WHere?! Nomad Local Blog

I arrived in Mecedonia without any friends or knowing anybody. Going there was a last minute decision, as it can happen when you do cultural travel. Sometimes you’re led through people’s advice.

So I applied on Workaway for a volunteer project near the famous Matka Canyon, in a rustic house, Salamander River Campsite, where I could feel like a real old Macedonian in the middle of nature.

The only thing that I had to do was helping my host with the cleaning, build his Airbnb portafolio, and doing something that I was never good at: gardening and fighting with all kind of spiders, insects (with the likely of finding snakes and scorpions).

And I remark the last task because it made me think: what happens when the cultural travel gets harder? Can I change the experience for a better one or should I pass it through? But what if I don’t have any other option?

I can tell you one thing: from the hardest experiences you may find the most valuables learnings. And this is what happened in this experience.

Development of skills in a Nomadic Lifestyle

“Give it a shot”, “if you don’t try it, you will never know if you’re good at it” are very common phrases, but they are mostly used for things we think we like.

However, what does happen when we apply it for things we don’t like (or don’t know anything)? It may occurred during cultural travel, for example, while volunteering (one of the activities I suggest you in this article when you carry out a Cultural Travel), like it happened to me in Macedonia.

Also on WHere?!: How to Travel Without Money: Debunking the Expense Myth

Since the beginning, I had to do work on gardening, of which I barely know a thing. Besides, I’ve never been a big fan of spiders or insects in general, and I haven’t tried much before.

It didn’t go that badly, but it took me way too long to finish the task. In the end, the important thing was that I did it and learned something throughout the days: it doesn’t matter how bad you are at a task; if you really work on it, you’ll will get a learning too.

Discomfort is Change in a World Traveler Lifestyle

During a Cultural Travel you will have the challenge of overcoming your weaknesses. Although, little by little you’re going to think less about them, and getting focused in the outcome. And it is necessary so volunteering means you have to do your best to help people so that you can help yourself on the way.

This is going to be really important to nurse while traveling because will help you to find different opportunities.

For instance, looking for a volunteer project after being rejected in the last minute. Maybe not the best scenario, but you will learn to find other resources at the same time. Every bad situation can be a new opportunity.

“it doesn’t matter how bad you are at a task; if you really work on it, you’ll will get a learning too”

In the end, after one month volunteering I was capable of putting my hands on the grass without any uncomfortable situation with the spiders and found myself doing the same task in less than the half of time than when I did it the first time.

I experienced something that I called an “unnoticed change”, which basically means a change in your life that happens in strong circunstances during your journey and make you become a better verision of yourself, in this case, got it from a basic activity like gardening.

And I knew it because I felt stronger, with more resilience, skillful, but overall happier, and all this gave me the inspiration to start new projects.

Starting life projects in nomadic travel

Something I heard many times is that you need to get an online job before traveling, but I found out that you can discover your path along the way. When I started this journey, the plan was to find any job in Slovakia as a Spanish teacher. But it didn’t work out and needed to continue the travel.

And finally, after analyzing different options I realized that you can look for opportunities or create them on your own.

A Cultural Travel can help you to create a network with other travelers, or locals, or getting some inspiration at the same time (and I’ll explain more about this in other articles).

“a change in your life that happens in strong circunstances during your journey”

Our weaknesses are superficial, and can be more noticable while traveling, but what help us to overcome them is that we are learn on the way, and you change something everyday during the journey. I did’t gave up gardening and created WHere?! Community, which I will tell you more about soon.

The secret starts on yourself: I became a better gardener by never stopping cutting the grass, I became a better journalist by wrting, blogging and creating content on social medias.

And you can become a better traveler by doing things you never expected to do too but always open and receptive about the learnings you might get from any kind of situation. Just never give up.

Go and find the best ideas in the hardest scenarios, not only during a Cultural Travel, but in the life. The only thing you have to do is removing the spidders, cut the grass, and become better the next time.