Seven months have now passed since Charine and I both left our very lucrative jobs in Singapore to travel around the world. We left a comfortable life to chase our dream of building a location-independent business, to live all over the world, to experience diverse cultures, to eat great food and to drink incredible wine.

I have always loved traveling and am no stranger to taking a chance and betting on myself. After graduating from chiropractic college in the Spring of 2009, I hopped onto a plane the next day and traveled around the world for seven months on a limited budget, found a new country to call home, got blacklisted from that country, relocated and built a successful clinic and business in another country. The lessons learned from that experience were priceless and are documented here .

Life was great in Singapore–the patients were getting well, the business was great, and I met a wonderful girl who shares the same interests and desires as me. I was extremely fortunate for a life that was going fantastic, there was nothing to complain about. Charine and I were eating at the best restaurants, sporting great stuff, and had a legendary social life. We were doing so well in Singapore that in our last year, we were in the top tax bracket. We wanted more though–the freedom to travel, the freedom to work for ourselves, and the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world.

On 29 May 2015, we launched our first book Travel Learn Earn and two days later we left to travel around the world. The last seven months were a romp through Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, The Republic of Georgia, Armenia and USA. I planned those seven months as a sabbatical to enjoy life and to think about what the next chapter would bring. The last half of a year has brought much enjoyment and excitement while at the same time brought challenges, fears, and contemplation.

When I left Singapore and shared my plan with one of my best friends, I told him, “The worst thing that can happen is I fall on my face and get up to dust myself off.” He responded, “No, the worst thing that can happen is you learn a hell of a lot.”

So here it is.

5 TRAVEL LESSONS LEARNED AFTER BEING ON THE ROAD FOR 7 MONTHS

Wine is awesome but enotourism is better

On a wine boat tour along the Douro river in Portugal.

Wine played zero part in my upbringing. The only memory I have of wine as a child is when my parents forced me to attend church. The only time I enjoyed going was during communion. I loved how the wine danced around in my mouth. Growing up in a small and rural community, cheap beer was the choice of drink much to my disdain. In fact, I got so sick of drinking economical tipple that from the age of 16 to 21, I did not have a drop of alcohol. It all changed in 2004 when I watched a film called “Sideways”. The intellectual facet of wine was fascinating to me and in that moment I decided to drink wine.

Throughout university and graduate school, money was short so the wine that I consumed was in the $10-15 range which didn’t bring much diversity. After graduate school, expendable income began to exist in my life and with it came better and better wine. Charine and I soon found ourselves at wine-pairing dinners in Singapore at least bi-monthly and often weekly. Our enthusiasm for wine grew with every meal.

The love for wine and enotourism was taken to another level during those last seven months. Visiting a wine producer will do the same for you too. The beauty and smell of the vineyards coupled with talking to winemakers who are full of passion will stir something up inside you. Your understanding and knowledge of wine will increase exponentially just by talking to wine producers and other people in wine regions. Sometimes the tastings are small and intimate, where owners and winemakers would walk you through their facilities and share their personal stories. Other times wineries have huge tasting rooms complete with well trained staff and great food to pair with vino.

Even if you are a novice drinker or just remotely interested in wine, go visit a winery. Better yet, go to a winery that produces your favorite bottle. Drinking that glass will never be the same again.

If you want to learn more about different kinds of wine, you can check out our YouTube channel Exotic Wine Travel or view the videos on our website www.exoticwinetravel.com.

Leaving comfort is never easy

Using a “primal toaster” for our bread while hiking through the Kackar mountain range.

I love to travel and got bitten hard by the bug since first stepping foot abroad, on a trip to Iceland, in 2006. Since then, I have been fortunate to travel to 27 countries and one thing doesn’t change: I get nervous every single time before I travel.

Last May, Charine and I had just packed up our apartment and gave away most of our stuff. We were also fresh off of a book launch and got to see most of our friends at the event and said goodbye to them. The time was right to go. During the drive to the airport, my hands started shaking and an unsettling feeling came over me. A voice in my head said, “WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING? Things are great here, let’s just turn this car around and go back to the familiar.” That wasn’t the last time I heard from that voice.

