Buy That Ticket!!!

Hi,

We haven’t spoken before, but I know what you are going through.  You are not alone in this world.  You are not the only one that questions your life every single day.  We've all been taught that we should never question the system we live in and just be happy with our meager existence working jobs we hate, to buy crap on credit cards that we pay off for the rest of our lives.  Being a leader in today's world and making change is dangerous.  This is not how life has to be my friend.  There is a rebellion of free thinkers out there that no one will tell you about because they don’t go along with the system.  These people have found happiness in traveling the world and making experiences instead of buying new coffee tables and cars.  We are out there, but you have to speak first. 

San Diego

Let me tell you my story…For 30 years of my life, I was a typical guy from the Midwest who was more afraid of nuclear war then snake bites and bee stings because cable TV sold me those fears.   Almost a year ago, I basically packed up what clothes and possessions could fit in my car, every “priceless” memory I was holding onto my entire life that could not fit, got thrown away.  This was the hardest moment of my life!  After 5 years of living in Ohio, I escaped to join the rebellion to San Diego, CA.  My trip was unique in that I Couchsurfed (Couchsurfing.org) for an entire month from city to city, 14 in total, but I’ve also seen 37 US states now and 7 countries. 

240 pounds at 22 years old

At my lowest I lost 70 pounds

Let me back up a step.  I started my career in Wisconsin and ended up in Ohio for 5 years and worked a typical boring "Office Space" engineering job for many years.  After becoming jaded with the corporate system over the years in job after job telling me how amazing their workplace was and why I should come work for them, I ended up leaving a 7 month position, very unhappy and unhappy with life overall in the Midwest.  I found that my open mindedness and health conscious decisions made it hard to make friends in Ohio, because if you aren’t from Ohio they don’t want you there.  The same holds true for my hometown friends who still hang out in the same place with the same people they did a decade ago.    

Three years ago, I was fortunate to meet my first French friend in Ohio.  I had no idea, but international people have just as hard of a time befriending Midwesterners.  Through networking parties, I got to hang out with 50+ people at a time.  This was awesome for me actually because where I’m from, no one spoke anything but Spanish.  Now I was surrounded by people from all over the world!  They were very welcoming because they had no friends and had more open minded views. I grew up an overweight kid in poverty in Wisconsin and I had lost 70 pounds back in Madison and now had just quit the highest paying job of my life.  

My second half marathon

After a week, I hadn’t told anyone I left my job for the first time in my life and had no backup.  I was nervous as hell, because this was the first time I had nothing lined up in 7 years.  One thing to note is that in those 7 years I had never really gone on more than a weekend vacation.  A week later after being jaded looking at new jobs that all sounded equally "Office Space"-ish, I was invited out for, as my friend Enrico called it, a "beer that changed my life".  My international friends and I joke about it now.  At the time, I felt down in the dumps for being so careless.  Friday night I get a text from my Italian friend Enrico, didn't want to go out.  I just wanted to wallow in my misery.  Enrico had 4 friends out that said “just come out for one.”

Amalfi Coast, Italy

I joined them at a bar that had the biggest worldwide craft beer selection in town.  Upon entering, to my right I have an energetic Italian couple and to my left a more reserved looking German friend and his Indian girlfriend.  I had hung out with these guys a lot, but this time was different.  Honestly, I was anxious to get home and sulk.  They asked what I was doing and I said looking for jobs.  They were shocked and asked "what the hell man!?"  Over that beer, I told them the full story of how that day came to be. 

Kayaking Barcelona

The story went like this.  For 2 years now I had been trying to escape being an engineer that just sits behind a computer all day and makes 3D computer models.  I am basically a trained monkey.  When you have no challenges at work there is little motivation to work.  In 7 years I NEVER even talked to anyone...I couldn’t even tell you one phone number I ever had at work.  They were all saying “Haha, what?!”  I had started part time grad school a year before trying to become a project manager or sales person, someone that TALKS to people on a daily basis.  Luckily, or unluckily, I got hired as a project manager at a company in a great industry making more money than I could ever imagine!  I thought it was my dream...turns out not.  

