exceptional human qualities” demonstrated by people like HH the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandala or Mahatma Gandhi. People like that literally have nothing to hide. They’re on the other side of the spectrum from charismatic liars like Bill Clinton or Ted Haggard.

I think we all have the ability to act in perfect harmony with our private selves. After all, as babies we start out that way. You don’t look at a crying or laughing baby and think, “Ah, but I wonder what she’s really feeling?” It’s only as we get older that we learn how to dissemble.

Paul Ekman is quoted in Happiness, the book by Matthieu Ricard that I mentioned in the my last post. Regarding people whose public lives are in perfect harmony with their private lives, he said, “people instinctively want to be in their company….they find their presence enriching. In essence, they emanate goodness.” Ekman’s words caught my attention because I realized that, despite good intentions, my public & private life are frequently in disharmony.

Maybe you’ve experienced this kind of disharmony too. For example:

• Do you ever hold back your true feelings on a topic to avoid rocking the boat?
• …or because you think the other person’s an idiot, and you can’t be bothered to engage with them?
• Do you ever feel unsure about the right protocol, and instead of asking for help, fake your way through the situation?
• Do you do any kind of work that doesn’t reflect your true values?

I know I do. And whenever I notice it happening, it just doesn’t feel good.

One of my life goals is is to bring my private and public life into perfect harmony. This is an intention I’ve held for some time, but I didn’t have the right words with which to express the concept. I really like Ekman’s perfect harmony – sums up the idea well, easy to remember.

Perfect harmony while traveling?

You might notice that any disharmony between your public & private life becomes more pronounced during travel, or during the period of transition into a new country. This can happen because:

• Travel can stir up emotions & make you feel vulnerable – you’re more likely to put up walls or act out of fear.
• As a stranger in a strange land, you constantly encounter local preconceptions & stereotypes about your culture. It can be hard to be genuine under that kind of pressure.

On the other hand, sometimes the opposite is true. I often notice that I feel more in harmony with myself when I’m in a totally alien environment – freer to just be myself. Perhaps it’s because I figure the locals won’t be able to distinguish between my weird culture and my weird idiosyncracies.

What do you think?

Do you try to act in perfect harmony? How do you respond when you notice your public life is out of harmony with your private life?

But are sensual pleasures the only – or the best – path to happiness? Does pleasure=happiness?

Matthieu Ricard says no.

“More often than not, pleasure does not keep its promises,” Ricard points out in his book Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill.

I’ve been reading Ricard’s book lately, and it got me thinking about how we experience happiness while traveling, and especially how our definition of happiness influences our approach to travel: where we choose to go, what we choose to see, who we choose to travel with, how we respond to seemingly “negative” experiences.

The problem of pleasure

Pleasurable experiences often do make us happy, at least for a short while. They’re easy to identify – nobody’s going to stick their leg in a meat-grinder because they wondered if it would feel good; they’ll go for the foot rub instead. And if you’re born into a well-off family or in a developed country, pleasures are not hard to come by.

Here’s the problem.

Pleasures like food, sex, and so on make us feel happy because they trigger a positive emotion. But, as positive psychologist Martin Seligman explains, “Positive emotion habituates. It habituates rapidly indeed. It’s all like French vanilla ice-cream, the first taste is a 100 percent; by the time you’re down to the sixth taste, it’s gone.”

If not pleasure, then what?

So where does that leave us? Well, according to Seligman, there are basically three types of lives that we might choose to lead.

1. The pleasant life looks good on the surface, but has the one  main flaw mentioned above; pleasure habituates quickly, leaving us dissatisfied & restless.
2. The engaged life is based around the experience of eudaimonian flow. Anyone who adores what they do for a living knows all about this. It’s when time seems to stop, you’re utterly focused on what you’re doing; you’re one with the activity. And yes, you can learn to achieve flow.
3. The meaningful life “…consists of knowing what your highest strengths are, and using them to belong to and in the service of something larger than you are.” I got shivers down my spine when I first heard Seligman say this.

(Seligman has since revised this theory and expanded it into a new book - haven’t got my hands on a copy yet, but it looks like a stimulating read.)

Traveling for pleasure vs traveling for…happiness?

You’ve probably heard the expression pleasure travel. While there’s nothing wrong with a Greek island cruise or a luxurious vacation, if this is the only kind of travel you ever do, you might not run up against situations that push you to grow as a person or challenge your comfort zones. And in my opinion, it’s those types of experiences that bring you closer to living an engaged & meaningful life.

If your goal is authentic happiness, as opposed to transient pleasure, you have to push yourself. You have to be a little bit scared sometimes. You have to fail.

How?

If you’ve only ever traveled for pleasure, you might not be sure what forms non-pleasure travel could take. As one example, Nerdy Nomad is a professional volunteer who’s followed her star to Haiti, Sumatra, Ethiopia and about a billion other places. I’d definitely call that traveling “in the service of something larger” than herself (not that she doesn’t have a rocking good time as well). If you’re interested in mixing travel & service, check out her e-book, The Underground Guide to International Volunteering. You can also read my interview with her here.

