I Was Afraid To Travel The World Alone — Then THIS Happened…
Almost every morning for the last 8 years as I wake up, there’s a split second where I don’t know where in the world I am.
Istanbul? Kampala? Berlin? Bangkok? Rio?
I LOVE IT.
And the way I’m living, I never really know what’s going to happen next!
I never planned to have epic, drunken, water fights for days during the Song Kran celebrations in Thailand and Laos. They just happened!
I never planned to sleep next to a nearly naked Massai warrior in his elephant dung hut during the great Wildebeest migration — Or in a pine bark teepee in the California mountains, in an indigenous jungle village in Panama, in an abandoned house in Iowa, in a sailboat in San Francisco or in a convent in tropical Uganda. It just happened!
I never planned on leading safaris in Africa or visionary journeys in Brazil. It just happened!
And hey, I never planned on 2 big naked African women stealing my money… OK, that’s another story!
If you’d have told me when I bought a plane ticket to Europe in the summer of 2009 that I was embarking on a 7-year world-traveling sabbatical, I never would have believed you!
I had plans for my future — serious, responsible plans and visions for my career. It was just supposed to be one short trip to Europe to check something off my bucket list!
“Do you have a Bucket List?”
You know, a list of adventurous things before you die?
My name is Michael Skye, and I used to have a list like that, and I’m glad I did. Because it got me off my ass and chasing a dream that summer…
But it was a different kind of list that turned my life into a big adventure, and turned me into a Permanent Traveler.
I call it my “FUCK IT!” List, and I want to share how it has changed my life.
But first a cautionary tale…
You see all of these adventures almost never happened.
In fact, if Lance Armstrong hadn’t come out of retirement in 2009, I might still be sitting in an office behind a desk somewhere staring at a computer screen… fantasizing about those Bucket List dreams.
Seeing Lance ride in Le Tour de France had been on my Bucket List for years. He lived in my home town of Austin, Texas and I’d watched him win that race on TV for 7 years straight before he retired.
I’d always told myself, one day I’ll do it — I’ll go there and see him racing LIVE — but it was never practical to go this year…
When he retired after his 7th tour win, I realized I’d missed my chance. I would NEVER get to live out that dream.
Then one day in 2009 the news broke — he was returning! I’d have another chance!
But it was strange…
As the date for Le Tour approached and even after the 3-week race had begun, I was still on the fence. It just didn’t seem “practical” to leave my business right now and go off following some dream to France!
Then a friend in Germany heard my dream and invited me to come. She told me I could use her van and her bike and go follow Lance through the rest of the race.
Finally, I took a deep inhale and exhale, threw my practical concerns and responsibilities aside, said “FUCK IT,” bought the ticket and got on the damn plane.
But get this…
Once I got to my friend’s place, I found myself again with my face in my laptop — working! Days slipped by and I kept telling myself — “maybe tomorrow.”
Soon the end of the race was approaching. My friend came to me, wanting to know WHY I hadn’t left her place yet. Like a good friend, she called me out. She challenged me to face reality.
Finally, I had to admit it —
“I was afraid!”
I was afraid to take off by myself driving around Europe — road signs in German and French with completely different traffic rules and signals — so many unknowns. Sounds silly to me now, but that’s what it was.
Some vague fear was enough to keep me procrastinating on my dream — on really living — one day after the next.
Finally with just one day of racing left in Le Tour — and after a kick in the ass from my friend — I set off on a mad race through Germany and France. I couldn’t read the signs, I didn’t know the rules of the road, but I was going to get there goddammit!
Late that night I arrived at the base of Mont Ventoux just hours before the penultimate stage in Le Tour de France was to begin. There was a palpable energy in the air! I didn’t know it then, but I would learn the next day that there were 600,000 people already on the mountain, camping out from the base up to the top.
I didn’t know anyone, and everyone seemed to be there with their friends.
But I said “FUCK IT!” once more, joined in conversations with people from all around the worl, partied hard all night and before long I was painting the name of my business in big letters across the roadway.
Finally at 5am something snapped — if I want to ride this mountain before the race begins and they close it off for good, I better go NOW!
The road up the mountain was already blocked off, but no one was guarding it. That would likely change when daylight came.
And so with a belly full of Belgium beer, wearing flip flops, carrying my 2 laptops in my backpack and with a light on my head, I climbed on my friend’s mountain bike and began my ascent up the dark mountain.
It was pitch black and I couldn’t see anything or anyone…
But every once in a while I would hear — clap, clap, clap…
People I didn’t know and couldn’t see were cheering me on! I felt a rush of excitment. Lance would be racing up this same mountain only hours from now!
It would be 23 steep kilometers up, up, up!
Hours passed, up I went, stopping on occasion to rest…
As the sunlight came, campers from around the world began preparing coffee on portable stoves…
It’s a long story worth a proper telling (maybe some other day around a campfire — you and I), but I made it to the top and got a shot of my hero as he passed:
(At the time I believed him when he said he was not doping. To me he was just a cancer survivor — and a Texan — rising above all odds.)