Bastille Day in Paris, 200,000 people danced to YMCA!

My dreams were shattered because the only person who could train me, an engineer I met in my interview...he quit the Friday before I started on Monday...and the electrical engineer followed.  This was due to managerial changes that happened before I even started.  Nobody told me that 25% of the staff had just quit...so the first day, the first thing my boss says to me is

"SORRY"..."sorry there is no one to train you in a field you haven't worked in"...My heart sunk!!!  

Selfie near the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona

And from that day on, my every day was like a terrible scavenger hunt to do work, finding files I have no idea what they are named.  Imagine looking for a "widget" and someone called it a "whatzit" and you have to find a needle in a haystack every day.  I won’t say I felt like dying…that would mean I felt something, anything at all, but I didn’t.  My mind went numb for 7 months.  Every day I went in and felt nothing except wanting to bang my head on desk.  This was supposed to be the best job of my life.  I felt like somebody lied to me!

I had to explain this to my international friends over a beer and they were shocked as well because I never complained about it.  I never complained because I thought everyone hated their jobs, not just me.  These particular friends of mine were doing cancer research at a local children's hospital and they think very differently than us Midwestern folk.  

The first thing they asked is "why the hell are you still in Cincinnati!?"  

I was a crawfish boil virgin hahaha!  Got my second tattoo here to mark the occassion.

To be honest with you, growing up without money in the Midwest, I was inexperienced with travel. In my mind, traveling to another country is for couples on their honeymoon to do once in their life if they are lucky.   I was single, at 30 years old in Ohio and did not own a home.  If you are not married in Ohio at 30 years old, even if you have a solid career, you failed at life!  I hate to admit, but that has caused some of my depression over the years.  I mean come on, I was a misfit in Ohio and Wisconsin and anywhere I went except Chicago, but that's another story.  

My friends taught me that due to their proximity to each other in Europe, seeing other countries was normal.  Enrico asked “Why don’t you take a vacation somewhere amazing and get out of this terrible place, man!?” 

And I said what I'd said my entire life, “I can't afford it and I don't have anyone to go with.” 

Enrico explained that we have this tendency to want to pair up, with either a significant other or best friend, and never do anything alone, especially introverted engineers like me.  Due to the pairing up aspect of my life, I have been saving money to get married one day and buy a house, so relieve my anxiety, I needed to keep a big down payment in my bank account…like I would magically get married and buy a house overnight or something.  Hahaha! 

So, my friend Enrico broke it down like this, "You don't have a job, you have tons of money saved as an engineer at this last job, you don't have a mortgage, school is out for the summer, you don't have a long term girlfriend, or even a cat? What the hell are you still doing here?! You could die of cancer tomorrow and what will that mountain of riches do in your grave? GO LIVE MAN!!!”   

Real Naples, Italy pizza.  

For personally reason, this broke my heart!  I don’t know why this, out of everything in my life so made me feel like I’ve been living a lie.  Maybe it’s just the enthusiasm Italians speak with, but something in my head snapped.

Right now, I have to admit that I did have a blank passport for 2 years from a previous job.  After some more discussion, and another beer, I went home to my area which had bars and clubs, had several more depressed drinks.  

I kept thinking “why the hell is this so hard to do?!” 

The best sunset of my life taking a ferry off Southern Italy

After hours of contemplation, that night I ended up with a non-refundable 6 week ticket in and out to Napoli, Italia (Naples, Italy) for 3 days later.  Let me repeat, 3 days later and I spent 2000$ since it was double the cost.  When I woke up that Saturday morning, after letting the fear sink in, and there was a LOT of fear, I sent Enrico a text,

"I did a bad thing man!"  

"What?"  He replied.