During the last seven months, the general rule of thumb is that we would stay at a place for three to four days before moving on to the next place. Every single time on the last day of our short stay, worry and wonder would bubble up and I’d be tempted to just stay instead of moving on. That happened every time without fail. It’s a good thing that I didn’t listen to that little voice because if so, who knows what Charine and I would have missed out.

I thought that it would be easier and easier to step outside my comfort zone the more that I do it. The truth is it is still difficult every time. Don’t get discouraged, just push forward.

Traveling with money is more enjoyable than doing it on a shoestring

Superb view to accompany a local wine at Kayakapi Premium Caves, Cappadocia, Turkey.

There was another fear that kept rising in my mind before we set out. Would this trip be as exciting and organic as the previous trips I did, all of which were on a shoestring?

There is a certain romanticism that comes with traveling on a tight budget. You are forced to come up with creative solutions on the fly. If you miss a bus and it’s late, sleeping on the parking lot outside the station doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. No money for food? That free tomato and cheese sandwich a fellow traveler offers you might just taste like the best thing in the world. When I was a younger traveler, everything happened organically and everything seemed to be the greatest story in the world.

After the first month of eating our way through spectacular restaurants, buying several cases of wine, and dodging traffic with our rental car in Italy ,the bill was just short of USD 12,000. To some people that might not be a lot of money; to others it may be a helluva lot. I will put it into perspective based on my prior travel experiences. Just six years ago, my total tab for a seven-month trip was under USD 8,000.

Was the first month of the trip any less fulfilling than slumming it in one-dollar beds in India? I certainly was not longing for street food while eating at the Michelin-starred La Ciau del Tornavento and buying cases of some of the world’s greatest wine in Piedmont, Italy. Were those experiences different than budget travel? Yes, but they were not necessarily better.

I am a big advocate for extended budget travel and recommend it to anybody who wants to learn and grow. It teaches you many different things about yourself and the world like I mentioned here. Do it once or do it often. Immerse yourself in the sights, smells and sounds of an exotic place. Then try it again when you are more established and tell me what you think.

Not fretting over two dollars when choosing a hostel may make memories, but so does a five-star cave hotel overlooking the different shades of red in a Cappadocian valley.

Traveling with a loved one is a real test

Charine and I in the Republic of Georgia.

For five years, most of my focus and savings went towards the dream of taking an epic solo trip after five years of private practice in Singapore. When we started the relationship, Charine and I agreed that we could make a long-distance relationship work. It seemed like we had it all figured out but then something changed. We both ended up leaving our jobs to travel together.

No matter how strong the bond is, traveling together, spending 24 hours a day for months on end with a loved one is a real test. I have a personality that can be described as “irritating” so just having dinner with me is a big enough challenge for most people. Charine had to deal with it all the time over a course of seven months. I’m lucky she hasn’t snapped.

Dealing with each other’s quirky traits while on long-term travel is challenging because even if you are good friends with someone, or love somebody dearly, things start to chip away at you. When traveling with someone you love, it is best to acknowledge when you are irritated, think about why, and then look at the bigger picture. For example, Charine is always hungry. I can turn off the part of my brain that controls satiation; when there is a long period without food, I choose not to be hungry. One time we were in Armenia and were about to take a long minibus ride.  I suggested not having lunch that day. She looked into her bag and realized she had brought along only one banana and  a piece of chocolate. She then flipped out on me. She got hangry (hungry+angry). The first instinct was to be defensive but after taking a step back, I understood that she was probably upset that her hunger would take over–she was mad about that, not mad at me.

Communication also has to be crystal clear when you are on the road together. That is often the source of misunderstanding, which then leads to irritation, which then leads to fights. Going back to the above example, if I had asked Charine if it was possible to skip lunch instead of stating that we were not having lunch, she would have been able to express her concerns about how it wouldn’t work for her. On the other side, if she would have told me that not eating lunch was not a good option for her instead of panicking and lashing out, we could have avoided an hour of being bitter and working to clear things up.

