In conclusion…

An Open Letter to My New Friends Around the Globe

Hi there!
It’s Traveling Greg, or maybe now you can call me Formerly Traveling Greg, or—most accurately—On Hiatus From Traveling Greg*. That’s right. My traveling years have ended. I’m in Toronto now. As of tomorrow, I will be a full-time student at the Rotman School of Business.

Some of you met me in 2009, and if I haven’t spoken with you since then, you may be thinking that was quite a long time ago. Your life could be completely different now vs. then. But, periodically, every couple of months, you received another e-mail from me with another album of pictures. I was still on the road. Early on, I called it the Great Freedom. The name fit.

I remember the excitement of the first few months. A trip through South America and then through New Zealand. Back then, the inevitable “How long have you been traveling? Where have you been?” conversation often made me feel like a complete rookie. As I traveled on through Australia and Asia, I became a veteran and I shared knowing glances with the other long-term travelers. By the time I was traveling in the Middle East, the most common reaction was generally astonishment. “You’ve been traveling for how long!?” And at that point I still had six months of travel in front of me. Yeah, I did it right.

Six continents, twenty-six countries. While I shudder a bit every time someone suggests doing something “just to say you did it”, it was awfully tempting to go to Antarctica. Fifty percent of me wanted to go to see the nature, but the other 50%!w(MISSING)as yearning for the elegance and symmetry of going to every continent in one grand trip. When it came down to it, though, I was not trying to rack up numbers. I met one woman who visited far more countries in eight months than I did in twice that time. Could she have really gotten to know those places? She was taking one guided tour after the next, so I surmise that no, she didn’t understand much about the peoples or the cultures. Without a doubt, my favorite places have been the ones in which I spent good time. Falling back on the numbers, I count ten countries in which I spent at least three weeks. These places hold a special place in my heart.

So I did not make it to Antarctica. As you can imagine, timing is everything when it comes to that place. The more I researched it, the more fascinating it seemed, but the window for going there was just a little too tight. Probably because I am a Floridian, I had a different M.O. than the typical traveler. That is, I was chasing an Endless Winter. Twice I went to the Southern Hemisphere, and this past July, I made my way up to the Arctic Circle. The length of the days said Summer, but you could still wear a sweater. Antarctica, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia are places that I have negligible desire to visit between April and October (For that matter, so is Florida.). As a result, I had to make choices. Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, India, Japan, and Turkey highlight the list of places I wanted to and expected to visit, but ultimately did not. The path I ultimately took appears quite random—in the most satisfying way possible.

There were 22 months between my departure for the Inca Trail and my weeks under the midnight sun in Norway. Eight of those months were spent in the U.S. Is there something less legitimate about a world journey when it was broken up by so much time near the comfort of home? Well, frankly, yes. I think that there is. People that go hard core with nine, 12, or 24 months consecutive months on the road have all of my respect. The way I did it worked for me, though. I wouldn’t change it.

Did having money in the bank make it less legitimate, too? Again, I’m going to go with yes. I’m naturally cheap** and I certainly had my hardships, but I used money the best way I know how: to get freedom. I didn’t book flights in advance; I went to the countries I wanted, regardless of the cost of living. In the latter stages, I mostly stayed in private bedrooms, albeit with some very questionable shared bathrooms. Other than those minor luxuries, I traveled poor. It is the way to travel, the way to get to know the places you visit and the people who live there, as well as the best way to meet the fellow travelers. So I guess I pretty much split the difference between being a hard core backpacker and being what might be expected of a more “mature” traveler like myself. Again, it worked for me.

With two years to spare, I had a lot of dreams. But I didn’t learn Spanish. I didn’t learn to play guitar. I didn’t write a novel. I didn’t become a filmmaker. I didn’t learn graphic design or sound and video editing. With varying levels of certainty, I had hoped to do all of these things. They turned out to be fantasies and, again, that is fine. I could go on about how just getting around and finding the next place to stay is a hell of a lot more time consuming than someone would expect, and that would be true. Still, genuine passions find a way to be satisfied.

What passions came to the fore? I read a ton. That has been awesome. I had time to discover and love lots of new music. And, of course, I made dozens of friends and learned an incalculable amount from pure life experience. I understand the world and human beings much better than I did two years ago. I also found out what my hair looks like when it is long. My whole life anytime people suggested growing my hair long, I said “I would just look like Tom Petty”. I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Petty.

It is safe to say now that business is my thing, if it weren’t obvious before. I kept up with finance and economics. I read books on management ideas. That probably sounds borderline revolting. “You were reading The Economist on vacation!?” The truth, though, is that when you travel for a really long time, it isn’t a vacation. It’s your life. There’s a Buddhist saying, “Before Enlightenment, you sweep the floor. After Enlightenment, you sleep the floor.” I didn’t reach Enlightenment, but I was in the present. I enjoy business. It’s part of my Zen.

By far the biggest project that I completed on the road was my MBA applications. It was time-consuming, but genuinely rewarding as an end in itself. You really get an opportunity to look into yourself and to think deeply about what you want to do. The results of this work, to be frank, were not so good. I didn’t get into three of the schools that I applied for. I’ll never know why that happened. I knew going in that I had a very unusual application. I don’t feel old, but I think I’m the oldest student in my class here in Toronto. And as great as many people think my travels are, some people may see it as me quitting the world for two years. I happen to have a friend in MBA Admissions at the University of Florida. When I told him about the rejections, his initial reaction was the same as most of my friends: astonishment. Upon consideration, he thought it had to do with my employability. Every school will tell you in their marketing materials that they are looking for unique individuals, but when it comes down to it, they want to maintain their place in the BusinessWeek and U.S. News program rankings. To do that, they have to put out graduates who get good paying jobs—preferably making a lot more money than they had been making before. The way to do that isn’t to accept unique individuals; it is to take the cookie-cutter candidate. He also said that I’m too casual with my confidence. I may not have appeared hungry enough. There is probably some truth to both of these explanations. The former reason I find particularly galling. Since I found out about the rejections, I have been regaled with disheartening stories of people of average intelligence being accepted into the finest MBA programs in America. The latter explanation is motivating. The fact is that I’m still pissed. Take Duke, for example. I have always been one of those people who rooted for Duke’s basketball team. I always found it disheartening because it seemed like people rooted against them because they were smart and good students, the embodiment of what we supposedly want student athletics to be. Turns out that they were elitist pricks all along.

I think that ultimately things turned out exactly as they should have. I came across this article about five years ago and ever since then, I’ve been interested in the Rotman program. The School’s motto is “A New Way of Thinking.” I think that it is a perfect fit.

So…holy shit, my life is about to change! Before school even starts we are overwhelmed with homework. It's going to be hard--really hard. My initial impression is that it will end up being the most difficult thing that I have ever done. It’s going to be good, though. It is time to jump start my brain and reboot my career. I have another act in front of me, and it’s going to be a good one.

Much love,
Your friend,

Greg

*Truth be told, I prefer Stewfunk.
**It took about 25 years including 15 months alone with my thoughts to admit it, but there you go. Give me this: I am every bit as cheap with other people’s money as I am with my own. Happy now?

In Conclusion...

In conclusion…

An Open Letter to My New Friends Around the Globe

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