For everyone in the states, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! It’s one of my favorite to celebrate for many reasons, the first being it’s all about coming together over food with loved ones! The second being that you can wish any American a ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ without worrying about offending them . Not being able to go home to my parents’ house, my Thanksgiving extended over many dates and many places this year. I started off the festivities in Boston for the third annual Jump-the-Gun-Turkey-Run pre-Thanksgiving meal. It’s a fantastic feast where 20-30 old and new friends cram around tables that extend beyond the host’s dining room and into the living room and foyer. Then, the day before the official holiday, I was celebrating it with a life-long friend who’s a flight stewardess and worked on the actual holiday. Our cooking began at 10pm that night, and when I say “we”, I mean she cooked while I chopped! On the actual day, I was at  my Uncle’s place in New York City where all chairs stayed in tact this year, and then the following day I was in Connecticut visiting with other relatives and having a PJ party with my 4 year-old cousin. Needless to say, I ate a lot and was in good company for every meal.

As is tradition at the Jump-the-Gun-Turkey-Run, everyone shares what they’re thankful for. One friend said that she’s thankful for feeling home wherever she’s at. This struck a chord (and I secretly wished I had thought of it first!). It also reminded me of one of my favorite pictures from Ireland – the Guinness Factory to be accurate – that reads ‘Home is not where you live but where they understand you.” by Christian Morgenstern. The meaning of ‘home’ has definitely evolved for me. With an apartment far from Tennessee, where I grew up and where my parents live, and as a traveler constantly on the go, I have friends and family scattered everywhere that I wish I could see more than I actually do. Despite where I land on whatever date and for whatever reason, I am very thankful for feeling home. In your travels and holidays, I hope you feel at home wherever you are too!

One of the many wonderful things about travel are the realizations that occur when one is outside of the comforts of your own surroundings.  Now that my last extended trip was around 11 months ago, I remind myself of some of my own little epiphanies that I can apply back on my home turf.  As complicated as life can seem, sometimes it takes a gentle nudge to get back to the basics from a travel experience.

This coming Friday I’m going home to Tennessee for a week vacation and I couldn’t be more excited about the trip.  I’ve already started thinking about what I’m going to pack.  My work backpack alone serves as a mobile office with everything from my laptop to chargers for my phones and I even have a portable plug socket.  Thinking about my packing list I was reminded of one of my travel insights: the realization of the basic necessities I need to survive.  No I really don’t need that wireless mouse to have my life completed.

On my first trip to Europe, my main concerns were what food I was eating that day and where I would be sleeping that night…that’s when the light bulb emerged about survival.  When backpacking I think it becomes extremely evident that we need very few tangible objects, especially since your life is lived out of a backpack for an extended amount of time.  It’s these realizations from my travels that I like to remind myself now when I’m not traveling or when my current trips are shorter and even related to work.  So tonight I am going to bed with the thought that I really don’t need much to live, to pack or to worry about.

As queen of travel disasters, some close friends and family of mine have often wondered how I survive traveling alone, especially friends who know how disaster-prone and directionally-challenged I am. People really are curious HOW DO I SURVIVE?? How do I survive navigating in a country when I can’t read maps well and don’t know the language spoken? They’ve asked me in disbelief usually right after I demonstrate that I have the worst directional skills in the history of travel bloggers or my disaster-peppered history resurfaces and simply speaks for itself. My travel disasters have cost me time, money and embarrassment, but I’d also like to think that they’ve built character and taught me lessons too.



For the first time, I’m going to share with you my secret to surviving travel disasters and keeping your sanity when they happen…as long as you keep the travel-savvy image of me in your head, if it was ever there in the first place!



The secret? Mindset. I call it Travel Taoism.



I’m by no means an expert on Taoism, but one World Religions lesson from undergrad stands out in my mind. The lesson covered a Taoism principle about letting go and letting nature take its course. In doing this, everything will work out. Think of a river flowing and carving out new paths if it becomes hindered. Literally and figuratively, “go with the flow.”



While planning is one of the best ways to avoid travel stress, there are always unforeseen disasters that you simply can’t plan for. My favorite way to avoid travel stress is to embrace Travel Taoism. For me, I have to believe that everything will work out. I may not know exactly how it will work out at the time, but am comforted by the thought that it will work out. As long as there is no imminent danger (real danger and not a hair dryer short circuiting!), then I cut my losses whether time, valuables or money is lost, and I remind myself what a great story this will be once I survive it. Really, who retells a story about tanning on a beach…it’s about missing the plane, getting held up at customs or the bird that pooped on you while you were sunbathing that’s juicy material!



I’ve had my share of travel disasters. Memories flood my mind, like the time my accommodation fell through the morning I was leaving on a plane to Bangkok. Or the time I missed my international flight to Shanghai or the time I couldn’t board a plane to Vietnam because I didn’t have a visa. Or the time I left my purse that had my passport, money and all my personal keys on a bus in Kyoto. Or the time my luggage broke on the way to the train in Beijing. These all were disasters. But in the end, all was fine. I was naturally stressed at times, but mostly I thought to myself, “Here’s another one, I wonder what’s going to happen this time” and then internally smiled.



