Life In Limbo

How to Live More Intentionally

November 24, 2014

The theme of storytelling has been on my mind a lot lately. I’m finding it an especially interesting idea as I start to plan the next chapter in my life’s adventure. The phrase that keeps appearing in my mind, over and over as I think about the future, is:

Your life is a book. What do you want it to say? What do you want your story to be?

Since moving abroad, it’s become clear to me that it’s important to be intentional with my one wild and precious life. I’ve met people here from all over the world and their stories have inspired me to think differently. When I left Canada, I only intended to be away for one year: Korea was meant to be my one crazy adventure before settling down and starting my “real life”. But the longer I’m away, and the more people I talk to, I have realized that this is my real life, I am lucky to be living it this way, and I can do whatever I want with it in the future.

My word for the year was abundance, and one of the many important things it has taught me this year is that we have so many options. We all have more time and possibilities available to us than we’re led to believe when we graduate from university.

Contrary to what I thought before I left, since being here I’ve actually encountered more opportunities to grow my career, build my skills and make plans for the future. I’ve transitioned from an unpaid internship to a paid position, I’ve had time to work on my freelance writing, I’ve improved my photography, and I’ve begun to shift my blog in a direction I’m proud of. Through listening to my intuition and believing in abundance, I’ve encountered far more opportunity than I believe I would have, had I stayed at home.

Maybe your intuition isn’t telling you to leave your job and move to a foreign country: I don’t think that is the answer for everyone. What I do believe is that there’s always a third alternative. Life is not black-and-white. If you’re willing to explore new opportunities and possibilities, even those that don’t seem quite right at first, you may be led to things you never could have imagined. I truly believe if you do, you will encounter things you never expected to, better things than you ever could have predicted.

Life should be led with intention. If there’s one thing these nine months away have taught me so far, it’s that I’m going to need to choose. If I want to go on adventures, it’s up to me to make them happen. I recognize now that I am the writer, my life is my story and I get to decide what ends up in the book. At the end of my life, all I’ll have is whatever I chose to write on the pages. To me this means I can’t coast. I can’t expect anything to happen for me, an idea which is at once terrifying and empowering.

Perhaps that’s part of why I’m so excited to have my mom visit me here: I realize that Korea is a short but meaningful chapter in my hopefully long life. I’m so grateful that she will get to see what this part of my story was like.

So, as 2014 winds down, and you start to make plans for the new year, ask yourself:

What do you want your story to say?

Inspiration | November 21

November 21, 2014

I started listening to the This Is Your Life Podcast this week and have been really inspired by all the episodes I’ve heard so far. It’s all about leadership and productivity and branding.

I cried after watching this video about touchable memories. Such a truly powerful idea.

How cool does the Passion Planner look? I am considering funding the Kickstarter just to get one of my own.

I finished reading The Slight Edge this week and inspired the heck out of me! Seriously, this is one of the more powerful books I’ve read this year. (More book recommendations here)

Inbox for Gmail turns out to be awesome. I signed up to get an invite last week and I’ve been really liking it so far. I like the way they bundle together emails so I can instantly tell what’s important and what’s not (aka what’s in my “Promos” bundle). A side effect has been unsubscribing to a lot of email lists..

This article on how and why to keep a commonplace book was very inspiring. I have always written quotes down in whatever notebook or app I tend to be using at the time, but I love the idea of having a more consolidated and organized system.

I signed up for a free account on Copyblogger and got access to so many awesome ebooks about marketing and and copywriting.

Dylan interviewed his grandparents for their 65th wedding anniversary and it was a really touching article.

Such an awesome piece about traveling or being an expat for years.

On a related note, I loved this article about what you need to move to a new city. It’s giving me ideas for the next stage of my own personal adventure!

This week on Guinea Pigging Green, Laura and I are talking all about yoga teacher training! It was a fun episode to record and I think we touched on a lot of the interesting questions people might have about signing up for a training like this.

***

Sometimes I don’t have many inspirational things to share at the end of each week, and sometimes (like today!) my cup runneth over. I was so endlessly inspired this week by so many different kinds of things, and that’s exactly how I like it. You may have noticed already, but I’ve decided to slow down my posting schedule here on the blog and devote more of my time to developing helpful content rather than just working to get something up every weekday. I’m already noticing huge gains in my productivity and planning for the future and this feels like a more sustainable rhythm for me.

This week flew by, and I don’t expect the next one to go any slower! My mom is arriving one week from yesterday and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I cannot wait to give her huge hugs and show her around my corner of Korea. Have a wonderful weekend!