From my own side, I often find myself pulled (pushed? called? summoned?) to specific places without knowing why. I went to Peru because of a chance conversation about ayahuasca, and I experienced things I could never have imagined or predicted. I went to Nepal for no real reason I could explain in words, and I ended up meeting my soulmate& future husband, not to mention a horde of amazing teachers, guides & spiritual friends. I rarely travel purely for pleasure (although I do experience a lot of pleasure while traveling). One of my goals is to create more fluidity & freedom in my life so I can listen for & respond to intuitive signals as they arise.

Once you let go of pleasure as a deciding factor in your travel plans, you open the door to happiness.

Resources

If this whole pleasure vs happiness idea intrigues you, here’s some stuff you might like to do:

• Watch Matthieu Ricard talk about the habits of happiness and read his book Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill.
• Read Unhappiness is good for you by Penelope Brazen. I think what she’s calling “unhappiness” in this post is actually a kind of happiness that happens not to be pleasure. But that’s just my take on her words.
• Read 2 Keys to Minimalist Happiness by James Schipper, who used to chase the American Dream. He had a lot of keys. He needed them for his house, cars, motorcycles, tools. “Now I find that there is a direct correlation between the number of keys I have and how happy and free I feel,” he says. He’s down to 2 keys. He sounds happier.
• Read Building a Happier Life by Steve Pavlina. I feel like I link to Steve all the time. But the thing is, it’s hard not to take someone seriously who obsessively practices every single thing he preaches. Steve has some awesome advice for building a happier life, and very little of it has to do with pursuing pleasure.
• And finally….give the question below some thought….then tell me about it in the comments.

Are you traveling for pleasure? Or for happiness?

But, then again… perhaps I have the strength after all.
~ Westley, The Princess Bride

The other night I had a dream, and in the dream my baby was born dead.

As soon as I woke up, I knew it had been only a dream. I felt the baby moving; everything was fine.

Then something interesting happened. This vast wave of peace surged through my body. It was similar to the way you feel after you’ve had a good long cry.

I won’t go into the dream’s narrative (which was long & complicated, and let’s face it, nobody wants to hear someone else’s dream in minute detail). What I really want to share with you is my emotional response in the dream and afterwards, because it got me thinking about the idea of fear, and how we respond to it.

In the dream, I experienced overwhelming grief and sorrow, but no bitterness. I behaved with the kind of dignity & strength that I’m rarely called upon to express in waking life. I faced the death of my darling, my baby, without turning away, without shutting down, without falling apart.

Awake, watching the morning sunlight filter through the blinds, I felt in awe of my own power. (I don’t usually lounge around in bed musing over how terrific I am, so it was a nice moment.)

Having lived a parent’s worst fear in my dream, I knew I could survive it in my waking life. Looking at it straight on and accepting it as a real possibility set me free to experience my pregnancy without fear. I was able to dismiss the scary thought with a peaceful mind and haven’t worried about it since.

If there’s a fear lurking in your subconscious, it’s good to take it out and give it a shake-off in the sunlight. Look at it from all angles. Go deep inside and find that calm power.

How to investigate fear:

1. Think of something you’re feeling anxious about. Really let yourself feel the dread – don’t push it away.
2. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
3. If you still feel a lot of anxiety, it can help to follow up with a second question: “What would be so terrible about that?”
4. If you happen to have mad lucid dreaming skills, you can scrap these questions and do on purpose what I did by accident – exorcise the fear while snoozing. (This has the added benefit of efficiency.)

Sometimes, it turns out that the worst that can happen isn’t as bad as you thought. Maybe you’ll run the risk of being laughed at by a bunch of strangers. Maybe you’ll miss your plane to Bangkok. Often the worst that can happen is only that nothing will change.

Occasionally, the worst that could happen is quite serious. Let’s say you’ve been captured by pirates, shot in the chest, thrown into a military prison, or diagnosed with a brain tumor. In these cases, when you ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen, the answers invariably include “death,” “torture,” and “lots of pain.” Clearly, these are not minor consequences.

What tends to happen when exploring your fear in those extreme situations is that you find inner resources you weren’t aware of. You find you have strength and courage that you never imagined. You find that there is, after all, nothing you can’t bear.

Then you have no fear any more. You’re completely free.
~ V for Vendetta

Afterwards, if the worst actually does come to happen, you won’t be paralyzed by fear. This doesn’t mean you won’t grieve or suffer. But once you look deeply into the heart of fear, it no longer has power over you.

What fears have you overcome? What are you still afraid of?

