[nathan_f77]

This looks like a nice experience, but I'm realizing that I don't want to do anything like this. I thought I did, but I guess not. That includes driving an RV around America or New Zealand, hiking the Appalachian trail, or any other kind of journey where you travel from A to B and see a few things along the way. I do want to visit Africa, but all of this driving and getting stuck doesn't really appeal to me. I do want to visit places like Ethiopia and South Africa, but I think I'll take a plane.

I've traveled quite a bit, but I feel like up until this point I've just been consuming experiences and meeting people. It's nice, but ultimately not very fulfilling. I would like to experience some real adventure and end up with some interesting stories, but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.

The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do. As Rep. John Lewis says, maybe I need to get into some "good trouble".

[Msurrow]

I don't care that this is a late and buried reply and most likely only you will read it. I even created an account just to reply to you. I did this because I was you about a year ago and your post is exactly something I could hear myself say or think. I had a good friend that had lived part of their life out in the big world and I was talking to her about it, explaining how I felt, which is just about what you write in your post. It ended up changing my perspective a bit and I actually finally just did it: I quit my very nice job, girlfriend quit her nice job, we sold the car and left to travel the world. We are still travelling, and are going to continue doing so for at least another couple of month.

Reread your first paragraph, then reread your second paragraph. To paraphrase them both a bit: "You would like to experience some real adventure, but getting stuck in the mud doesn't really appeal to you". Hmm?

The only way you will experience something that is really fulfilling to you in this way, is if you go do something that you are not really all that comfortable with. Go do it and feel how you are not only a better version of yourself, because you know that you can now "do this too", but it also changed your view on the world just a little bit. It broadened you character and your perspectives a bit and THAT is fulfilling.

It doesn't have to be mud in Africa, but it does have to be one of those things where some part of it doesn't really appeal to you. The only fulfilling adventures are the ones that change you, and an experience can't change you if it is designed to only give you what you already know and like.

You don't have to do that one big thing. You can do a series of smaller things instead. As long as they challenge you it will be fulfilling overcoming that challenge.

[nickthemagicman]

Westerners version of traveling treats the world like Disneyland.

Rich westerners save a bunch of money then go see the sights then come back and tell their friends!

These experiences are purchased, the equivalent of visiting China world at Epcot.

It treats travel, people, culture like an amusement park or even worse a status symbol...have YOU been to Africa?

The OP wants something more meaningful I think.

[Msurrow]

Yes, I have. About two month in South Africa. Amongst other things spending 21 days volunteering and another 16 days-ish driving around the country.

[ambientdark]

Congrats, that sounds very exciting and it sounds like you helped people as well. I'm not sure you need it, but just in case, I would like to validate you and your decision to go off the beaten track. Ultimately it's important to do what makes you happy and fulfilled and traveling seems to make you happy and fulfilled, which is great to hear.

[oliv__]

I don't think the question was meant for you to answer. That was kind of the point.

[totalZero]

Seems the point of the reply was to reject the negativity and stereotyping in the rhetorical question and the rest of that comment.

[weerd]

Wow, way to miss the point. It was a rhetorical question. Sheesh....

[kyberias]

Wow. Must have been fulfilling.

[ferentchak]

If you travel the food alone will be fulfilling.

Food in a foreign place is always different than what you can find at home

[ChuckMcM]

There is deep truth in this comment, doing something you are not sure you can do will challenge you. And in overcoming that challenge you will be hugely rewarded.

[Bulkington]

As others have said, the struggle is what will be meaningful, long term. But don't feel compelled to get in over your head, just because you want a cooler tall tale when all's said and done. On the other hand--and I only discovered this after that unplanned sojourn in Turkish prison--there are challenges and adventures to be had in Anytown, USA. You just have to know where to look, or learn to see differently.

"First, I'm going to deliver this case to Marcellus, then I'm just going to walk the earth."

https://youtu.be/Yh-QWKGbm2Q

[kafkaesq]

I do want to visit places like Ethiopia and South Africa, but I think I'll take a plane.