"I bought a ticket to Italy...in 3 days for 42 nights!"

He came back with "you, my friend, are the craziest American I know!!! Come over Sunday, we gotta make plans!!!"  

Let me point out here, I'd never been abroad, did have a passport, and since I grew up poor, I never in my life had hopes of going to another country.  You just don't do that sort of thing alone.  I did not even have a back pack (I got a solid backpackers bag now).  I also did not have anything but a 42 night ticket in and out of Naples, no hotel, no car, and horror movies on cable TV have given me a debilitating fear of being murdered and dismantled in hostels in Europe!  OUCH!!!  I did not know how public transportation worked or how big Italy was.  I was completely ignorant of the rest of the world.  

Enrico had me buy a travel guide, the "Lonely Planet" travel guide for Italy; he said that was going to be my "Bible".  And it was!  Today, I have a guide for Italy, Western Europe and now the US.  He invited me over and our German friend Toby and his awesome girlfriend Valeria. We went over what I was to do in their hometown of Naples giving me 1 week of plans.  He even set me up with 2 nights in a bed and breakfast and let me use his Italian cell phone on my 6 weeks abroad.  Even having never been abroad, I already had contacts of both of their friends on Facebook and in the phone.  I cannot tell you how much these 2 have changed my life!  Those stories in Naples I could write a book on.  I could also write a book just on the things I screwed up as a newbie traveler.  The only thing I was certain of was that I had a ticket Italy and 2 friends in Paris I met in Cincinnati, Ohio.  42 days in Europe with no plans, and basically unlimited fundage…yup every day I made once in a life time memories!

Giving new friends from around the world a tour of Naples...yup did that!

 After my awesome Ohio friend Deanna dropped me off at the airport at the butt crack of dawn, I boarded the plane alone, and I felt chills down my spine! A layover in NYC and 3 flights later, I had been dropped off in the most beautiful weather I had ever seen in Naples!  The second I stepped off the plane I knew something in my mind snapped or cracked or something.  I was broken…to my old life. 

I was doing something no one I grew up with will ever understand.  My friend got me a bed and breakfast in the historic center of Naples, a very high energy, non-touristy area.  The exhilarating energy was everywhere in the fresh Mediterranean air.  Everywhere, people speaking in tongues I could not understand.  The cab ride to the well hidden BnB was my first hassle with an Italian speaking driver.  It was in what looked like a dark and scary alley you would not go down in the US.  Everything in that area, because it older than our country, looks old and scary and uniquely picturesque! 

Roma!

After reading my “Lonely Planet” Italy guide, I found that it taught me maps, history of the city, speaking some words, hotels, hostels, and ways to get around the city.  It was a life saver many times over!  The first 2 nights I stayed in an EMPTY BnB by myself, and stayed up all night because JETLAG SUCKS!  I had no idea about hostels yet until I randomly ran into 2 French Canadians girls getting yelled at by a guard trying to buy ticket in French but he only spoke Italian.  Luckily, all my French friends speaking in front of me taught me how to catch their language. 

Those girls and I ended up hanging out in this Castle in Naples and then they took me to their hostel after I mentioned I was staying alone.  This changed my life on so many levels.  We walked into what was rated the best hostel in Naples…it wasn’t dark or dreary and scary, but lit up with young, friendly international people sitting on bean bag chairs watching movies and drinking beer!  After that day I brought my stuff with me and spent the rest of my time until Paris in hostels making once in a life time stories with once in a lifetime friends. 

Over the next 6 weeks I wandered aimlessly through 12 cities in 5 countries on my solo trip.  I met people who had similar stories or even better ones and listened in awe of how international people live.  The funny thing is everywhere I went, everyone asked if I was from New York or California, a state I’d never been to, based on my personality. I went to Naples, Rome, Florence, Sienna, Venice, Salzburg, Munich, Genoa (Cinque Terre national park where I almost died cliff diving), Nice, Barcelona (my favorite city), Pamplona ( Running of the Bulls festival), and Paris, where my awesome friend’s family let me stay in a spare room for a week and were amazing at educating me on France.  The countries were Italy, Austria, Germany, France and Spain, with a layover in London twice. 