If we were at home on a daily routine, it would be easy to escape each other’s presence and cool off for a while. Being on the road and together all the time, things get magnified. Anyone who thinks that they have found the right person, go buy two plane tickets and travel around the world together. If you are not ripping each other’s heads off, then great; if you come back with a stronger bond, even better.

Travel teaches you humility

Our guesthouse owner preparing a feast for our breakfast.

This is something that I am embarrassed to admit: by the end of my time in Singapore, my ego needed a little bit of a check. It was something that I didn’t want to happen to me, something that I tried to fight off as it crept closer and closer. With success comes more money, with more money comes power, with more power comes a big head. I told myself that it would not happen to me, but it was inevitable. There were many times that I found myself judging people that were not doing as well financially as me–it was stupid, it was pig-headed, it was immature. Regardless, it was how I felt and viewed people around me.

Before leaving for the trip, my good friend and I sat down over two bottles of wine and spent four hours discussing life at large. Him being 20 years older than me, I always pull a few nuggets out of our conversations. That night he reiterated a statement that is common knowledge, but that night for some reason, it finally sunk in. He said, “There’s always going to be someone with more money, or a bigger car, always…”

Getting on the road this time has finally enabled that statement to internalize. The trip has taught me that everybody at their core is on a similar playing field. People can be wonderful, kind, and pleasant no matter what kind of socioeconomic background they are from–whether it was a taxi driver ushering us around in Turkey for free to make sure we weren’t stuck, or a lovely guesthouse owner who made tarts from scratch every morning.

The funny thing is that the tables have turned, almost everyone I met on this trip has a leg up on me–now that I’m technically unemployed and homeless. In the past, it was all about what kind of watch I had, where I was going for dinner, and what bottle of wine I was ordering. All that stuff is great and it is nice, but it’s better to enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it. Lesson here: Don’t take yourself too damn seriously.

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When I read the article about Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger who left their advertising jobs and now fund their world travels by cleaning toilets, I asked Matt, “Why do you want to travel?” While I believe that travel can be inherently valuable—and I admire the couple’s determination and fortitude—I wouldn’t make the same choice and let health, career, and financial well-being take a back seat just to be able to scrape by and see the world.

For Matt, travel is an end to an end. As a child, he always dreamed of seeing the other side of the mountain. The only way to quench his thirst for adventure and aliveness, and to fuel his creative engine, is to put him on the road perpetually.

For me, travel is a means to an end. When I first committed to this journey, a few people asked if I am “finding myself”. Not at all, I wasn’t feeling remotely “lost”, there was no need to find anything. I loved my life in Singapore, my social circle, and my job. But I wanted to travel to expand myself—to open up new latitude for success while fulfilling my needs for freedom and lifelong growth. I had set out the goals to achieve financial- and location- independence and couldn’t see that happening soon enough if I had gone with the default choice of living in Singapore. So I chose a different trajectory: focus on building an investment portfolio and bootstrap a startup while on a round-the-world trip; and with that switch, I could instantly achieve a location-independent lifestyle and keep 100% of the returns on my productivity.

So why do you want to travel? Whatever your drivers are, travel should expand your calibre, enhance your well-being, or improve the quality of your life.

“Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. ”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Travel should not be an escape. It should be an expression of your life, no better and no worse than your life at home. If you are so displeased with any aspect of your life and where you live that you fantasize about getting away frequently, then it’s a wake up call to work on the indispensable parts of your life and not think about how to avoid reality or how to scrimp and save for the next vacation. There’s a difference between wanting a change in scenery or to gain new perspectives and needing to run away from, in Emerson’s words, your giant.

