Ten Years a Nomad

by Matthew Kepnes

  Centuries ago, young European nobles would take a Grand Tour through the Continent before settling down to their adult responsibilities back home. Now, with travel cheaper and more democratized thanks in large part to an international network of hostels, I looked around and realized we were all on our own modern, stripped down version of the Grand Tour.

  Easy conversation and cheap beer spun the rest of our night into a blur. Stumbling upstairs much, much later in the evening, I entered my shared room, dizzy and triumphant. I’d done it. I had made friends. Everything was going to be all right. I was sure of it now.

  * * *

  A HOSTEL WITH FIFTY-CENT BEER, a crowd of twentysomethings, and precious little privacy means that a good night’s sleep is never guaranteed. I entered my room to the sound of moans from a neighboring bunk. Was that…? Yes, yes it was. I could sense movement on the bottom bunk, and made sure to clear my throat and shuffle my feet to announce my presence. But that didn’t stop them. All I could do was put my pillow over my head and wait to pass out. Fortunately, the fifty-cent beer did its work, and in a few minutes I fell into a quick, drunk sleep, oblivious to whatever was happening in the other bunk.

  Around dawn, as light began to shine through the thin curtains, the Kiwi girl staying in the bed across from me burst into the room with two guys. They clearly had a very wild night on the town. In epic disregard for others, they ripped the curtain down, letting the morning light pour in and waking everyone up.

  “Shut up!” shouted the guy in the bottom bunk. He was American. I had seen him in the hostel but only briefly said hello to him. There was someone else still in his bed.

  With lightning speed, the two guys turned around and asked if the girl in his bed was a dude.

  The guy in bed quickly got out and, towering over the others, began to escalate the argument. “That was fucking rude,” he said pushing one of the guys as the girl ran out of the room crying.

  “Hey man! I’m just saying she didn’t look too hot,” one of the drunk guys said.

  “Dude, I am going to clock you if you don’t apologize.”

  The other drunk guy snickered.

  “It’s all good, mate,” slurred the interloper.

  “It’s not fucking all good,” Mr. America said stepping closer to him. “Apologize.”

  As a fight seemed imminent, the Kiwi girl stepped in.

  “What he said was rude, but let’s all calm down. We’re super drunk. Let’s just sleep,” she said dragging her friend away from the red-faced American and into her bed.

  The American grabbed his towel and walked out of the room. “Fucking assholes.”

  The other drunk guy, seemingly unsure what to do, went up into the empty bunk and passed out.

  “Just relax. I have a flight in a few hours. Let’s get some sleep,” she said to her new bedmate.

  As I tried to fall back asleep, I heard a noise from the bunk. Passing out as two people go at it in the next bunk under cover of darkness is one thing—but now I was trying to sleep as the Kiwi girl and her new friend started fooling around in full daylight, and I soon realized it was hopeless for me.

  As the moaning grew louder, I knew there was no going back to sleep. I grabbed my towel and went to take a shower.

  Fucking assholes was right.

  By hostel standards, it wasn’t an especially crazy night. I’m sure our hostel’s owners and staff have had to break up dozens of drunken fights over the years, and launder more than their share of defiled bedsheets. And I’m sure hostel owners all over Prague, and all over Europe, could share similar stories. It’s not that their establishments attract an especially rough crowd—it’s that traveling without strings attached turns hostels into reflections of that unbounded freedom.

  A hostel like mine in Prague is full of young people experiencing freedom from obligations and responsibilities for the first time. Of course they’re liable to get a little carried away with the excitement. When a bunch of kids want to get their ya-ya’s out, a hostel is where they put them. But more to the point, it’s the transitory nature of nomadic life that makes hostels the occasionally out-of-control places they can become. You don’t rip curtains open and wake up a room full of sleeping people if you have to deal with them the next day, and the day after that. You don’t have sex while your roommate is trying to sleep in the next bed if you’re going to be roommates for more than a night.

  The promise that we’re going to interact with the people in our lives day after day keeps us civil—we don’t break the rules today, even if we want to, because we know we’re going to have to deal with the consequences tomorrow. But on the road, there’s no guarantee you’ll see that person tomorrow (or ever again), so the only thing keeping you civil is whatever self-restraint you happen to internalize. I love the freedom of travel, but I also realize that, while it can bring out the best in us—our sense of adventurousness, curiosity, and creativity—it can also sometimes bring out the worst.

  Despite all that, I still came to love hostel life. That transitory quality helped me feel like a new me every time I checked into a new place. No one knew who I was until I stepped into that common room or bar. I could always fake it until I made it. I could be anyone I wanted to be—and so could everyone else. I could be a party guy on Monday, an introvert on Tuesday, a stoner on Wednesday, a loudmouth on Thursday, a jokester on Friday. I could cultivate any one of these selves on any given day.

  The trick is learning how to value hostels for what they are—cheap lodging, a ready supply of new friends for the road, and a ready supply of fresh chances—without getting sucked into the same pattern of drinking, hooking up, and passing out night after night. That’s just another kind of routine—and I went on the road to get away from routines.