The counterpoint to this stance is that there's something about ground travel (and "slow travel" generally) that's very different from the usual airport → city center → airport drill. Having to do with being continually in contact with the earth, and experiencing the slow transition from one geology, climate, and local culture to another. Not to mention some of the stunning, accidental scenery you'll be exposed to (and some of which I can still see, as if before my eyes) that you just won't see from a plane... and certainly not during the (significant) times one spends stuck in, or on the way to and from airports.

There's a significant time investment involved, of course, and a life devoted only to sightseeing would be very boring. Bu it's an experience that puts us in touch with the world more the way it actually is, and -- at least I find -- literally helps me feel more "grounded", even many years past the experience.

[yodsanklai]

> The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do.

Traveling can be fun, but also alienating. I met many people who renounced to their trip around the world after a few months. It can become boring after a while and you start to wonder what is the point of it. And you don't really build anything while traveling. Maybe not everyone has this feeling, but I'd like my life to have an other purpose than just roaming...

Nowadays, the way I like it is to travel from 3 to 6 weeks at a time. It's long enough so that you can go at a relaxed pace, but not so long that you feel you're wasting your time. I also like try to do something constructive a few hours a day (especially if I travel for a longer period of time).

As far as adventure goes, I find it more rewarding to live and work in a different country than to go to the usual backpackers circuits.

[lemming]

I like to get some classes in the local language for a couple of hours a day. You'll learn something new, meet some locals and you can often interact more with locals you meet afterwards when mangling a little of their language.

[pmarreck]

There is a little bit of cognitive dissonance in this post, and I'll explain why.

"Adventure" is what you get when you don't get what you expected. Such as breakdowns. ;)

[mortenjorck]

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”

–G.K. Chesterton

[zardo]

The point of play is in the playing. An adventure is play where part of the game is unexpected and not fun.

If you want adventure without things going wrong, you want play. So... go play, if you get bored with that, you'll be ready to try adventure.

[lasfter]

Perhaps try Doctors Without Borders?

It is more of a long-term kind of travel, but you will be doing real good and definitely living an adventure.

They need people with all kinds of backgrounds, not just medical, so it might be worth a look.

[imgabe]

There's also Engineers Without Borders - http://www.ewb-usa.org/

[nojvek]

That looks very promising. I'm going to definitely check it out.

[todd8]

As a simpler, less ambitious adventure, suitable for people that don't want to quit their job, you might try Habitat for Humanity.

There are international builds where you travel somewhere and work on building homes in areas where there isn't adequate low-income housing. You get to meet and work with locals for a couple of weeks. I went to rural Hungry. I had one friend who also went on the build. He talked me into doing it with him, and I'm glad he did.

[forgotpwtomain]

> There are international builds where you travel somewhere and work on building homes in areas where there isn't adequate low-income housing.

I highly advise against this. There is no shortage of unqualified labor in underdeveloped countries. Most of these projects are just 'feel good charity tourism'.

If you want to make a difference you are much better of donating 20% of a US salary which will employ many more underqualified locals who actually need the job.

[theptip]

This is a very important point that a lot of charity givers miss -- what's the marginal value of your charitable contribution? By taking a construction job, you might just be displacing a local from their job.

https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ has some detailed analysis of how to best make an impact, depending on your interests and skill set.

[riboflava]

The goal is precisely feel good charity tourism as a safe adventure you don't need to quit your job over, so it seems like good advice to me. Remember, the top comment is looking for a 'safe' adventure, not trying to be maximally efficient in improving the lives of strangers.

[sedachv]

> The goal is precisely feel good charity tourism as a safe adventure you don't need to quit your job over, so it seems like good advice to me.

That might be the nathan_f77's apparently stated goal, but nathan_f77 also states they do not really know what they want. Charity tourism is just disgusting racist white savior paternalism that exploits POC-in-former-colonies poverty for white-people-from-former-colonizer-countries ego inflation. You use the word 'safe' in quotes so I assume you know this: the phrase "safe adventure" is literally an oxymoron (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adventure). Charity tourism might just turn out to be one of those unfulfilling consumer experiences the poster is looking to avoid, wrapped in a feel-good veneer.

