I don’t usually have too many problems meeting new people. I’m reasonably outgoing and have my social skills in good order, despite spending most of my time behind a computer screen. But meeting people I really connect with is a bit harder for me. Most people I meet are nice and normal. I much prefer the people who are a bit eccentric and off the wall with a warped, inappropriate sense of humour. The sorts of people you find yourself trading poo stories with before you’ve exchanged names. These are the people I get along best with but they’re kind of hard to come by. Truly funny people are a rare breed.
But, amazingly, there seem to be plenty of these folks in Kigali and it’s a big part of the reason I’m still in the city. I value the people I meet on my travels way more than the places I’m actually going to see and I’ll often scrap entire trips because I’m having a great experience and meeting good people. I ditched an expensive plane ticket to Buenos Aires in January 2009 because I was having such an amazing time in Haiti. The reasoning… Buenos Aires isn’t going anywhere but I’d never have those same friends in the same situation in Haiti ever again and I wanted to enjoy the moment for as long as I could. The five months I spent in Haiti in 2008/09 remain as one of the best times of my life and, yep, Argentina is still there and I can go anytime.
The fun people I’ve met here have started me thinking about how ‘I wish so and so in Kigali could meet so and so in Toronto’, or ‘This guy would love my friend in Sydney’ etc. Then, after thinking a bit about where all of my best friends live, I came to the realisation that none actually live in the same city. Most of my good friends don’t even know each other! Even worse, I only get to see most of my favourite people once a year or less. Lame.
This might explain why I can’t give an answer to the dreaded ‘Where can you see yourself settling down?’ question. I don’t even know where I would have a home base, even if I did still travel for most of the year. As I’ve mentioned, for me travel is all about the people and experiences and less about the things I’m seeing, and I don’t think choosing a hometown is any different. True, I could move to a place and stay for many years and build up a great group of friends, but it would just be so much easier deciding on a place to live if all of my friends just moved to the same city. Is it too much to ask all of my favourite people to move to London or New York?
So while seeing my friends in one place probably isn’t likely to happen anytime soon, I do end up crossing paths with a lot of them in all sorts of different parts of the world. I’ve met up with a bunch so far in Rwanda, a few in South Africa, and I’m hoping to see a couple more in Malawi and Zambia. I’ve met up with several on three or more continents in all sorts of different circumstances. Some of my friends have never really travelled much, some have and have decided to settle down in one place, and some seem to continually wander around, usually chasing after disasters. It’s pretty cool to meet up with people in various parts of the world and I think I might like that just as much or more than having everyone all in one spot.
So I’m left with what seems to be a common dilemma. I’m really loving it in Rwanda but I should be travelling. I have a new African travel website to fill with information and, while I am still working the site’s setup here in Kigali, it should be ready for information in a few weeks and Rwanda is one tiny piece of the puzzle. Plus I’ve committed to volunteering in Uganda at a place I have a big hunch I’ll love as well… getting dirty volunteering on a farm. I love that stuff. Plus there’s a crazy boat trip I want to take from Burundi to Zambia. Plus a million other things I want to do.
But it’s so easy to get settled and comfortable and all I think I really want to do is hang out in Kigali, get to know the city and people here better and maybe take a few trips while keeping Rwanda as my base. I like the idea of being here over Christmas and New Years and having familiar faces around to share the holidays with. At $300 a month my rent is cheap, my house is nice, and I’ve managed to get my spending under control and get into a bit of a routine. But then the thoughts of work and volunteering creep into my head and I question that plan.
I guess I’ll just take things as they come. That’s the best part about this ridiculous lifestyle of mine… being able to change my mind pretty much on a whim.
How much importance do you guys put on the people part of your travels? Are you flexible on your travels and how much of a role do people you meet play in any changes of plans you make? Do have friends all over the place or can you go back to a place in your home country and be surrounded by a number of good friends back there?
You’ve got your priorities right. It’s all about friends. I think they make up 90% of my most memorable travel experiences, so staying flexible and extending those experiences when it feels right, sounds like the best thing you could have done.
As much as possible, I don’t like to go anywhere with any sort of itinerary. I recently spent a few weeks in Taiwan with a hotel in Taipei for the first few nights and a vague idea of what I wanted to do after that.
But a client-related catastrophe back home meant I had to spend a lot more time working, helping them solve a problem. But in the process of changing my ‘plans’, I met some neat people and had some very enjoyable experiences that I otherwise wouldn’t have had. (Well, it might’ve been just as good… only different)
Being flexible is great. And if you’re in a place/time/situation you enjoy, make the most of it – because nothing stays the same. Change is always around the corner.
