Ahh….the good life! beachside, sunsets, umbrella drinks. It doesn’t get any better than this. I hope you all are enjoying your weekend as much as I am. To see more, browse the gallery below!

While traveling the globe and relating my stories to people unfamiliar with travel, some form of this question almost always comes up. Aren’t you scared? Won’t you get robbed?

It’s a common travel question and I certainly understand why people ask it, but at the same time, it’s doesn’t seem very well thought out to me. Seriously, I was traveling in New Zealand and was asked this question by a local: “Aren’t you scared?” In New Zealand of all places? I was stymied.

Where Does This Mentality Come From?

I can’t say for sure, but I think a few different factors feed in to the thinking that travel is somehow inherently dangerous.

• Media Sensationalism

Imagine if the mainstream media reported on every traveler who didn’t get mugged or robbed. That wouldn’t make for very good headlines, but the fact is, plenty of people travel the world without incident and the incidents we hear are few and far between when compared to the shear number of people who travel.

• State Department Warnings

Nobody reports their experiences with not getting robbed, mugged or scammed to their embassy. If nothing awful happens to a traveler, the embassy probably doesn’t even know they exist. State Department advisories and warnings have their place, and I’ll get to that later.

• Unfamiliarity

There’s a good chance that you could be robbed, mugged or scammed while in your home country or hometown. But it probably doesn’t happen because you know how things work there. You know which areas to avoid. You understand what situations to avoid. You hang out with familiar people who you know and trust.

Are You Saying Travel is Completely Safe Then?

No, of course not. There are many factors that make a place more or less dangerous than another. Local laws and law enforcement (or the lack of) will shape what kinds of crime exist and what sort of risks criminals will take. For instance, in Romania, violent crime is dealt with very harshly, while pick-pocketing is not, so of course, pickpocketing is very common but in the case of Romania, you’re not going to be targeted simply because you are a traveler. Criminals there are equal opportunists.

Local economics also play a huge role in the types of crimes and scams that might be common in the area. If people are poor, hungry, desperate and have no hope of earning an honest living they may very well resort to scams or crime. It isn’t personal but as a traveler, you could be targeted specifically because you are seen to have more.

All of that said, let’s not lose sight of the one common denominator here: People. People, no matter where you go in the world, want to live a peaceful existence. They want to raise their families. They want the same basic things that you or I want. People aren’t evil by nature, no matter where they live.

How to Minimize Your Risk

I’ve been to some dodgy places. Kashmir comes to mind. Everybody there had a gun but me. I’ve been in parts of Mexico at the beginning of an uprising. I’ve been in some extremely safe places that are relatively crime-free. In Taiwan, for example, I once left my iPhone in a taxi cab. I actually got it back. I’m not sure that would have happened anywhere else in the world. I’ve only ever had something stolen once, and while that was a bummer, I think that considering the amount of time I’ve put in traveling, it’s pretty good odds.

Here are some handy tips for minimizing your risk:
• Common Sense

I know what “they” say. Common sense ain’t so common and that is evidenced by the fact that many people become victims by taking risks that they shouldn’t have.

1. Moderation in Drinking

The temptation to get caught up in having a good time with fellow travelers is strong. Go ahead, have a good time but don’t overdo it. You should know your own limits and you should stick to them. If you’re incapacitated by drinking your judgement will become diminished, your reaction time will be slowed. You will become more likely to make mistakes.

2. Avoid areas that aren’t well lit.

Especially if you’re in an unfamiliar area.

3. Try not to be alone

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t travel solo, but if you are alone, try to stick to areas where there are other people.

4. Be aware

I call this “paying attention to my spidey-senses”. Be vigilant, pay attention to your surroundings. Listen to your own intuition, and if something doesn’t feel right, get out.

5. Know the risks

Having knowledge of what kinds of crimes are common in the area where you are traveling will help you spot a scam or a dangerous situation. That’s where State Department travel information comes in handy. Some scams or diversion tactics have the same elements worldwide, some are more regional or local. Know what you’re likely to encounter so that you can recognize it for what it is early.

So my answer to “Isn’t it dangerous?” is no, not really, at least not so much that I’m going to let that notion keep me from exploring the world around me.

My travel habit probably started when I was three or four years old. One of my earliest childhood memories was taking a cross-country trip to visit my grandmother for Christmas (or some other holiday). I spent a lot of time in my youth staring out the windshield of my mom’s truck going from horse show to horse show, I left the country for the first time when I was in high school. I joined the military after high school, and of course that led to even more overseas travel and working in foreign countries. In 2005 I took my first overseas contract job working in Antarctica. I started traveling for extended periods after that and haven’t looked back.