Travel only if you want to and if you genuinely enjoy it. It is perfectly fine if you don’t appreciate visiting new places or detest being on a plane. It is understandable that you feel your best at home. Packing and unpacking, spending hours in transit, and the uncertainty by dint of a foreign country can be exhausting. Don’t let the travel hustlers fool you into thinking that travel is an extension of wisdom. It can be but it doesn’t apply to everyone. Not everyone thinks diversity is the magical spice of life. Not everyone is interested to extrapolate their future developments from travel lessons, and not everyone can thrive in ambiguity or unfamiliar environment. The bigotry among the travel hustlers is like a crusade. Some people jump on the bandwagon of travel and think it is wrong to not enjoy travel, then they judge the people who don’t like to travel or travel differently from them. To think we often hear or say that travel opens the mind, the narrow-mindedness among some travellers are as mind-boggling as the unique places they boast about visiting. Going to “off the grid” places? Package tours are “for tourists”? Going to and eating at “a real local place”? Staying at guest houses because they are “more organic experiences”? Do those statements ring a bell? Come on. Travellers should feel honoured and privileged to have a glimpse into an understanding of the world that not everyone gets to see, instead of promoting snobbery.

Travel in your own skin and travel so you can be in your own skin. Ask yourself what is holding you back from experiencing life in its totality. By and large, we are products of our environments and influenced by prolonged exposure to our set of circumstances and cultures. Consider your comfort zone. Think about where you want to be emotionally, financially, intellectually, and spiritually. Then go out and search for the adventures, people, places, and sights that will help you unlearn your self-imposed limits and get you to the level of excellence that you want. When you focus on what matters to you, the budget travel or the dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant, the luxury hotel stay or the penny-pinching night at a hostel, the famous monastery or the hippest cafe in town, the learning new language or the unlearning of your own cultural habits, the checking off landmarks, and counting number of countries visited may just become pointless.

As I looked through Cartell’s and Dirnberger’s website, I realised they too are on their ways to achieving their purposes. In one article, Dirnberger wrote that they started their journey to look for creative inspiration and it seems like now they have a consistent flow of it. Check out their creative portfolio here. Also as Cartell wrote, “There’s nothing quite like swapping million rand [the currency of South Africa] advertising budgets for toilet scrubbing to teach you about humility, life, and the importance of living each day as if it were your last.”

Character is built when we challenge ourselves. Inspiration is fuelled by an intentional course of action. As with travel, we need to proactively guide the course of travel and seek experiences that will spark creative thinking, push our limits, and fulfil our purposes. Don’t just sit around and wait for the proverbial apple to fall on the head. Both life and travel can be carried along on the prevailing winds, it may still be fun and it may be easy. But would it be valuable, would the journey be worth it?

“Originality only begins when we dare to be thought a little mad, when we allow our curiosity to be spontaneous, when we undertake the heroic effort of worrying a little less what the crowd and the guidebooks think. Part of growing up, and learning to travel well, means daring to take our own interests a bit more seriously.”

Alain de Botton

Hold on to the sense of wonder, Charine.

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Why am I taking all these photos? For memories? Just so I can look at them and remember the trips? Why not just be in the moment? By attempting to capture it forever, am I missing the actual thing? Or am I subconsciously mucking about in the choose-your-favorite-filter vanity bubble of the digital world? So I can bake a cake, have it all to myself, eat it in front of everyone, and gnawed by worry over how many like’s I will receive? Shouldn’t travel be about meanings? Shouldn’t people be the core of bringing meanings to travel? And not the places, food and wine in these photos? How do I photograph meanings? How can I document human connections? Is there any point in immortalising these moments and sights?

According to Viktor Frankl, anything can have meaning if it changes you for the better.

In the process of capturing these moments, my awareness of the surroundings is enhanced. I am making a purposeful attempt to seek out details that reveal beauty, like the tension between textures and the subtle colour that tells a story.

At Sagalassos, an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey.

By being conscious of what captures my attention, what I deem worth remembering, and what I intend to accomplish with the photos—ultimately and ideally—I hope to learn more about what really matters to me.

At Amadeus Winery, Oliver Gareis the winemaker shares the obstacles to wine production in Turkey.

I hope that these photos will remind me where I’ve been, not just physically but also internally—my mind and what went into every inch of my gut.

