Back in what? Getting into journaling again.

I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t doing it before, but I was lacking regularity and doing it in the open has different stakes. I like sharing things and the idea that people might read me is a good motivation. It also forces myself to work on making my writings clearer and more accessible. I know I can’t talk about random matters because people won’t follow. One thing, indeed, is that I’ve opened this blog so I can write about my travels when I’ll finally be leaving.

Until then, you can expect random tidbits from what happens in my mind during schooldays and weekends (both of which are oddly similar in these strange times). For example, it’s the first time I’m enjoying spring so much these days. I know it will come with the (temporary?) end of my scholarship and the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, so seeing the shoots expanding their buds into pretty flowers has never been this appreciable. Leaving my bicycle at home and walking to school could play a part in this, but which of the chicken or the egg?

As a foretaste, here is the loosely defined planning of what I hope will be more than just a sabbatical. Since multiple friends are happening to finish in the same time period as me, I’m hoping to convince them into making a bit of the way with me. This is not a sine qua non, since it’s sometimes complicated to plan things up with them and travelling alone is as much of value. It has still influenced what I chose as my journey’s first leg: the far north. Before the middle of June, I’ll be leaving my hometown in Switzerland, to go hitchhiking through Germany, trying to reach Cape Nordkinn. I’m giving myself the time needed, but I don’t expect this leg to take more than two months. I’ve choosen Cape Nordkinn mostly for the symbolic remotness of it, forging a (mostly imaginary) initiatic trip vibe—the European equivalent to hitchhiking to Alaska? Anyway, as the path is what I’m looking for, Norway is exotic enough for me to feel like I’m a the edge of the world, a world I’ve never dared exploring alone so far.

After this, I’m once again dependant on my subjective feelings when I’ll get there. There’s a luck I might want to travel around Europe, maybe going to the UK. If I’m confident enough, my plan is to hitchhike to Russia (after getting a visa if I can) and then through Russia where I might take the transwhatever for a stretch: either through Mongolia and China, or —after reaching Vladivostok— to take a ferry for South Korea and then Japan.

When writing this, it’s interesting how my goals evolve, because there’s a part of me who want to set a fixed goal, a dream, something that failing to do would be equivalent to losing. It’s more romantic, but I feel I’ve been reducing my dreams of a hobo life since I’ve first had my initial “revelation” three years ago. What should I do? Is the zen of the traveler to be obtained by flexibility or perseverance?

If I get to do this, I’ll already be really happy and I can’t say that I’d be the exact same person with the exact same goals, but if that’s the case, I would love to explore Malay, Singapore and Indonesia after.

Nonetheless, keep tuned for any news because, as we reach a goal, it’s often at this moment that the why’s we’re pursuing it seem the most unclear.

Where I lost myself

At the end of each post, I’ll be adding one ressource (book, website, network) that aroused my wanderlust and that I’ve had a lot of interest for. They will not be into order of interest, but in the chronological order in which I discovered them.

First is the /r/vagabond subreddit. In 2018, I was very down. I was losing all interest in the first year of my computer science apprenticeship – which I started because of how a comfortable industry IT seemed to be – when I fell upon this subreddit while browsing in class. Soon after peeling every single popular post, I was at the restaurant with my two parents (consider this an planned meeting since they are divorced), telling them in all seriousness that I wanted to drop school and be homeless forever. A vagabond with nothing but what I can carry. I’ve gone a long way from this and as much as I possibly missed a very poetic, romantic – and dramatic? – life, I’m sure I won’t regret it. My comfort zone would’ve never been ready anyway.