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+---
+title: >-
+    Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 0: Bailtrain to Bailtown
+description: >-
+    Wherein I quit my job and prepare to leave the country
+---
+
+## Denver
+
+In mid-2015 I moved to Denver, CO while continuing to work remotely at the
+company I had helped to found back in Gainesville, FL. Florida had been my home
+for my entire life, up until that point, and it felt like a change was needed.
+Denver was certainly a change, and ultimately I think it was one in the right
+direction, but it turned out to not be enough.
+
+{% include image.html src="mr-worldwide/denver-2017.jpg" %}
+
+While in Denver I'd rented a tiny studio apartment, which over the
+course of two years I'd learned to live in. Living large is pretty easy; for
+some reason we (generally) find it more difficult to throw something away than
+to exert the effort to make space for it in our lives. It takes a non-trivial
+amount of trial-and-error to figure out a smaller lifestyle with fewer things.
+So minimalism is something I started to practice, and continue to practice, in
+the literal sense of the word, often failing at it. But I find the challenge to
+be worth it.
+
+I'd always separated my work-place from my living-place, mentally. Eventually I
+realized that just because the two places were physically separate doesn't mean
+they aren't a part of the same thing. At the most basic level I work in order to
+afford basic necessities, like food and clothing and shelter. I have a dedicated
+home because it's the most efficient way to keep myself fit and healthy and
+clean, because it allows me to having my own ammenities and routines which work
+best for me.
+
+But the more I work, the more I burn out and need to recuperate at home. The
+more time spent at home, the more things accumulate there and the more upkeep of
+the home is needed, which in turn requires money which requires work. The one
+leads to the other, and so they are really part of the same thing. I neither
+want to work nor spend a lot of time at home, but that's what my life had turned
+into. It was unbearable, and I had to change it.
+
+## Mr. Worldwide
+
+In early 2016 I took a trip to Japan with some friends. It was the first time
+I'd been out of the US (sans a family trip to Nova Scotia when I was like 9 or
+something). Going to Japan might as well have been a trip to an alien planet,
+and yet it was also familiar. I learned that no matter how different our
+cultures are, the individuals of the world aren't that different at all. By the
+end of that trip I felt as at-home in Japan as I did in Denver, if not more so,
+because of how much time I was able to spend exploring (rather than being couped
+up working).
+
+{% include image.html
+    src="mr-worldwide/kyoto-2017.jpg"
+    descr="Kyoto at sunset, 2017" %}
+
+By the end of 2016 I knew I wanted to travel and see as much as possible, while
+working as little as possible in the meantime (except on my own ideas, as they
+came up and I felt like working on them). I began trimming down my life, with
+the aim of only having as many things as would fit into a backpack. It probably
+seemed to everyone like I was preparing to become a homeless person. In a way I
+kind of was.
+
+My plan wasn't that I would never work again, or never live in a home again.
+Vagrancy isn't a sustainable way for me to live. But finding a life which didn't
+involve spending all my energy working while also not being homeless is surely
+possible, I knew, though maybe I wouldn't find it in the US. I began saving as
+much money as possible, and began thinking about where I might find that life.
+
+Europe seemed as good a place to start the search as any.
+
+## Leaving Denver
+
+By the end of 2017 I was ready to go. I had saved nearly $20k, had put in notice
+that I'd be leaving my job at the end of the year, and had given notice to my
+landlord of the same. My friends in Denver saw me off, and my friend Ibrahim
+gave me a small notebook to take notes in as I traveled, with some helpful
+phrases that might aid me along the way
+
+{% include image.html
+    src="mr-worldwide/notebook.jpg"
+    descr="Ibrahim made sure I was covered if I ever found myself in a tight spot"
+    %}
+
+I drove all my things back to my parents' house in Miami just before Christmas,
+and enjoyed Christmas and New Year's with them. In mid-January I grabbed my
+single backpack, said goodbye to my parents, and headed to the airport. It had
+worked out to be cheaper to fly back to Denver before flying to Europe, so I
+spent another day there saying hello/goodbye to everyone again, collecting some
+recommendations of places to go while I was there, and continued on to Europe.
+
+## The Loadout
+
+(Wherein I give a summary of what I had with me throughout the trip, with
+affiliate links sprinkled in, cause money. You can skip this section if you
+don't really care).
+
+I'd already had a [40L backpacking bag](zulu) which had done me well enough on a
+couple trips already, so I decided to try and only use that.  Other ~~homeless~~
+backpackers tend to go a little bigger, but they risk not being able to fit
+their bags in luggage overhead on planes. I also ended up needing a smaller day
+bag almost immediately, since being out and about all day necessitates bringing
+some things with you. The big bag/day bag combo is a classic amongst ~~the
+homeless~~ backpackers.