Even though, technically, I had lived in foreign countries during my time in the military I hadn’t really experienced life in a foreign country the way that the people from there do. Living on a military base shares many similarities with living in the U.S. The food is familiar, the products in the store are familiar and things work just like they do back home.

One year ago, I took a job overseas, working and living in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The challenges of living in a foreign city turned out to be pretty grand. Things that I would take for granted in the U.S., e.g. trash removal, mail service, grocery shopping were done differently, and in a language I didn’t understand. The food smelled bad, and was unfamiliar. The products in the grocery store were strange and I damn sure couldn’t read the labels. I became overly self-conscious about my consumerism at trash time. It was the strangest thing. You see, there are no dumpsters in Taiwan, instead, the trash trucks circle the city playing ice-cream truck music and everyone rushes out to the street with their bag of garbage to throw in the truck. Every day when trash time would roll around, I would grab my massive bag of trash and share an elevator for 24 floors with my neighbors who barely appeared to consume anything. For every 40-gallon hefty I filled up, my neighbors filled up something that was equivalent in size to a sandwich bag.

When my job in Taiwan ended, my wife and I moved to Hunachaco, Peru. Huanchaco is a place that I had traveled to once before. The differences that I am noticing between traveling in Peru and living in Peru are pretty immense. Eating in Peru isn’t expensive, and if you’re o.k. with goat stew it can be downright cheap to eat in Peru. Hostels and hotels in Peru don’t tend to have kitchens because it is so easy and convenient to eat out. But, now that we live here, and saving money is a greater concern, I’ve had to explore shopping

for food at the local mercado. If the food had packaging, I could probably safely say that the packaging and labeling were different, but alas, it’s not packaged at all. Fruits, veggies and grains are all easy enough, but meat is something else, entirely. I don’t know how to ask for “rack of goat ribs” and I wouldn’t know what to do with a whole chicken, on full display with half-formed eggs still attached. What is the best cut of manta ray?

From a previous post about moving overseas:

I don’t know how to butcher a chicken. It’s not pre-packaged for me in Styrofoam and plastic wrap. I could very well starve to death, not for a lack of food, but for a lack of knowledge.

I will admit this, however, the lack of packaging on my food sure has cut down on my daily waste. Also, consider this interesting fact about Peru: You can’t flush toilet paper. The plumbing simply can’t deal with it. Now, if you’re traveling and staying in hostels or hotels and forget, or simply blow it off, no big deal, right? If somebody else’s plumbing gets clogged up, it’s not really your problem is it? But when you live here…I don’t even want to try to negotiate with a plumber.

Or is it?

I’m referring, of course, to my nomadic lifestyle and how it is perceived by people who have chosen to toe the line and work their 9 to 5 in the pursuit of the 2.5 children, white picket fence, keeping up with the Jones’ life. As often happens when I’m back in the States, or even abroad and meet people who lead what is perceived as a ‘normal’ life. I’m pretty happy to talk about how I live and the ‘oohhhs and ahhhs’ that I get encourage me to open up and probably glorify and romanticize my life’s path.

As an example, during my most recent stopover in the U.S. while traveling from Asia to South America, I met a young lady who was genuinely full of admiration and envy when I explained how I live. During the course of the conversation, she remarked that she would like to live like this, to do what I do. To me, it seems easy. To most people, it seems impossible. “How do you afford it?” “Won’t scary brown people eat your children if you leave the safety and security of the United States?” “I don’t speak the language”. All of these questions and concerns (and more) come up when, for a fleeting moment, people are caught up in the romance of world travel and living abroad and working overseas.

You Probably Can’t Have it Both Ways

I’m an American, and as such, I’m probably culturally predisposed to the never-ending pursuit of material things. I’m very detached from my food source and I take a great many things for granted such as safe drinking water and trash removal. During my youth, I grew accustomed to the American lifestyle and that lifestyle is my comfort zone. I’m reluctant to step outside of it. There’s a certain feeling of security that comes with a full-time job and being amongst people who dress the same way that I do and speak the same language that I do. This is where the divide happens. This is the basis for why more Americans don’t chose to live the way I do. I’ll certainly admit that for every bit of envy that people have for my life, I envy theirs equally. Sometimes I yearn for the stability that comes with living in a 3-bedroom ranch style house in the suburbs. A washer and dryer. 64 channels of shit on my T.V. Going from point A to point B in my vehicle on my schedule. Resolving conflicts and making deals in my native language. Being able to flush toilet paper in the toilet. So, while the young lady certainly seemed excited and was ready to buy an airplane ticket to some far-flung, exotic destination, she probably won’t, and I can certainly understand why not.

