Lets start by explaining the why
Where do I even start writing about this journey? There is so much to say about it and so much that has changed since I set off.
A good place is probably why I decided to do it. Travelling was not the only thing on the list of things to do, it was just the least stupid one. There were other things as well, but I might bring those up a bit later.
There is not one big reason why I decided to give up everything and just leave, but a bunch of smaller reasons that added up over time. A few of these are probably just a general dissatisfaction of where my life was in general and seeing how everyone was “making progress“ (I use quotes there deliberately because what is “making progress” even) in their lives like getting engaged and buying houses while I just watched from the distance with no close friends to call. When I say close friends I mean the 3 o’clock friends, those people you can call at 3 in the morning when you need help and you know they will answer and be there to help without hesitation. Looking back at it now it was a strange and lonely place to be, but at the same time it meant I could just go on a trip. There was nothing bolting me down.
But what was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back? Well that was at a breakfast on new year’s day(or around there somewhere) where my sister asked everyone at the table what the highlight of the past year was. And I honestly could not think of one, I had spent the whole year either working, training or doing other mundane adult stuff like laundry. It had been a very mundane and boring year. Some might say that is what adulting is all about, but I feel differently.
As they say the only constant is change and that was the final wake up call that I needed to change something. On the plane on the way to Cape Town my mind was already working on what this change was supposed to be. All I knew then was that the one thing I promised myself as I was leaving school was that I would do my best to not work an office job, and I had failed horribly.
So now that I had figured out that change was needed, what did I need to change? And where to next? Honestly I didn’t even know myself. I realised that I had been too busy and didn’t even have the energy to plan anything, or even spend the time just figuring it out if there was another job that interested me (or even some simple way to make money that would excite me a bit more). From that I realised that I needed a way to force myself to just have time, not be bogged down by having to work for someone or to all of those super fun adult things. That meant some broad objective but no fine planning, because that would take too long and take a bunch of the fun away from it all. That is why I settled on driving around a bit in an old Land Rover. What better way to make sure you don’t rush anywhere than a vintage Land Rover that can’t go more than 90 kph at a stretch and a comfortable cruising speed is 70 kph. Now we had a broad objective: Do a roadtrip in a vintage car until the money runs out.
But of course this created more problems. How much money do I need? What should I do with all my stuff? Sell it or store it? And the list goes on. But these were a lot more fun problems to solve than the usual “What will I be eating for dinner tonight?” or “Should I do laundry today?” And part of the planning was also the fun of not planning. The whole this was supposed to be “make it up as I go along”
Now that the decision had been made to travel for a bit, I had to do all the fun admin around what to do with all my stuff. Resigning and spreading the news was also a part of this, but that was easy. Just a few emails and then the whole world seemed to know.
The part on what to do with all my stuff was a bit more difficult. Do I sell it all? Put it in storage? Ship it all up to Joburg and leave it there? I somehow made the decision not to sell everything and store it in Cape Town. I just stored the “essentials” and sold a bunch of other stuff like my TV etc.
The packing was also a lot simpler than I expected. It gave me the opportunity to sort through some of the garbage that I had collected over the last few years and get rid of whatever I wasn’t using. It is surprising how quickly a person can collect a bunch of clutter.
Moving stuff was also very easy, there seemed to be an abundance of volunteers to help, and many hands make light work. We got everything packed in the morning. Talk about efficiency.
It was a very sobering moment to see essentially everything I owned fit into a 2mx3m storage unit and an old Toyota Corolla.
(Picture of my the Corolla sitting low on its suspension)
