Off The Grid

Dear Reader,

I'm writing this at 3pm and someone is coming to buy my laptop around 7:30. Tomorrow morning I will be on the road after spending 2+ years in Hanoi. From Hanoi to Europe I plan on taking 2-3 years and going through India and Africa, but there are some twists...

I have always been very inspired by the likes of Che Guevara, Charles Darwin, Marco Polo and Ernest Hemingway not for what they did or wrote as much as how they traveled. They wondered the globe long before telephones or emails and, in some cases, before postal services were available. I spent new years eve 2013 alone on a small island in the Philippines not long after I split up with my girlfriend in Saigon. My body was in such a beautiful place in a new strange country, but my mind was definitely not there. Picking up WiFi means using Facebook, reading updates from people on the other side of the world, emailing, watching you tube and reading blogs and news articles. All of this is great, but not if you want to travel and fully immerse your body and mind into a place. At midnight that night I wrote in my diary that "after working in Hanoi, I will cycle from Vietnam to Europe with absolutely NO internet or contact with anyone outside of posting letters to close friends and relatives."

Now, in March 2015 on the eve of leaving Hanoi, I still have that same drive and will that I did on that beach in Siquijor. I will not use any internet or any other electronic devices with 2 exceptions: My camera (Nikon V1) and my kindle (I've got about 7000 ebooks and cannot bear to travel without them!). This means getting information must be done first hand and in person. In fact, all human contact will be done face to face (I have promised mom and dad that I will try to find a phone and call them every few months when in a city just to let them know that I am alive and well).

I'm excited to see the changes and effects that not using internet will have on me. I have been online consistently since I was about 20 years old, so that's ten years of staring at a computer screen! Looking back at my browser history I can list the things that I use internet for the most in order of time spent:
1. YouTube
2. Chess
3. Facebook
4. Porn
5. News and blogs
Anyone who knows me well will know which of these will be the hardest for me to give up.. Definitely chess!

In addition to not using modern communication, I plan to never stay in a hostel or pay for sleep in any way, no matter what! This may sound a bit full on and over the top, but I always preach about how amazing budget travel and guerrilla camping are, so it's time to really practice it with no lapses. Also, I plan to buy grain and vegetables at markets and make all my own food, only eating meat when I catch and kill it (fishing, trapping, bird-fishing, chicken theft?).

All said and done, I plan on an in-country budget of about 1 USD / day, which excludes visas and bicycle parts. I will keep very strict records of my spending over the next couple of years and I'm curious to see the effects of getting offline!

Goodbye dear reader, see you on the other side!