OK, Bucket List item CHECKED.
But this dream I’d had — seeing Lance riding in Le Tour — turned out to be really anti-climatic. Checking that item off my list did nothing for me.
What WAS amazing for me was:
Saying “Fuck It!” and buying a last minute flight to Germany, being on an unplanned trip and spending time with a good friend.
Saying “Fuck It!” and racing through France last minute, challenging myself to arrive at Mont Ventoux in time.
Saying “Fuck It!” and painting the street and partying with people from all over the world at the base of the mountain.
Saying “Fuck It!” and getting on the bike to climb the mountain at 5am even though it was pitch black, I was drunk, I was wearing flip flops, I was carrying a heavy load on my back, etc.
Facing my fears and SEIZING THE DAY was amazing.
"Carpe-Fucking-Diem Baby!”
Throwing caution and practicality to the wind, saying FUCK-IT and deciding that TODAY I WILL LIVE! — THAT was amazing.
I didn’t know it then, but I had just begun 7 years of world travel. Saying FUCK IT! — and going for it — was about to become a way of life.
After I saw Lance speed by me near the top of Mont Ventoux, I realized checking things off a list isn’t much of an adventure.
Adventure is when,
1 — An exciting opportunity comes along that excites you or scares you,
2 — You take a big inhale, grab your balls and say, “FUCK IT — I WANT TO LIVE!”
3— And, then you fucking DO IT!
Hey, it can be great to have a list of things you want to do before you die. But for me, personally, I prefer a “Fuck-It List.”
###What’s A “Fuck It List?”
*A Bucket List is a things you want to do some day before you “kick the bucket.”
And a Fuck-It List is a list of things you DID to LIVE NOW!
With a Bucket List, you write all the things you want to do some day in the future, hopefully before you kick the bucket. Then you try to schedule these things into your vacation time, etc.
With a Fuck-It List you seize the day and jump on opportunities to live now as they arise in your life. Schedule or no schedule, you throw caution to the wind, and GO!
NOTE: And you only get to add the item to your list AFTER you did it!
So, you write your FUCK IT! List with your ACTIONS.
My Fuck It List:
OK, so below are some of the adventures I’ve had over the last 7 years. Its my FUCK IT! List.
These things required me facing fears, doubts, conditioning, discomfort, shame, etc. — and choosing to LIVE NOW. If my list inspires just one person to focus less on his/her plans and lists for tomorrow — and to start living TODAY — then its worth it. (Most are not in chronological order)
A year after Le Tour de France, I went broke on a big project, threw my stuff in storage and bought a one-way ticket to Europe arriving with less than $200 to my name;
I decided to give up being in control of my future, and started saying YES! to almost all heart-felt invitations. I said YES! to an invitation to a woman in the Middle East who invited me to come stay with her for a few weeks, then I said YES! to an invite to Brazil, and so on.
Kite surfed and cliff jumped in Australia, wind surfed in France, sailed in in San Francisco and The Netherlands, and jet skied in The Nile and The Persian Gulf;
Led 2 transformational safaris in Africa, and had experiences like this:
Moments like that one inspired me to KEEP GOING!
Attended two very different Ayahuasca ceremonies in Brazil and a sweat lodge in California;
Swam with elephants in Thailand and a whale in Panama, and went snorkle hunting for giant snapper turtles (catch and release) in Texas;
Invested in 2 young African entrepreneurs, and in a zipline in Thailand;
Had epic drunken water fights for days during Song Kran in Thailand and Laos;
Slept in a pine bark teepee in the California mountains, ian indigenous jungle village in Panama, in an abandoned house in Iowa, in a sailboat in San Francisco, in a convent in tropical Uganda, and next to a nearly naked Massai warrior in his elephant dung hut during the great Wildebeest migration;
Fought backyard MMA in Santiago, taught Muy Thai to boys in Uganda, and was the first White man to train with boxers at a gym in the Nakuru slums of Kenya;
Romanced very different and beautiful women from many cultures (OK, I admit, this had long been on my “bucket list”);
Deeply questioned the shadow of American culture I came from–including the cultural conditioning that had become a part of me;
Lived for 4 years without a smartphone and for 7 years without borrowing or lending money;
Used a crowdfunding campaign to start an Internet center at a secondary school in rural Uganda:
Drank beer with African nuns, prostitutes and a priest;
Rescued 2 damsels in distress after our boat nearly sunk on the mighty Mejong River LINK, and returned to the states a few times to have the back of brothers in crisis;
Researched my ancestors and their stories, and have begun to tell their stories;
Was serenaded by a cave-dwelling woman in the Sedona mountains, and was proposed to with poetry by a Brazilian woman… but couldn’t get Swiss girls to yodel for me.
Ate grasshoppers, scorpions, pickled herring, crocodile, ostrich, kangaroo--and that's me with a mouth full of raw Masai sheep kidney below!