+
+{% include image.html
+    src="mr-worldwide/loadout-packed.jpg"
+    descr="All packed up, one for overhead and the other for under the seat"
+    inline=true
+    %}
+
+{% include image.html
+    src="mr-worldwide/loadout-unpacked.jpg"
+    descr="(Almost) everything, unpacked"
+    inline=true
+    %}
+
+Most space in the bag is taken by clothes. Which clothes I actually had along
+changed as the weather changed and I gained and lost things. But my general
+clothing strategy consisted of a few key points:
+
+* All things need to be re-wearable, 2 to 3 days at least. This is more
+  difficult for under layers, but wool is ideal as it's durable, warm, and it
+  quickly-dries (which means the fungi/bacteria, which would otherwise cause
+  smell, quickly-die). Wool socks were easy to find on sale for $5 a pair at the
+  end of winter.  Wool undershirts (smart wool or merino) are findable on eBay
+  with some difficulty. [Uniqlo][uniqlo] makes good undershirts to fill in
+  when wool undershirts are too expensive. [ExOfficio][exofficio] is worth the
+  money in the underwear department. A pair of leggings is also super worth it
+  for the cold.
+
+* For pants I went with three pairs; one beat-up pair, one casual, and one a bit
+  nicer, and a few wool shirts/sweaters. Later in the trip, as summer rolled
+  around, I'd pick up some shorts as well. My couple of wool shirts/sweaters
+  were trivial to find on eBay.
+
+* For shoes I went with a pair of flip-flops and a pair of [waterproof
+  boots][timbs] (also from eBay). The boots I chose for being able to be used in
+  basically any occasion where flip-flops wouldn't do (marathons excepted).
+
+* I really can't stress enough how great wool is. That said, I would have died
+  without [this jacket][jacket], which was well worth the relatively tiny amount
+  of space it took up. Same can be said for my [linen towel][towel], which
+  struck a perfect balance between packability and being a towel.
+
+* Other random things which were must-haves: rubber bands (for tying up
+  clothes), sewing kit, external phone battery, tape, super glue, umbrella, and
+  a small package of baby wipes.
+
+* I also insisted on bringing a laughably small and old netbook with me, cause
+  I get cranky if I can't code now and then.
+
+Even before deciding on doing this trip I had begun purging all my old clothes
+in favor of a much smaller set of more durable, though perhaps more expensive,
+ones. So a lot of these clothes carried over from that, and all that I just
+described is really my current wardrobe.
+
+[zulu]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015SBLO28/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B015SBLO28&linkId=84ffbb4c20cf4dfcee00485312c1d5c3
+[uniqlo]: https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men/undershirts
+[exofficio]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001M0MN0C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B001M0MN0C&linkId=a1a2a1fac9c23c44c0633d0e7170fb98
+[timbs]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019CVV1AK?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=B019CVW406&th=1
+[jacket]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013HAXSLC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B013HAXSLC&linkId=44efbeb32af7cc0f303180ec70da207e
+[towel]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WBC17N4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00WBC17N4&linkId=dec48e5d729a51790abad2286f08fe34
+
+## (Lack of) Planning
+
+The trip was deliberately not planned out. I knew I would show up in Munich,
+because I have a friend who lives there as well as a distant relative. But
+passed that I figured "show up and look around" would suffice. My motto for the
+trip would eventually become "plans are just lists of things which won't
+happen". From start to finish the only plans I had figured out at any moment
+was a general trajectory and my next destination. Rarely was my next place to
+sleep booked more than a week ahead of time, or my next bus or train ticket
+bought more than a day before.
+
+It could not have worked any other way. For a short trip it might be viable to
+have an itinerary with a list of destinations/sights which will be visited and
+all the traveling needed in between, but the strictness of an itinerary always
+adds tension. Rather than spend some pre-allotted time at each sight, adding a
+feeling of being on a timer no matter where you are, I would rather just meander
+around and spend as much time as feels right at each place. There's zero chance
+of seeing all there is to see, no matter how much is planned, so might as well
+see each thing in as much depth and detail as you feel like.
+
+And looking back, I don't think I _did_ miss all that much. Each city has its
+notable sights, and you can know by looking around and talking to other people
+which ones are right for you. Start with those, if there's time do the others,
+but you won't feel like you've missed anything if you don't get to them.
+
+Much later in my trip someone would ask me and another backpacker (who'd been
+traveling even longer than me) if we had advice for him. The other backpacker
+immediately replied "Just keep your head on a swivel". As in, just look around
+you, keep your eyes open, you'll see all you want and need to. My grandma gave
+me similar advice before I left, when I asked her what I should do in Spain (her
+home country): "Oh, you don'thave to do anything. You see something you like,
+you go there. You see something else, you go there instead. There is nothing you
+have to do".
+
+## Bailing
+
+In the next post I will actually leave and begin my _adventure_. Stay tuned!