This post was a bit eerie for me as it deals with something that I am constantly thinking about. I haven’t had a home base in 11 years and I also would have no idea how to go about choosing one now that my friends are scattered around the world.
I am always thinking that the downside of all of this traveling is never having many friends together at the same time, however, if I had never started (and continued) traveling, I would never have met most of these friends!
Luckily, like you, I get to meet up with a friend or two normally wherever I go, but yes, it would be ideal to have a home base where all of those wonderful people would be right there with me…
And since that isn’t going to happen, I’m perfectly content traveling around and making even more connections with people from around the world!
Kirsty – I have the opposite problem. I’m stuck in one place and wish I could get up and go. Up to this point in our lives, we have been planning for the day when we can move from country to country and live as locals for a few months or longer, depending on how much we like the place. Our annual vacations just aren’t cuttin’ it! All my friends and family are here!
We’ll get there, but your ability to move from place to place as you desire is right where I want to be. So I’ll continue to travel when I can and read your blog and dream….!
The whole traveling thing living in different places, is starting to sneak up on me again and I’m kinda on the road now!
Having chosen to use Phuket as my home base for now I thought I had a pretty doable plan heading off on holiday every 2 months… two weeks in a new place is not cutting it though so when my recently signed 6 month lease is up ‘in 4 months” I’m pretty sure I’m going to attempt to head off for a while before committing to anything longish term again…
The craziest thing is I choose this place so I would have a really good place to work out of and now I’m working much better by heading off to places with WiFi & food for the day…
I’m also longing to hit some of these more out of the way places that are essential cheaper and would allow me to work more on my own stuff unlike at present were I’m having to do consulting just to pay all the bills each month.. the downside of that will be the lack of western convinces something that was a shock to the system when I first encountered the lack of them in some places… in fact as I’m writing this I see their is always a price to pay and very little comes for free..
I do have a middle of the road option here also that would put me a step in the right direction that would be to rent a place here http://www.houseinphuket.com/houses/LTR/a0803/ for less than $200 a month considerably smaller than I have now http://www.houseinphuket.com/houses/HFS/a0771/ $680 per month. I could then go off more often and for longer stretches whilst maintaing a home base for very little..
People really do make the place. That is the hardest thing about leaving for my RTW in January… Currently, I have the best friends I’ve ever known where I live now… I’m happy and I’m having the time of my life. Every week is a new amazing week. It’s hard to walk away from that into the unknown. Really hard.
When I traveled I met some amazing people I clicked with immediately, as if we had been friends for much longer. I always considered it poetic how they came in and out of my life…. the backpackers life.
A big part of why I’m living in Medellin 6 months per year is so I can develop stronger relationships. The cool part about staying put in another country, I learned last year, is that eventually other travelers will come to you!
Wow it must be a strange situation to have your best friends spread out across the world like that. I guess those friends add extra incentive to getting out traveling. Then you are that much more likely to cross paths with some of them. Wherever you do end up, I’m sure you’ll do extremely well for yourself. With all the volunteering and good work you’ve done, you’ve got plenty of good karma heading your way.
Well after traveling for a long time I’ve decided to set up my base Bangkok. A big factor in the decision was that its a city that has some of the best flight connections within Asia and beyond. Its also a city that seems to be on the way to lots of other places, and happily I’ve already got my first visitors staying with me at the moment.
This is the same dilemma as I find myself in all the time. I’m from Scotland, curently in NZ, and have some family in Prague. My friends are dotted all over the place and very regularly wish I could pop over to meet folk for the weekend or have them all in one place for a couple of weeks or more.
The good thing is I’m now catching up with a very good friend for the 2nd time in 11 years whom I met in Canada on my first long term trip. I have many ‘best friends’ from that time. One of my other best mates is from the same time and fortunately we’ve been able to catch up almost every year since.
I do miss folk from back home but I saw them less and less as I was often away at weekends. Ironically I’ve seen people from the other side of the world more often than som friends who live in the same city as you get caught up in the usual stuff at home, and I disappeared most weekends.
The good thing is though, most of my mates I could catch up with this weekend, next year, or the year after and its like it was just yesterday.
As for a location to “settle” down – same dilemmas. I love Scotland but there’s so many other things.
The good thing is though that Skype, email, facebook etc all helps quite a lot. My niece hands me sweets through the webcam and I see changes in her over that. It’s not the same, but it helps the world shrink a bit when you want it to!