I hold a firm belief that we, as humans, are nothing if not a sum of our experiences, so all of these experiences enrich who I am, but they are EXHAUSTING! These experiences are also very humbling. For all that I think I know how to do, if, for example, I buy a chicken at the local mercado, I don’t know how to butcher a chicken. It’s not pre-packaged for me in Styrofoam and plastic wrap. I could very well starve to death, not for a lack of food, but for a lack of knowledge.

Consider this: For me, a cup of espresso means carrying a 20-Liter (5 gallon) bottle of water on my back for a half-mile. 40-minutes round-trip on an overcrowded death-trap of a bus to buy coffee. A negotiation in a language I don’t understand very well to arrive at a quantity of coffee, a price for the quantity and an acceptable grind of the beans for my purposes. Hoping that the electricity is on when I try to make the coffee, another negotiation for the removal of any waste that is generated by the making and consumption of coffee – I drink a lot of coffee, but when I consider how much time and effort is invested, perhaps I should just learn to deal with the caffeine withdrawals instead. And that’s just a cup of coffee. That doesn’t begin to address the myriad other tasks that will come up.

Whether to live a vagabonding lifestyle or to stick more to a traditional one is a choice. I feel fortunate that I know what both are like, and for now, I plan on continuing to buck tradition and collect more experiences.

Have you ever traveled to a place and thought to yourself that you would like to live there? Of course you have. In my case, it’s nearly the opposite. In 2008 I traveled to Peru, and for the most part, didn’t much care for it. I was really only in Peru because it was necessary to pass through while going from Ecuador to Chile. I figured I’d make a few stops along the coast to suck up some beach life and break the trip up. Originally, I hadn’t even planned on going to Machu Picchu but the more I spoke to travelers along the way, the more convinced I became that a visit, though well out of my way, was in order. Machu Picchu was definitely one of the highlights of my trip, but I found Cusco to be absolutely abhorrent.

Probably a couple of years prior to going to Peru, I had done a bit of research, trying to find what I considered to be the place on earth with the most perfect weather. The place I found was Trujillo, Peru. For about 358 days of the year, the high temp of the day never gets above 78 degrees(F), nor below 58. Record highs are in the mid-90′s and are very short-lived. While I was researching my trip to South America, I read an article on some of the great places on earth that are very underrated. One of these places is Chan-Chan, which happens to be very close to Trujillo. Chan Chan and Trujillo were on my radar.

Back to what I found unappealing about Peru – there’s a bit of a backstory here, but I’ll try to keep it short. I had spent several weeks in Ecuador visiting The Galapagos and chilling out in the beach town of Montanita while learning some Spanish. I was starting to get the hang of speaking Spanish and was beginning to feel very empowered. My new found confidence coincided with my need to move on. My introduction to Peru was met with people who refused to speak Spanish to me. Even when I would open the conversation in Spanish, cab drivers and restauranteurs would reply in English and present me with English menus. I didn’t like it. Furthermore, especially in Cusco, I felt that the Peruvians had sold out their culture in a Disneyesque fashion.

My loathing for Peru aside, I found the beach town of Huanchaco (near Trujillo and Chan Chan) to be an absolute delight and the weather there was everything I had hoped for…absolutely perfect!

So….fast forward to December of 2010. I had been working an overseas contract job in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The gig was awesome, but the day-to-day work was the worst work experience I’d had to date. Taiwan is absolutely wonderful, and Kaohsiung is a magnificent city…the rest of the world has no idea. Anyhow, in December my employer made the announcement that the work that we were doing in Taiwan would be moved back to the U.S. in June of 2011, that’s right, my job in Asia was to be outsourced to the United States where labor is less expensive. The planning began. My wife and I are both very fond of Asia and our first thoughts were that we would move to Cambodia where we could easily stay legally for an indefinite length of time. In March, we took a trip to have a look and get a feel for it. That trip pretty much cemented the idea and plans began to solidify. The one thing that bothered me about Cambodia is the oppressive heat. It’s always hot. For much of the year, the weather in Kaohsiung is pretty nice, but by May the temps start to increase, as does the humidity. This got us to thinking more about how uncomfortable we might be in Cambodia and so, when she asked me if there was some place with great weather and cheap cost of living, I immediately responded with Huanchaco, Peru and the rest is history waiting to happen!