  And if I screwed up—if I made a joke that didn’t land, or found myself alone at a table while everyone else hit it off—tomorrow was always a new day with a new set of people. Every day was a fresh start, a second chance to be that kind of ideal self—confident, secure, inwardly happy—I always wanted to be.

  Of course, travel doesn’t let you escape your past. Your demons will always find some space in the bottom of your backpack. But travel does give you multiple fresh starts to deal with them, multiple ways of experimenting with the new self you want to become.

  * * *

  EXCEPT FOR A BRIEF MEETING with my new Australian surfer friend a few years later, I never saw those travelers from Prague again.

  Yet, for a moment, we were the best of friends. They gave me hope that I would be all right. Sitting at the hostel, I fretted about being able to make friends. I was scared to talk to people. Yet here I was two days later, hugging people who were just recently strangers, feeling like I was leaving my best friends behind.

  All those fears I had when I landed in Prague—the worries about being lost, not making friends, and ending up alone—melted away as I got on the plane to Italy. The seeds of doubt that my insecurities, family, and friends had planted in my mind had proved false, or at the very least remained dormant.

  I felt like I aged a million years in Prague. I came to the city with equal parts delusions of grandeur and fear that my parents and coworkers would be right, but we were both wrong.

  It turns out that everyone else in the hostel is just someone trying to see some of the world and find a friend along the way. They hold the same fears and seek the same joys as you. They, too, are looking for someone to say, “Hey, want to join us?”

  Hostel life forces you to confront the years of conditioning so many of us have endured about what we “need” from our lives: fineries, nicer stuff, better shoes, bigger TVs. Hostels can teach us just how little we need to be really happy.

  When you’re in a hostel in the middle of nowhere, and you’re sitting on a couch that can barely hold itself together, and you’re drinking cheap wine, and only really picking up every other word of a conversation—when you do all that and you’re happy!—you realize how much artifice and nonsense get
s accumulated in your brain.

  You begin to realize that everything is going to be all right. That the world isn’t the scary place people told you it would be and that danger doesn’t lurk around every corner. That there are wonderful people out these. People with the same wants as you.

  And that some of them are going to have a profound impact on your life—whether you’re ready for it or not.

  6

  Finding Your Kindred Spirits

  I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

  —MARK TWAIN

  I LIKE TO GROUP PEOPLE into two camps: those who have stayed in a hostel and those who have not. For me, it’s as revealing as knowing where you grew up or what your favorite movie is, because it reveals a lot about your character.

  There you are. You enter your hostel or guesthouse, strike up a conversation with another traveler, and just like that you’re best friends. You hang out, eat, drink and sightsee together for days.

  For that time and place, you two (or three or four) do everything together and joke as if you had been friends forever. You’re besties.

  There is no past or future. Nothing about who you were back home, how old you are, what you do for work, your last relationship, or where you’re from matters. You accept each other for who you are right there because that’s all you have.

  But then, as quickly as it started, it’s over. You go one way and they go another.

  Vague promises of meeting up and staying in touch fade away as you get further and further from the moments you spent together. Emails and messages begin to slow to a trickle. There’s no ill will, no fight that splits you up—just the sobering truth that in a specific time and place, you made a connection, but now that time and place are gone and so are they. You were strangers in a strange land and, with necessity being the mother of all invention, you gravitated toward each like celestial objects caught in each other’s orbit for no other reason than that you both existed.

  As a backpacker, you get good at saying good-bye.

  Prague was the first place where I had one-city friends. I met five amazing people there and, when it was all over, they were gone. Off to various parts of the world on their own adventures.

  During my next stop in Florence, I struck up a conversation with a Canadian named Peter at our hostel. He was WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) around Europe, working in exchange for free room and board, in hopes of learning about food so he could be a cook. Tall, with long hair past his shoulders, glasses, and a goofy expression welded to his face, he, too, was traveling solo.

  We spent five solid days sightseeing, taking day trips through the surrounding area, and partying our nights away. He was my best friend in Florence. Nay, for that time and place, he was my only best friend.

  But, when it was time to move on, he too was gone.

  “See ya later!” we said.

  At the time, I thought we really would. I was new to the road. You don’t make connections like this every day! We were besties now. Of course, we would see each other again.

  But life got in the way as it always does. People move on, settle down, get jobs, find new friends, get married, and have kids.

  It’s a cycle that repeats itself a thousand times on the road with everyone you meet.

  From the folks in Prague to the couple I met in Panama to the people on my tour around New Zealand, to the CouchSurfing hosts in Europe, to Dutch guys I camped with in Australia, to those really freaking awesome folks I road-tripped in the United States with, the two guys I backpacked Thailand with, my friends from Ios, Bulgaria, and to the thousands of other people I’ve shared magical moments with over the decade, life simply got in the way.

  For a time, we were each other’s best of friends, partners in crime, and sometime lovers.