Although I wouldn’t want everywhere to be so quickly accessible, bring on time travel so I can go out for with my mate back home, or in the Stans for a few pints on Friday night
You really travel a lot and that’s why you meet and adore new people from time to time. But for me, there is no place like home. I mean, having a place you called home is different place from the other where you also stay most of the time. It’s just, my home is where I am comfortable living with the rest of my life.
I would say don’t lose your friends if you find a rare species somehow. Try to be in touch over the internet.
I haven’t traveled nearly as much as you–have basically lived in 3 cities in the United States plus 10 months in Sussex–but I have friends in different cities too. I miss them and think sometimes I should plan a tour around them. One things for sure, a friendship with someone you see once a year is different than a friendship with someone who’s always around.
You definitely need to take the boat trip from Burundi to Zambia because I really wanted to do it but had to skip it when I decide to reroute and go to Malawi! Enjoy the rest of your stay in Rwanda.
I really enjoyed this post and think people who have friends from all over the world are incredibly lucky. When I lived in Calgary for 10 years, I noticed that many of my friends shared similar upbringings and after a while I started missing the diversity of the friends I had met in Thailand which came all from all the world with completely different upbringings and perspectives. I am now living in Germany and taking a German language course and we have people from over 13 different countries and I’m once again thriving on the diversity. I also love the experience of reconnecting with friends years later and usually find you pick right up where you left off and often meet in the most unexpected places.
It is true that friends make the journey but at the risk of sounding corny, your best friend is yourself. I went through a period of time while I was living in London where I just did not make any good friends. Part of the reason was that I had just lived in a Zen monastery for two years and the friends I made there were so incredible that I could not find any others that matched up. I did make lots of what I called acquaintences, but not any true deep friends. I felt lonely, but I decided that I would accept this lonelyness. I still spent time with my acquaintances, but did not over invest emotionally with them.
Over time I came to understand the roots of my lonelyness and now I rarely experience it. Also, when I do meet people I really connect with it is a real pleasure and I am not clingy, just happy.
I think when you get over a certain age the ability to find true friends diminishes as people’s attention and loyalties tend to go towards immediate family and partner.
Thats my experience anyway, even if you are based in one place then friendships can be very superficial.
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jacob lee
That is really cool that you are able to travel and have so many friends all over the globe. I haven’t had the ability to do that but I do find myself wanting my friends from back home to move where I live. I see it transplanting them to a new a cooler area. But as you said I don’t think that is happening anytime soon. They are all starting to settle down and I can’t even begin to think where I will be in 2 years much less five or ten. At least I know I always have my work and my friends are not going anywhere.
Since I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 18, I’ve moved around quite a bit. I find it most difficult to leave my friends behind, but at the same time I have faith that we’ll see each other again at some point. Then we’ll have a new adventure to talk about. And I also really hate “Where do you see yourself settling down?” I don’t know! It’s like that question at an interview, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Uhhh…five years older than I am now?
Meeting the right kind of people can really make all the difference while your traveling. So far I do have changed my plans a bit whenever I met some great people that I could travel with, and it was more then worth it!
I did end up have more good friends living overseas then in the region where I live now, which sometimes can be quite annoying since I can’t meet them that often. But it gives me a good excuse to visit the country they live in
I would also have no idea at all when, and where I will eventually settle down. I have been “stuck” at home now for the last 2 years. But I’m planning a big trip next year, and one of the things I’m really looking forward to is meeting new friends on the road again.
The true loyal friends are the ones you can pick up right where you left off when you last saw them. You are very fortunate to have a relatively low cost of living and to have a portable career. You don’t want to have the regrets of abruptly cutting a good time short before you really get to know your new friends. The existing friends will always be there for you.
Cool….! For People really has a position and Friends and like a part of our life. The accessible friends will always be there for you all the time.
haha – too bad you’re not here: we love poo stories =)
This has been an interesting conundrum for me being an expat and John (my husband) basically being an expat since he’s from Western Australia and we’ve been living in Melbourne (he’s been treated like an alien plenty). At least he knows where most of his close friends are: they’re all in Perth. Mine are scattered about – feel like I’ve left pieces of started relationships all over the place. It’s hard to stay in touch. Some of my “best” friends lost interest in my being so far away – we’re still in touch but it isn’t the same. It’s hard to make an effort at a distance (talking US-Australia). But some of it gets a little ridiculous (I always have to be the one who calls, people forgot my 30th, etc.) We’ve made lots of good friends here in Melbourne, but now we’re picking up and leaving again, so we’ll see. Anywhoo – no resolution here for you in my words here (clearly!) – but just wanted to let you know you are not alone.
All your accounts of your travels, make me feel like taking a vacation. I have not ever really traveled to another country just for site seeing and tourism. I always wanted to go to Rome.