[todd8]

I was the one suggesting Habitat for Humanity and I agree with you that it isn't the most efficient way to support home construction. This was one of the reasons that I had to be persuaded to go.

Obviously, professional construction workers would build homes faster and better than us amateurs. On the surface, it appears that I could simply have done what I am good at (software) for two weeks and pay professionals to do the building in Hungry instead.

While working in Hungry I had time to reflect upon this for two weeks. Most of the volunteers there did it because they wanted to help people, and most didn't think about the economic efficiency of they way they were doing it. A few of us (some Stanford MBA's and I) talked about it.

In retrospect, the issue is more nuanced. Habitat for Humanity is the world's largest non-profit homebuilder [0]. They require the future owners to contribute a significant portion of the effort in construction of what will become their home. This, they claim, results in better care for the home after they move in. If so, it seems like a useful model (but see the criticisms of Habitat for Humanity on the cited Wikipedia page).

Couldn't this be done using professional builders and not volunteers? Perhaps. However, let me relate something that was said to me in the small town where I was working. We were building a home for a family of Romani Hungarians in eastern Hungary. These people, sometimes called Gypsies, are not always treated well in rural areas of Hungary[1].

At one point, I met a townsperson that spent some time speaking to me. He said that at first the townspeople couldn't understand why people from the USA had to go to Hungry to find work. They were surprised that we were not being paid but instead had to pay for the privilege of working in Hungry (there are local trade's people involved with the construction that must be paid, construction supervisors, electricians, plumbers, cement companies and materials have to be paid for by our donations).

He told me that the concept of charitably taking care of someone not a family member was unusual there, and the whole town noticed us being there and doing it. We were well treated and the people were very friendly to us. One benefit of the trip is that we gained an appreciation of a different culture and so did they.

The remarkable thing was that he (the townsperson) described to me how seeing us volunteering to help people we didn't know in his own town inspired him to do the same; he had actually taken time in the past to work on the build too after seeing the volunteers from the US doing it. I realized that it isn't just about economic efficiency.

I still have mixed feelings about Habitat for Humanity, but overall I continue to believe that it is a form of "volunteer tourism" that has pluses and minuses but ends up being a net positive.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_for_Humanity

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people_in_Hungary

[totalZero]

They are feel good charity tourism, but they also fund projects (including local labor) in otherwise poor areas, and they generate good will across cultural and economic divisions.

I don't see what is wrong with a tourist feeling good and doing something charitable.

[softawre]

Interesting. What about the US local he is displacing by taking the job here?

[wrigby]

I think the assumption is that he has in-demand skills that would be used in a job at home, while the work he would be doing overseas could be done by unskilled labor. Put another way, for a highly skilled technology worker, it is better to help fill a labor shortage in their field of expertise than displace a worker that is in a region with a labor surplus. Even without charitable contributions, the economics work out better for everyone involved.

Admittedly, this assumes both a labor shortage in the technologists field and a labor surplus for unskilled workers in the foreign country, but I think both of those assumptions are supportable.

[mifreewil]

> building homes in areas where there isn't adequate low-income housing.

Silicon Valley could also use some help here (tongue-in-cheek).

[anbende]

This echoes my thoughts about travel. While I love being in transit, the idea of just seeing (or hearing/eating/etc) a bunch of things just isn't all that appealing.

I've lived in a few places in Asia and really liked that. Spending a few months to a year in a place, making friends, getting to know the locals. It felt good, though it limited the kind of work projects I could do. (I was an English teacher rather than a programmer or other independent worker at the time)

In some ways the digital nomad lifestyle, which is related to what I was doing, is very appealing. I know a programmer who has been bouncing around Southeast Asia working on programming projects, some contracted some independent, for the last year or two and learning languages.

Is that or something like it what you're looking for?

