Vagabonding
Vagabonding is the art of leaving everything behind and traveling for an extended period of time in a faraway land.
There are distinct differences between vacationing for a few days in the Bahamas and living in some remote exotic place as far from what you're accustomed to as possible and experiencing it fully, both the bad parts and the good parts. Taking on such quests shouldn’t be a privilege only the rich could afford.
When you shift your perspective, you actually realize that everyone is equal in terms of how they choose to breathe life into their limited time; the real richness is not in accumulating wealth, holding on to it, and confining yourself to a box of severe constraints imposed on you by your job duties, societal expectations, and presumptions as to how one is supposed to spend their time. You get rich by adding life to an otherwise monotonous existence whose main aim is the seeking of more. And that, my friends, is totally affordable to do. Any job in the western world can afford you the privilege of adding richness to your life. Richness with different perspectives, with different ways of seeing the world, and with novel experiences that stay with you.
So first, you just have to be a person with certain qualities: enjoys working and earning, not prone to getting sucked into vacuous spending on material things, and have penchant to save their money for those vagabonding adventures that will enrich their lives.
Second, traveling is not meant to follow a predetermined plan and sticking by it. That is tourism. This thing is not about checking boxes on a bucket list. The ideal would be to research enough to know about safety, culture, and the places that people go to (maybe to avoid), and then let your instincts decide what to do while there. You're not there for a cursory look at things you could watch a video about or see on Google maps, you're there to experience the thrill of the unknown, the thrill of uncertainty, of what’s next. While there, you walk aimlessly but with an open mind (you're a flaneur); a mind unencumbered of what you’ve been told to believe is the right way of doing things back home. You’re open-minded but you're not gullible; You’re aware of your surroundings, able to distinguish between scams and politeness, and armed with a mind freed from all the prejudices instilled in you over the years by the narrow lens of the media, or what others told you.
Vagabonding becomes a mindset. You’re free from all the day-to-day doldrums, and, once again, you’re experiencing the world with the curiosity of a child. You're there, you're taking it all in by totally surrendering and allowing yourself to experience things viscerally, untainted by whatever conceit or cynicism you have of how things are supposed to be in this part of the world, or how you imagined they'd be. You look at people neighbors who have things to teach you. You're not just inserting yourself in cliques of people you’re comfortable with and who share your views, might as well have stayed home.
Vagabonding becomes this special experience you wanna go back to again and again, because it changed something in you, something you wouldn't be able to put into words.