With a laundry list of other disasters under my belt, I’ve compiled a list of lessons and advice to pass along.



Helen’s Travel Taoism*:



1. Really embrace the belief that EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY
2. Keep humor and you’ll keep your sanity
3. Don’t be scared to ask for help; locals are a great resource
4. Think of what a great story it will be once you’ve survived it
5. Remember, it’s only money
6. Plan for travel disasters and they won’t be a surprise when they happen (seriously, I budget in time to get lost when I go almost anywhere
7. Stop. Take a deep breath. Hold. Exhale.
8. If you are alive and well, that’s ALL that matters.
9. Think of it as a challenge to put your creative problem-solving skills to the test
10. Be kind to the people around you even if you are stressed. They will be able to help you better if you approach them with a good attitude, and you want their help!
11. Stress leads to unclear thinking…you want to be able to think as clearly as possible when things go wrong. See point #1 again to not stress out.
12. Travel disasters build character
13. Learn something from the disaster
14. Accept the fact that you can’t control external situations
15. Given #14, you may not be able to control the situation but you can control your response to it
16. Proactively avoid bad situations
17. Keep a good attitude
18. Smiles go along way on the road…whether the road is less traveled or one you can’t identify because you’re lost!



Do you have any tips I missed or travel disasters you’d like share? Comment below!!



Hakuna Matata,
Helen



*Disclaimer: Planning and keeping your head on your shoulders and proactively avoiding bad situations are important. Having a plan B up your sleeve is good, but always be prepared for the worst, and know what tools you’re going to use to get you out of the situation (a phone call that requires you to know a specific phone number, credit card, internet, an embassy, a local’s kindness, etc.).

On a short flight from Boston to New York a couple of weeks ago I sat by a very nice lady born and bred in Massachusetts heading to a convention in Portland, Oregon. We had a pleasant conversation about Boston and the usual small chat including how I am from Tennessee but don’t sport a Southern accent. She made a hilarious comment about her husband, describing him as a “wicked redneck.” For those not familiar with Boston and Massachusetts slang, “wicked” is still intertwined into the fabric of local Bostonian everyday speech; however, I’d never heard it paired with “redneck.” “Redneck” is something that I deeply associate with the guys who had rebel flags plastered all over their pickup trucks in the high school parking lot back in East Tennessee among other local nuances like spitting chew into whatever cup may be available.

When I made the 5 hour driving leap from Pigeon Forge, TN to the “big” city of Cincinnati, OH, for college I thought I’d left all the rednecks behind me, endearing and friends as they are. My bubble burst after the first fireworks event I went to on the riverfront in Cinci. The familiar sights of males with long, straggly hair sporting Dale Earnhardt attire were abundant. Ah, memories of home came flooding back, but more than that it was apparent, rednecks weren’t just in Tennessee.

Now that I’ve lived in Boston for over a year and a half, worked at a sports bar in Allston and generally gotten a handle on the city, it is apparent rednecks are here too. While they don’t have the same roots as the term “redneck” in the South, derived from farmers working in the sun and incidentally getting sunburns on their necks, some of the same characteristics of what I know from home thrive here in mostly blue collar, born and bred Massachusetts locals. The best adjective I can come up with to describe the consistent characteristic is “good ole boys” (while this has a masculine reference, it also includes females!). They are tied to their roots, don’t stray too far from home, have the same set of core friends for life and may appear a little rough around the edges but underneath just good people doing what they know how to. While Jeff Foxworthy has a whole lot of humorous points, him and the popularity of NASCAR attest to the fact that rednecks are everywhere, even in the form of wicked rednecks here in New England. As I’m writing this, a slight smile has crept up on my face, because deep down, I know I have a little redneck in me and it just took a plane ride chat to remind me of my own roots.

Last night I got into a great conversation about art with a friend who works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art which triggered a tangent on surreal travel moments. There’s one of these moments that stands out in my mind from this past summer that I’d like to share.

While traveling through Cambodia with The World by Road Expedition we passed miles and miles of rubber tree farms. These farms have trees lined in perfect rows and alone, make for beautiful road-side scenery. The surreal travel moment came when they made me think of Van Gogh’s Undergrowth with Two Figures painting. The original is housed in Cincinnati’s Art Museum of which I wrote a reflection of the painting for an Art and Theology class while at Xavier.

I was in awe of the fact that half a world away, 117 years after Van Gogh painted Undergrowth, I’m in Cambodia reflecting on how the rubber tree farms relate to his work. Not knowing what inspired Van Gogh’s work, the resemblance of the trees in Cambodia, a place Van Gogh would never have been exposed to, amazes me.

What a surreal feeling to see something I once described as Van Gogh’s fictional world come to life in Southeast Asia!

Check it out for yourself:

Cambodia Rubber Tree Farm

Vincent Van Gogh Undergrowth with Two Figures, 1890