[truth_sentinell]

I'd love to be a digital nomad. But how do you get projects that can pay rent with so much competition on freelance sites?

[ElysianEagle]

I've been thinking about this for a while myself. The current place I work at is extremely remote-work friendly, and we have people in many cities all over the US and the world working from their homes.

One possibility is to take up a job at such a firm, and then do your traveling while you work. I think it beats stressing out about finding a new gig every few months, at least. It's also easier if you happen to travel in the same/similar timezone.

[JonoBB]

Having done a similar trip with my wife and few years back, the challenge is a huge part of the adventure. Getting stuck in crazy places, getting help from villagers, being invited to a rural dinner "just because".

Of course, the beauty of nature is a huge part of the trip, but being taken out of your comfort zone is what makes it extra special.

If you're not prepared to step out of your comfort zone, then everything will seem run-of-the-mill and ordinary. Because it is.

Just be prepared (we could survive for 2 weeks on our own at any point) and take the right safety precautions (don't drive into war torn areas).

[Chathamization]

There's often a ton of things people can do where they are, as well. If you get involved in local politics, join a community arts project, get involved in neighborhood rehabilitation, join a dancing group, etc. You often see a side of things you never realized was there.

You get a different experience from "outside looking in activities (travel, overseas volunteer work, habitat for humanity) than you get from activities where you see yourself as being a member of the group you're trying to help or create something with. Both kinds of experiences can be useful, though it's important to understand the limits of each.

[pistoriusp]

The thing for me is how would you know that you don't want to do it unless you've tried it first?

[pendu]

> 'but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.'

That's so true. Once you are a part of something bigger, the experiences, adventure and thrill land up on their own. This applies not only to travel, but every part of life.

[Sundog]

You can do most of New Zealand in two-three weeks, the roads are great, and you will not get stuck anywhere.

Do it.

[fapjacks]

I've never met a more awesome person than a kiwi, too. Just about all of them.

[atmosx]

> I do want to visit Africa, but all of this driving and getting stuck doesn't really appeal to me. I do want to visit places like Ethiopia and South Africa, but I think I'll take a plane.

You're missing the point. It's the adventure, not the trail, not the road you'll chose or the destinations... It's the adversities on the trip, the people you meet, the broken cars, that bus/airplain/boat you didn't catch that will make the difference, a point vey well made by my favorite Cavafy poem[1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3n2Ox4Yfk&list=RD1n3n2Ox4Y...

[dragonwriter]

> You're missing the point.

No, I think the GP is fairly and explicitly disagreeing with what you describe as the point, which is very different than missing it.

Clearly you think what is desirable and worthwhile is...

> the adventure [...] the adversities on the trip, the people you meet, the broken cars

Clearly, GP disagrees that this is desirable and worthwhile, when writing:

> I do want to visit Africa, but all of this driving and getting stuck doesn't really appeal to me.

Not everyone has insufficient adversity in their daily life such that they need to take on additional and avoidable adversity for recreation.

[shitgoose]

Avoiding hardships of road travel is like avoiding hardships of working out while trying to stay healthy. Comparison may be a bit of a stretch, but I for one agree that road adventures are the whole point, rather the physical presence at the destination.

[rmason]

What I learned upon reflection on travelling widely is that the best stories, the things that I remember most fondly were the worst things that happened to me. Like being three quarters way up a mountain and getting hailed on in July. It definitely wasn't pleasant at the time yet it was a grand adventure!

[Myrmornis]

Learn to identify wild birds.

It transforms the way you enjoy traveling. Every landscape you go through, you start having a real connection to the biology and ecology because you are actively thinking about the organisms that live there, and you are somewhat knowledgable about it. It makes you a biologist, and scientist as you're traveling. The choice of birds is for two good reasons: (1) other than plants and humans they are the easiest macroscopic organisms to see, anywhere in the world; (2) they are beautiful. It brings you into contact with areas of science -- evolutionary biology, genetics, conservation biology. It makes traveling through wild parts of the world so much more interesting than it would be otherwise.

[econner]

Go help NGOs internationally.