Travel With No Destination
Barranco, Lima, Peru
This week I was reading back over an article I wrote almost two years ago entitled Tiny Houses. I wrote the article from a tiny one-room house on an isolated mountaintop in Costa Rica. I prepared my coffee in a kitchen the size of an ordinary coat closet. It was the ultimate realization of simplicity and solitude.
At that time, I reflected over my journey of living in more than 25 homes over the course of my life. I suppose that alone set me on the path of being an explorer in life, never really finding a place to settle for the long-term. I gave it my best effort once when I owned a small house for four years. As one friend recently put it, a “rolling stone,” choosing the path of freedom.
Over the last two years I have now added 5 more living spaces in 3 different countries to my list. As the page turns already six months into another year, I am now living in my third home in a second city in just the first half of this year. Even I must admit, it gets tiring and takes its toll after awhile.
I reflected on my own insights in the article….
All of this perpetual movement and disruption of my surroundings often serves as a perfect metaphor for the times we are now living in. There seem to be no foundations of certainty to be found in our external world or environment and the very foundations of “certainty” we once thought we had continue to crumble all around us with each day’s news feed.
Even things we had planned or envisioned a year or two ago seem to be now distant memories, forgotten amidst the flux on a daily and monthly basis.
Over time, this has led me to seek the “foundation beneath no foundation.” I first began to discover elements of this deeper foundation of certainty while living on my own in Kyoto, Japan. I found this by living surrounded by nature, morning walks and meditations, writing, painting and living as simply as possible. I have now been fortunate to taste glimpses of these elements that travel with me in Japan, Boquete, Panama, and Costa Rica. I have begun to discover that I can carry these things with me no matter what my surroundings are.
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.
-Tao Te ChingI am fortunate to have now found myself in Barranco, Lima, Peru, a completely unplanned and unexpected detour. In my experience, most of the best things that happened to me in life were unplanned and on an expected detour. I sense the need to stay in one place for awhile. I never imagined that would be in South America.
While I have learned after more than 15 countries that there is no perfect place in the world, with all of its challenges Barranco does offer a place where I can have some access to nature with a walk to the ocean, I can live simply with a cost of housing that hasn’t changed in the past four years for me in three different countries. Remarkably, Cusco and the beautiful nature of the Andes mountains are quite close and easily accessible for a short and inexpensive flight. This new location provides plenty of opportunities for morning walks, writing and continuing to live as minimally and simply as possible
The challenge of this new chapter will be to somehow do this while surrounded by a city of 11 million people and the one of the world’s most horrific traffic environments. Fortunately, I own no car and my apartment is one block away from the ocean.
Perhaps this will be what I write about in the future.
Meanwhile, enjoy reading Tiny Houses from 2022.
Field Notes
My father talked about the difference between sailing across the sea to arrive somewhere and sailing for the experience of sailing.
He said, “It’s always harder to sail toward a fixed point, because you will inevitably have to cross the wind several times to get there.”
In contrast, a boat moves its fastest and cleanest when it simply follows the wind.
"The One Life We're Given: Finding the Wisdom That Waits in Your Heart" by Mark Nepo.
Morning Boats, Martha’s Vineyard 2018
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