Thanks to a combination of techniques, I cleared up the infection in a couple of days with minimal discomfort and no drugs. If you want to do the same, here’s my advice:

Stay inside & rest as much as possible

I slept and rested a lot. I cancelled a couple of things I had planned to do, like going to Shalimar Garden, and took rest days instead. Even if it means missing out on something you were looking forward to, put your health first (unless you are offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance to to witness the secret excavation of  a possible alien contact site from a hot air balloon at dawn). But don’t just lie there and whinge: actively fight the infection with:

1. Neti pots

   I don’t know why Western doctors don’t prescribe neti pots rather than decongestents. (Oh, wait, yes I do.) Neti pots take effect faster than any anti-sinusitus medicine, can be used ad infinitum, and have zero side effects.

   If you’ve never poured salinated water through your nostrils, it may feel a bit weird, but it takes only a few seconds to get used to the sensation. When fighting this sinus infection in Delhi I used a neti pot several times a day to experience instant relief, and it was wonderful. Don’t waste your money on tiny bags of expensive “neti pot salt” – any organic salt with no additives is safe to use.

2. Hot showers & baths

   These aren’t always easy to get when traveling in a developing country. But when possible, soak or stand under hot water for as long as possible. The steam and water pressure will open up those sinuses beautifully.

3. Massage

   Rinch gave me lots of deep tissue massage, which really helped move the fluids through my body and relaxed my tense neck muscles. You can self-massage if you don’t have anyone else to do it for you. Focus on the big muscles in your neck as well as the pressure points above your eyebrows and on either side of your nose. Do this sitting up so you can drain.

But if you must go outside…

1. Wear a face mask

   (No, not the kind made of overpriced mud.) If you’re traveling someh with high pollution, purchase and wear a face mask any time you go outside. Anything will help a little, but the higher-quality masks offer better protection. A recent study found that a simple cloth facemask (you can buy these on the street for very cheap) removed about 25% of the particles produced by a diesel engine. A 3M brand 8812 industrial facemask removed over 95% of the particles.

2. Take taxis

   Even if you usually walk or take public transport, a sinus infection is a perfectly good reason to use private, enclosed vehicles. In Delhi we rented a car for the day for about $20.

3. Keep your neck covered

   A friend taught me this a few years ago and it’s made a huge difference to my health. Wear a light cotton or silk scarf around your neck when you go outside. You can even wear it when you’re sleeping (no, you won’t strangle yourself). I don’t know why this works, but in my experience it does. These days even when I’m not sick, I rarely am without a scarf.

What to put inside your body

1. Apple cider vinegar

   You can’t actually find apple cider vinegar in every country, so you may want to stock up when possible. What you want is proper apple cider vinegar, not just water that’s had a small percentage of apple cider added to it. Look for a brand that contains the “mother” (a cobweb-like structure of living bacteria). You can’t go wrong with Bragg.

   How to take apple cider vinegar: Take a teaspoonful on its own or mix with hot water and drink. I also added a tiny bit to my neti pot – this feels amazing. Just be careful as vinegar strips your nasal passages and you’ll need to lubricate them with oil afterwards.

2. Multivitamins

   Take a good multivitamin with plenty of vitamin C and B. If you don’t like swallowing pills or you can’t be bothered to remember to take a multivitamin, pay extra attention to your nutritional intake when you’re sick.

3. Probiotics

   I took about 6-10 probiotics a day. Sometimes I poured them straight into my mouth rather than swallowing them – they just taste like milk powder. Probiotics work so well because they increase the percentage of “good bacteria” in your body (okay, a gross oversimplification – but check out Bonnie Bassler on how bacteria “talk” for the science behind it.)

4. Hot soup

   

   delicious thukpa soup at Ama Rabsel Guesthouse in Delhi

   I ate mainly soup. Thukpa and thenthuk (Tibetan noodle soups) were especially effective at clearing out my throat and keeping up my energy.

5. Fresh fruit

   In addition to soup, I ate a ton of fresh mangoes, papaya, bananas, and oranges. I could feel the energy boost right away and it definitely seemed to make a difference.

6. Hot lemon ginger honey

   • one glass of hot water
   • juice of one fresh lemon
   • about a tablespoon of sliced or chopped fresh ginger
   • about a tablespoon of honey

This is a magic drink. It works wonders for any kind of cold or infection. If you’re in India or Nepal everyone knows how to make them (specify “no teabag”; sometimes they use lemon flavored tea instead of fresh lemon, which is not at all the same). If you’re traveling elsewhere just explain what you want or make them yourself:

Simmer in pot on stovetop and pour through strainer into glass…or just mix directly in the glass. I like to munch up the raw ginger too. Drink this as hot as you can stand it, and breathe deeply to inhale the fragrant steam (this will help clear your sinuses).

7. Hot water

   When you’re not drinking hot lemons, drink hot water. The more water the better. Have a giant thermos of hot water next to you and keep sipping away. Just make sure you’re keeping your salts up too so you don’t develop overhydration. If you can’t get hot water, drink cold, but hot is best.

If you do all of the above next time you feel a sinus infection coming on, I guarantee you’ll reduce the time you spend clutching wet hankies and whinging in pain. It’s difficult to practice contemplative travel if you’re physically unwell. You owe it to yourself and others to keep healthy.