In Batumi, Matt and I tried Khinkali for the first time.

Maybe these photo can keep me anchored to empathy and openness by illustrating that life can be lived perfectly well and differently from my own.

Cappadocia isn’t all about whimsical fairy chimneys and hot air balloons. Some of the caves are still used by the locals for businesses and residential homes.

Perhaps someday these photos will teach me that environment dictates possibilities and possibilities are endless if I consider the varied environments out there.

In Svaneti, a historic province in Georgia, life is as good as chilled beef.

In every photo, I hope it will act as a time machine, taking me to a positive feeling in the past and teleport my mind to a future moment that I will intentionally construct based on this positive memory.

A dream-come-true moment for me to spend an evening in Porto, Portugal. Crooked Vines is one of my favorite Portuguese wine finds and I can’t wait to share the taste with my loved ones in the near future.

Why take all these photos? Steve Jobs said that we can only connect the dots when we look backwards. Then maybe the question should be why not? So why not #yolo, take a #selfie of your #ootd with #foodporn on the table as you plan your next #fitspiration post at a place that qualifies for #wanderlust?

That said, I think we can all learn to strive for an environment or Facebook feed that is less about ourselves and more about what we are surrounded with; perhaps even go beyond picture-perfect essentialism and create vivid frames about how we feel, not just what we see.

I’ll continue to document my trips but will also keep in mind to do it in the least intrusive manner. Enjoy and savor the moment first and if an unobtrusive opportunity arises, maybe I’ll create a tangible memory to fall back on. We can all keep moving and document our own trail as long as we remember to look back and connect the dots of those experiences. In the process, let’s continue to ask ourselves “why” and “why not”.

To perception, reason, will, intuition, and imagination—much love, Charine

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When I first learned about the history of Yugoslavia—I couldn’t wrap my head around it. How could a country break up, dissolve and disappear? I mean, it’s there, it’s on the map, it’s a piece of tangible land! But the puzzle slipped my mind as soon as the next plate of food arrived on the table; at that age to me, there were more important things in life to care about than the citizenship of Mother Teresa.

Fast forward to today, I’m sitting at a cafe in southern Turkey, considering whether to offer my loose change or food to a child refugee from Syria. As I travel in Turkey, many of the world stories become real problems. Every refugee I meet takes a chunk off my mental block. Suddenly, Syria and Iran are in my backyard. The Kurds and Laz people are my friends. The residue of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey make up some of the great sights for my evening strolls. The Armenian genocide becomes a common reference in breakfast conversations. The turbulent affairs in Abkhazia is a personal interest. Every day, I am surrounded by the contrast between picturesque beauty on the surface and furtiveness of a bloody history.

Old Greek Street in today’s Ayvalik, Turkey.

As the world continues to skid on chaos, we often fail to keep track and care enough to find out what’s happening in a random blob on the map. The benefit of travel is it can transform any blob into a personal link; it can shift our passive interest in history to a first-hand perspective; it can galvanise nonchalant comment into action; and for the more fun part—this enhanced worldly awareness can also enrich our travel experiences.

A former Greek church in Ayvalik that had been converted to a mosque. In the 1920s, the desire to create homogenous nation-states on the Aegean prompted a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The exchange was based not on language or ethnicity but upon religious identity.

We don’t need to visit famous ancient ruins like Ephesus or Sagalassos to remind us that cities, civilisations and personal achievements are fleeting—though visiting them can provide a handy context as we anticipate problems of the contemporary times. What is particularly interesting is that many of these ancient cities were wiped out by natural disasters. Now, borders are created and redrawn, people are grouped and divided based on political motives or human errors.

At Sagalassos, an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey.

Today, I can fully comprehend the impermanence of a country and the fragility of a culture. On one hand, societies consisting of religious and ideological diversity are always fragile, but they also have the opportunity to bring radical progress if they choose to work in unison. On the other hand, a national culture can easily slip into self-defeating nationalism and blood-and-thunder games of politics. The point is that a valid constitution is more complex than we think and trickier to enforce than we can imagine.