The most important lesson I learned is how friendly travelers can be to each other, because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely alone and stranded.  While I was in a hostel in Florence, Italy, I was introduced to www.Couchsurfing.org by an Aussie chick.  I joined CS then and there after hearing about it.  The problem is you don’t have much Wi-Fi in Europe so I never used it in Europe.  When I got home in mid-July to Ohio I was already planning escape, but I needed a job to save up money, and I didn’t know where to move?  Basically, I was just throwing a random dart at a dart board at this point. 

I got a job doing aerospace engineering and I forgot about Couchsurfing until August or September, when I got my first request from a young guy from Los Angeles, CA.  The reason I hosted this dude was doing a cross country trip by himself…10 years younger than me, and outdoing me!  I took this as a personal challenge.  He taught me how nice all the people were, but at the end of the day, everyone in the Midwest is the same.  I learned how worldly and traveled the people in California and other coastal cities are.  Based on staying friends with John and another friend who escaped Cincinnati to San Fran, I planned a trip to CA to Couchsurf for my first time. 

During Christmas,  I took my 2 weeks of vacation time and decided to check out CA.  I spent 12 days Couchsurfing in San Fran, Los Angeles to see my first Couchsurfer but stayed with another, San Diego a house away from the beach, and Tijuana, Mexico for my birthday, New Year’s Eve.  The best part of staying on someone’s couch is that you get to know the locals, the hangouts, not just the touristy areas your corporate hotel has been PAID to tell you to visit.  You learn a lot about what’s wrong with corporate America when you travel abroad to hostels and the garbage we get sold here.  I decided that while I loved SF, it rained every day I was there but one, LA is too much fakeness and dirty water on the beaches, and I never even imagined going to San Diego, but a friend I met in a hostel in Europe lived here so I checked it out. 

I stayed on the beach, in December when my hometown is -30 degrees…a 100 degree temperature difference!  It was paradise!!!

I went home, dropped out of grad school, got overtime at my work, worked 7 days a week for months and saved up.  I sold all my worldly belongings except what fit in my car and what planned on being a single city to check out on my way to CA, turned into me seeing 14 places and hitting my 37^th state.  I went from my hometown in Wisconsin, where there was 4 inches of ice in April, all the way down to Key West most southern point, and from the Atlantic Ocean on the East coast to the Pacific here in CA.  It was an eye opening experience to be let into others homes and have dinner or be shown around their favorite spots.  I did have to sleep in my car 5 nights, but it was pretty nice weather in May.  My favorite spots are driving across the Florida Keys to Key West and New Orleans for its amazing energy and culture you don’t see anywhere else!  J

My 6000 mile couchsurfing trip on my way San Diego.

Never will I tell you this move to San Diego has been an easy transition, since I still don’t have an mechanical engineering job, but after many struggles this last year and having to figure out where I want my career to be, I’m still happier than I’ve ever been!  Everybody here is happier than they’ve ever been back home!  I am in San Diego now and have hosted many people on Couchsurfing from around the world.  Living 3 blocks from the beach has it’s perks, since I take bikes rides on the boardwalk. I live 2 blocks from the most beautiful beach in the country.  I want to go live in Europe in the next few years after my time in SD.  I’ve got 2 years and my new graduate program is up and I’ll take it from there.  I’m no longer afraid to do things alone, because of that “beer that changed my life.”  I recommend you go out and try something you are afraid of today.  Don’t wait because you will never do it!  J

https://www.couchsurfing.org/people/chris.stone1/

Installing solar panels in San Diego with Grid Alternatives

A couchsurfer from Taiwan I hosted 2 nights.  Home ;)

365 days of great weather.