Was paid to be a scout in Chile, an English teacher in Argentina and Brazil, and a consultant for women in relationship crises on multiple continents;
Lived for many months on several continents for less than $500 a month for rent, utilities and food;
Taught entrepreneurship in Uganda, c0-facilitated a leadership workshop for South Sudanese activists in Nairobi;
Hashed in Chiang Mai, Thailand; got trashed and crashed on a sidewalk in Bangkok;
Went on several personal writing retreats in Thailand, and published my first book on Amazon;
Lived, broke bread and traveled with great friends and allies around the world;
Learned great lessons from a blind man leading his blind girlfriend in Brazil, an Iranian storekeeper in Kuwait, a novice monk in Laos, a man who believes he’s Jesus reincarnated in Australia, a Polish dumpster diver and a cockroach on the beach of Pattaya;
Participated in Authentic World events in Colorado and California, an author’s conference in LA, and a Sovereign Man conference in Chile;
Entered Uganda in secret, hired a driver and undercover police to race across the country with me by night to hunt down criminals just in the nick of time;
Saw a great fiery phoenix rise on the side of mountains at sunrise in northern Argentina, and took a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the Massai Mara reserve in Kenya;
Practiced Xi Qong in the Argentinian mountains and nude in the Australian bush with the same teacher,
“Circled” in Colorado, Arizona, LA, Australia and on Mount Shasta;Experienced Kahuna, Thai, Laos, Bali and Japanese massages and healed issues with my back and neck;
Was robbed by two large, naked Kenyan women (this was definitely NOT on my Bucket List!);
Took French lessons in Argentina, Spanish lessons in Thailand, and learned Portuguese on my own via my Tao of Tesão method, which I’m now teaching:
Let go of two of the best friends and teachers I ever had, because it was the loving thing to do;
Sold my iPhone and laptop for cash in the Andes mountains, had my GoPro and other laptop stolen in Chile, was gifted a new laptop and GoPro by my generous brother.
Was given unexpected gifts from strangers such as a few months in 2 Brazilian beach houses, a taxi ride in San Francisco, a dinner at the Buenos Aires airport, and a 5 figure cash gift from a client;
Taught the sacred way of “gifting”(and receiving) in Texas and California;
Explored fascinating cities such as Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Brussels, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires and Berlin;
Learned patience and slowness from long bus rides, train rides and slow walks in South America and Africa;
Made such good friends at a hostel in Argentina that they give me a Free Pass for life;
Returned to 3 cities I’d left behind, to track down 3 different women who were haunting my dreams and who I’d not pursued;
Trained the first full-time practitioner of my work (who now has a thriving practice) via Skype, and visited rogue facilitators of my work in Germany and Brazil;
Danced tango in Australia and Argentina, the samba in Brazil, and the local dances with the locals in many places;
Joined locals in a drunken Karaoke party in Laos, drank local brew and sang with non-English-speaking locals in Thailand, Laos, Chile and Brazil;
Fed monkeys out of my hand after watching the sun rise over the Hindu temple at Ankor Wat in Cambodia; and wept spontaneously at a sunrise in Chiang Rai, Thailand,
Attended events and partied through the night with a cult of people committed to biological immortality;
Got Dengue Fever in Brazil, staph infection in Australia, some other illness in Thailand and Jungle Fever in Africa ;)
Facilitated my Honor Work on 4 continents, including an iStand in Australia, a slow Honor Window retreat for a couple on an island in Brazil, a VisionForce Summit in Sedona, and Honor Window Mastery weekends in Australia, Colorado and Indiana;
Was surprised how easy it was and how much demand their was for teachers of anything related to business, leadership, self-development, etc. in Brazil. I was invited to teach my Honor Window work at a prestigious MBA school and elsewhere in Brazil:
Attended a Leonard Cohen in concert in Istanbul, an American Jazz festival in Sao Paolo, Folklore in Cordoba and Carnival in Brazil;
Experimented with many ways of making money so I can show others what is possible, and help people get free for a nomad lifestyle or longterm stress-free adventure travel;
Attended Anarchapulco in Mexico, the Sovereign Man conference in Chile, the Integral Incubator in Boulder, and the Digital Nomad Summit in Chiang Mai.
Stayed in many different places around the world for free, and wrote a guide for others to do the same;
And the journey continues! I don’t know if I can ever return to a normal life now… In fact, I’ve decided I want to get paid to help others go on amazing adventures!
About the Author...
I'm a transformational travel guide, permanent traveler and digital nomad, who's new to Steemit, but a longtime traveler on the path to freedom in every dimension. Every few years I lead transformational safaris in Africa and am currently planning visionary journeys around the world.
I'm currently in Acapulco, Mexico preparing to re-launch my Carpe Diem World Traveler course, which helps others launch a nomadic life and thrive as a border jumper. As I slow travel the world, I like to introduce myself to the locals as a crazy viking from Texas.