  Yet, as we all wander further along life’s path, they begin to fade in our memories. Their names get buried deep down the text message queue on our phones. Every once in a while they will pop to the forefront of our mind, usually because of something we just encountered reminds us of them, and we wonder with a sense of longing:

  What are they doing? Do they still travel? Did they make it all the way around the world like they hoped? Are they happy? Married? Do they like their jobs? Are they healthy? Are they even alive?

  There’s no bad blood or animosity. Just the truth that they were in your life for that moment and then their part in the play of your life was over and it was time for new characters to appear.

  It was a truth I learned to deal with. Our paths may not intersect again but my friends’ effect on my life will remain with me forever. They taught me to let go, laugh, love, be more adventurous, push myself, and so much more.

  This all sounds incredibly romantic and tragic, I know, and probably also fantastical to someone who has never had the privilege of these intense experiences. But this happens all the time to people whose interactions are compressed by time and space. The same thing happens at summer camps, for instance. You come from an entirely different world than the kids assigned by chance to your cabin, and barely a week later you’re brothers from another mother, sisters from another mister.

  Travel compresses relationships.

  In its fiery forge, travel strips away the outside world and, with nothing but the now, amplifies the intensity of all your experiences. With no past or future, you get to know people as they are in that moment. We may ask basic, vague questions about the past when we meet each other initially, but it’s really just a different way to talk about the weather. It’s a placeholder until we figure out what else to say, to get us closer to what we really want to know: do you want to go sightsee, get a drink, or head to the beach? With the unspoken understanding that you have limited time together, you focus on the here and now.

  But, sometimes, you meet people who will be more than just a temporary friend for a day. Sometimes, when travel filters out the noise, you form deep and powerful bonds with people that no time or distance can pull apart.

  * * *

  THE FIRST TIME THIS MAGIC happened to me was in Thailand at the end of 2006. While emailing my parents to let them know I was okay, I saw a message in my inbox:

  “Matt, I’m stuck in this placed called Ko Lipe. I’m not going to meet you as planned, but you should come down here. It’s paradise! I’ve been here a week already. Find me at Monkey Bar on Sunset Beach.—Alice”

  I was on the island of Ko Phi Phi, in between the mainland and Phuket. Alice, a friend from myspace, was supposed to meet me in Krabi, a tourist destination famed for its limestone karsts, rock climbing, and kayaking. I had never met her before. We had found each other in a group for travelers. In those long ago days, Southeast Asia didn’t have hostels. You had cheap guesthouses. I was worried that without the forced connection of a hostel dorm, I wouldn’t meet anyone. I’d be alone again. Seeing our itineraries overlapped, I messaged Alice to meet up. At least, I’ll have one friend if all else failed, I thought.

  I looked up Ko Lipe. There was only a small mention in my guidebook. It was really out of the way and would require a solid day of travel to get to. But, as I looked around the bustling internet café and out onto the busy street, it was clear that this place was not the tropical island paradise I had come to know Thailand as. It was crowded, the beach was filled with dead coral, boats seemed to ring the island, and the water was polluted with a thin film of … well, I didn’t want to know. A quieter, calmer paradise held great appeal.

  Two days later, I took the ferry to the mainland, a long bus to the port city of Pak Bara, and then the ferry to Ko Lipe, where I wandered to the top deck to find a guy playing a guitar. His name was John. He was meandering around Asia with his girlfriend, Sophia, until they were ready to move to New Zealand, where they planned to work, buy a house, and eventually get married.

  “Where are you guys staying?” I asked as we lounged on the deck.

  “We fo
und a resort on the far end of the island. It’s supposed to be cheap. You?”

  “Not sure. I’m supposed to stay with my friend, but I haven’t heard back yet. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

  The ferry neared the island and came to a stop. There was no dock on Ko Lipe. Years before, a developer tried to build one, but the project was canceled after protests from the local fishermen who could see the end of their lucrative business shuttling tourists from the ferry to the shore if this dock came to pass. Then the developer mysteriously disappeared and that was the end of that.

  John, Sophia, and I went to their hotel, joined by Pat, an older Scottish guy, who was also looking for a place to stay. The hotel overlooked a little reef and the small Sunrise Beach, which would become our main hangout spot during our time on the island.

  As we walked to the other side of the island to Sunset Beach, where Monkey Bar and Alice were located, it became clear very quickly that she was right: Ko Lipe was paradise. Lush jungles, deserted beaches, warm, crystal-clear blue water, and friendly locals. Electricity was only available for a few hours at night, there were few hotels or tourists, and the streets were simple dirt paths. This was the place I had been looking for since the islands around Thailand jumped out of the pages of my guidebook.

  We found Alice quickly. Sunset Beach was not big, and Monkey Bar, a small thatch-covered shack with a cooler for drinks and a few chairs, was the only bar on the beach.

  After a few days, I moved into a bungalow in the middle of the island. Nestled behind a restaurant that served the best squid around, this hardwood structure painted red, with a white roof, small porch, and near-barren interior—a bed, a fan, and mosquito net—seemed to be built by the family for a wave of tourism that had yet to come.