5 trips in 1 year

This year I would have travelled to:

• The USA twice across 4 states
• Colombia
• Mexico
• UK

If you had told me that when I first left for Argentina 3 years ago I wouldn’t have believed you. Having packed everything I had, $4,000 to my name and nothing else. Some of you may think thats a small fortune, but let me tell you, its not haha.

Once you pay for the Airbnb, flights and food you soon find yourself in a position of “I’m in another country and have no money”. Scarier than it sounds.

It all started in Argentina

A lot of people ask me why I chose Argentina first. For me it was purely down to luck… my friends suggested it over Bali, which was in the wet season at the time, so we went.

Arriving in Argentina without knowing any Spanish was funny. After being able to communicate with people in shops, cafes etc I was all of a sudden completely naked. Usually people would get scared speaking spanish to me bc I would just throw words at them like “I want that” with no proper pronunciation, honestly Id be scared as well haha.

Some things that helped me that might help you dear reader:

• Find a simple base camp hostel / airbnb for 2 weeks when you arrive. I stayed in a womans room for the first 3. Cheap!
• Look to rent locally and if you can’t, find something cheaper than AirBnb’s. Airbnb add a price hike / tax for no reason other than convenience.
• Understand the local culture fast, it will help if you can ask the guy in the supermarket a question in his own language.
• Find friends as soon as possible. Its not something I did and therefore lacked for the first year. Lock in but get your social time too.
• Chat to the Uber / Taxi driver. Nearly all of them love to chat, you can get insights and learn the language at the same time.
• Everybody has a football team or favourite sport. Asking simple questions like that leads to good conversations.
• Do your research with chat GPT deep search. It can usually find unique things.

MY biggest tip of all though:

• Avoid all expats, digital nomads and non locals to the country you are in.

Honestly I hate it when I see Americans or Brits buddied up with other fellow travellers. Rather than learning the culture, and speaking to people they prefferred to stay comfortable. Not to say I didnt fall foul to this in my first few months… but as I learnt the words and ways of Argentina I found my peers would struggle to even understand what the word “che” or “boludo” meant. Simple colloquial terms that Argentinians use a lot!

Next Year Is Different

I want to expand my gut feeling that working remote in nature is the new form of working. Surrounding yourself in a beatiful location beats the office and improves / builds creativity.