(1) Angel City : Love & Hate

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SURFTRAVEL TIP #1 : "The Beginning of Boldness". Make that first step. Pack up everything, store what you don't need (which is alot) and sublet or rent your place. Then watch the $ work. We tend to forget that renting a place or a mortgage is a huge monthly expense. Why not leave your sentimental valuables with a loved one and make the world your rental?

I bought my ticket to England from Honolulu in two stages. I got on a travel website that specializes in mass ticket deals and used the "multi-city" feature. I traveled mid-week and overland sometimes, tried major cities and logical legs - I could go into further detail but long story short: After a few hours I had a ticket from Honolulu to LA to Peru to Miami and Atlanta to Washington D.C. for $529. This was fun for me since it was already roughly half a months rent in Hawaii or LA. Then I booked From Washington to London for another $500. I was halfway around the world from Hawaii for just over a grand!

Time Rewind: 2008. I left my home in search of adventure and career opportunity. I was gonna strike gold by moving to Los Angeles. Within a couple weeks I would be on a show like "The Office" or a film like "Old School". Hollywood had just not seen me yet. But they would and I would be starring alongside Al Pacino and Sean Penn in a few weeks time. Ha! the joke was on me. It took several months to even find the right agent to get me out or find my home in the metropolis.LA was a jungle of chaos, over-information and misdriven creativity that I was swimming in after diving headfirst.

Jump Cut: 2010. After a couple years I was able to find a way to pierce through that chaos; I found a posse and my own angle. I had a loyal team and we were writing, producing and casting my own work. Not letting other people say where when and how I should do MY talent I at least had an outlet of creativity to produce and my work was soaring. The connections and accomplishments I made in the almost 5 years of "living the dream" made me decide Los Angeles AKA Angel City California would be a great first stop on my world tour.

Jump Cut: 2013. I had met an LA woman (It's always about a woman!). She was a hairdresser for the stars. We spoke and it clicked. I am an opportunist. We had fun but as soon as we hooked up I could tell in my subconscious that it wasn't going to work. Anyway, we went surfing in a huge south swell and I saw many good friends in the city. I like to joke that Mexico is the best thing about Southern California. Sure enough we went surfing near Mexico all day and had Mexican food.

I felt comfortable. I was able to navigate around a huge city and make decisions that were very important financially and personally on my own and without guidance.

But this was the first world and this was a different world. I was preparing to travel to the mystical third world of South America.

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