Help me blow this pop stand.
June 28, 2010 8:03 AM Subscribe
I'm starting to consider a change-of-venue for 6-12 months. Complication: property ownership. Experiences/suggestions on how to make this happen, please!
I need a change-of-venue. Nothing permanent at the moment, but I need new surroundings for 6-12 months, if not more. The challenge - I can't fit my life into a Toyota Corolla the way I could when I was 22. Property ownership/too settled/blahblahblah.
I started this post listing the hurdles/challenges/fears, and they really aren't insurmountable - renting a furnished place, putting personal effects in storage, trying to find a furnished place on the other end, yaddayaddayadda. So it's not that.
What I'm really looking for is for your experiences doing this - when you decided to jump ship for a year, how did you go about doing it, what did you do to prepare, what worked, what didn't, and what would you do differently next time around?
Input on the *experience* and not just the mechanics would also be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
I need a change-of-venue. Nothing permanent at the moment, but I need new surroundings for 6-12 months, if not more. The challenge - I can't fit my life into a Toyota Corolla the way I could when I was 22. Property ownership/too settled/blahblahblah.
I started this post listing the hurdles/challenges/fears, and they really aren't insurmountable - renting a furnished place, putting personal effects in storage, trying to find a furnished place on the other end, yaddayaddayadda. So it's not that.
What I'm really looking for is for your experiences doing this - when you decided to jump ship for a year, how did you go about doing it, what did you do to prepare, what worked, what didn't, and what would you do differently next time around?
Input on the *experience* and not just the mechanics would also be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
I've done this twice--once to go work for a company in Ireland for two years, and once to live and work (for myself--I run a web marketing company) from Malta and Morocco.
If you'll forgive some external links, I think they're the best way to convey my answer to your question. I've written a lot about this very topic:
* How living abroad makes you a better human.
* How living abroad makes you rethink comfort (see the above comment on dispensing with your recliner).
* How living abroad limits your choices, and that's a good thing.
* A little thought experiment to help you contextualize your destination.
* Finally, if you're more inclined to video, here's a 10-minute talk I gave about "living in X, and working in Y".
posted by dbarefoot at 4:13 PM on June 28, 2010
If you'll forgive some external links, I think they're the best way to convey my answer to your question. I've written a lot about this very topic:
* How living abroad makes you a better human.
* How living abroad makes you rethink comfort (see the above comment on dispensing with your recliner).
* How living abroad limits your choices, and that's a good thing.
* A little thought experiment to help you contextualize your destination.
* Finally, if you're more inclined to video, here's a 10-minute talk I gave about "living in X, and working in Y".
posted by dbarefoot at 4:13 PM on June 28, 2010
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That said, while traveling I met a lot of people who changed scenery to varying radical degrees. One of my favorite people I met sold everything he owned save for a guitar and a motorcycle, and left the country. Several years later, he's still doing just that.
While his is the most radical example, the message I got was consistently one that you need significantly less than you own, and that you gain many degrees of freedom by purging yourself of belongings. I'll assume that you've already given some thought to what you can sell/donate, but a very big factor in changing scenery would be to leave behind some of the things that tie you to where you are right now. Even a small drop like leaving behind a recliner changes the ergonomics of how you live and makes you re-evaluate your use of space and time.
The hardest part is actually giving things away or leaving them. Once they're gone, it's incredible how quickly you forget about something. I'm getting ready to move, and I just pulled up a box of memorabilia that I haven't looked at in 3 years. Valuable memories, certainly, but if I haven't looked at them in 3 years, and their only function is to take up space in my life and make me feel guilty for being unable to part with them, are they really the important keepsakes I think they are?
posted by Lifeson at 8:51 AM on June 28, 2010