While travel has certainly made me think more like a global citizen, simultaneously I feel more proud to be a Singaporean. It’s so easy to notice the chips in our lives, to criticise the society we live in and to reproach the government that shapes it. A first-hand experience of how fortunate we are on a global scale can instil some empathy and gratitude in our opinions.

Let the BBC News hit home–Charine

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“Everyone here is fucking crazy. But they mind their own business and leave you alone,” says Antonio, a Milanese who’s been living in Palermo for the past 15 years. I concur with Antonio. Palermo is a wild, obnoxious and seductive city; for all of those qualities, it has seared itself into my memory and captured my heart.

Author Cristian Bonetto wrote, “Italy’s 20 regions feel more like 20 independent states, each with its own dialects, traditions, architecture and glorious food.” While I can draw the similarities between Bra and Barolo in the Piedmont region, Palermo seems like an oddball in the Sicily category and more so in Italy. Perhaps the closest comparison I can find is with Naples, which channels a similar chaotic and energetic vibe as Palermo. But still, Palermo is so much more than that. Like a mosaic tile stuck in a jigsaw puzzle of Italy, this city is one of a kind.

Palermo, the City of Delights

While it is no show stopper like Rome or Florence, Palermo could easily be touted as the epicentre of cultures. In three millennia, the port city has been dominated by the Greeks, the Arabs, the Romans, and the Normans. It also received influence from the French and Spanish due to kingdom movements within the city and the region. Top that off with the recent mafia-driven social and political issues, this is a melting pot that vividly illustrates life’s big questions around what it means to struggle, to rally for a cause, to thrive, to respect and love, to be nonchalant about many things, and manically particular about a few things.

A few characteristics you will quickly notice once you are in the city:

First: The people here speak Italian differently—almost like Italian words spoken by a Spanish with a French accent.

Second: Palermo flaunts a street food scene unlike anything you will find in Europe. In fact, it owns the title of the top 5 cities with the best street food in the world. The foods straddle the line of freshness and richness, and are presented with much bizarre Andrew Zimmerman-ness, drawing people in with irresistible aromas and African-esque, lavish hawking and touting.

Third: It is the epitome of racial harmony; people from all walks of life interact, work, and live together as a vibrant community.

Fourth: Not for a soothing vacation but if you are looking for a stimulating eye-opener, this city is for you. Bizarre, contradictory and loud, Palermo isn’t the overachieving Italian sibling with all its beauty and achievement intact—dilapidated modern buildings stand next to seemingly forgotten historical treasures, skewed across lively streets that are filled with people who seem conscious of their roles in the theater of everyday life. They are boisterous and radiate life with intensity and drama—yelling, gesturing, flirting, staring, and planting loud and wet kisses on each other’s cheeks.

To savor the raw flavors of Palermo, come with an open mind and dive right into the rough and tumble old city areas and the Mercatos, where the raw truths of many life’s aspects unveil themselves to keen observers. The proud buyer of a monstrous sized tuna fish blasts music from his car to celebrate his new acquisition. A Gelato seller parks his mobile stand in the middle of nowhere logical and seems more concerned with hanging out with his friends and playing cheerful music for the enjoyment of his fellow hawkers. The street food touts help and direct passerby cars to maneuver around the narrow streets.

The Godfathers have left the streets for over 10 years. However, the city still suffers from the shadow of its mafia-influenced past, with safety issues often in question among the travelers. Really, it isn’t any more dangerous than other European cities; the usual opportunistic crimes that demand a visitor’s common sense and precautions still exist. However, you aren’t going to walk into a Hollywood-esque crossfire or be mugged at the blind alleys or piazzas (though I’m sure there are a few dicey areas you should avoid at night).

Palermo owns a special place in my heart and I hope more people in the coming years would take the chance and build their own unique relationships with this city. In four days, we’ve made more than a handful of friends. It is heartwarming to think about how it would be like when we return to the city years later and have these people remembering or missing us.

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