6 Free Helpful Apps for Travelers

November 19, 2014

Travel goes hand-in-hand with uncertainty. Every day you’re traveling, you’re bound to encounter problems you didn’t foresee, which will require creative ideas to solve. There’s no way around the fact that traveling is fraught with changes of plan and a lot of unknowns. But there are ways to make this process easier on yourself when the inevitable issues do arise, and one way is to embrace the magic of technology. We all know how much power and utility are now packed into a device that fits into the palm of our hand. The key is to harness this power in a way that serves you the best. There are countless free apps on the market now which can help make your travel process a whole lot smoother and easier to deal with. Here are my top six recommendations for apps that will make a huge difference while you’re traveling.

Ulmon Guides: City Maps 2 Go

These are far and away my favourite apps for travel. They are comprehensive off-line city maps for most major cities worldwide. The compass function allows you to navigate the city in real time without an Internet connection, a tool that has saved me so much of both time and money. The app often also has the city’s metro system embedded within its map, as well as the descriptions and locations of all major tourist attractions in the area. In fact, there’s not much you can’t search within these apps. They are a very valuable resource for any traveler.

ICOON Picture Dictionary

Truthfully, I didn’t use this app very much on my trip to Europe, But that could have been because I was mostly traveling through cities that get a lot of tourism and thus have a fairly good grasp of English. However, as I start to plan my travels in Southeast Asia, I can see this app coming in handy a lot more often. It is in essence a digital version of a Point-It dictionary with pictures of lots of things you might find the need to ask for such as bathrooms, a telephone, or where you can get the best massage in the city. If you’re going somewhere with a language barrier, this could be a lifesaver.

Oanda Currency Converter

This is the app I use to check exchange rates wherever I am. If you don’t have an Internet connection it will tell you that you need one, but in my experience you are able to search off-line, if not with the most real time exchange rate available. There are some currencies I have found difficult to calculate in my head (some coming to mind are the Croatian Kuna, the Japanese Yen, and even the British pound) which makes an app like this tremendously helpful.

Kayak or Momondo

When I was traveling through Europe last year I didn’t know about Momondo so I was using Kayak exclusively to search for cheap flights. I’ve recently fallen in love with the former though, and will probably be using it more often in the future. Both apps scour the Internet to find you the cheapest flight deals to where you want to go. Momondo has a great feature where it will also show you an overall quality score for each flight which combines both price and length of flight.

Hostelworld

For most of my trip last year, I didn’t know there was a Hostelworld app, and so made all of my bookings online through their website. Hostelworld has always been my site of choice for booking hostels because I find it the easiest to use and that it has the best reviews from other travelers. Their app is easy to use and very straightforward to check reviews and book.

Google Apps

Okay this is more than just one app but these products are so good they’re worth a mention just in case for some reason you don’t have them installed already. When I have an Internet connection I like to use Google Maps, as it tends to know the locations of most of the things I am trying to find even if they’re small businesses or restaurants. If I know I won’t have Internet when I’m navigating the city the next day I’ll usually take a screenshot of the location and then try to compare it to my current location shown on one of my Ulmon maps or in a pre-loaded Google map. I keep all my important travel documents as well as my massive trip spreadsheet stored in the cloud on Google Drive, and can access and edit them from the Docs or Sheets apps. And Google Translate is my service of choice for asking questions in another language, although you do need the Internet to use it.

Honorable Mention:

Rick Steves Audio Europe: Guided audio tours of many interesting historical tourist spots in Europe, including museums. I listened to a lot for Italy, including the Sistine Chapel, St Peter’s Basilica, and the Roman Forum. The guides are really interesting and totally free.

***

These apps have really smoothed out some of the inevitable kinks I’ve encountered while travelling. They’ve kept me from getting lost in Tokyo and spending too much money in London. They’ve helped me keep track of restaurant recommendations in Amsterdam from fellow travellers and book good, cheap accommodation on the spot.

What’s a great travel app that you would recommend? What was a time that technology has saved you some time or money on your travels?

What to Pack When Moving to Korea to Teach English >> Life In Limbo

Top 5 Most Useful Things I Pack When Travelling

November 17, 2014

Top 5 Most Useful Things I Pack When Travelling

If you’re anything like me, you do a lot of researching and reading of packing list posts on the internet before you actually pack your bags and go anywhere. But I find that sometimes it can be hard to tell what items on the list will actually be helpful once you’re on your trip and which things you’ll wish you left at home.

So far my only long-term trip has been a 3-month one through Europe, and there are some things I packed with me on that trip last year that I’d wished I left at home and others that I was so happy that I had with me the whole time. Here are the top five most useful things that I packed with me on my backpacking trip (& some honorable mentions!).

1. Packing Cubes

Top 5 Most Useful Things I Pack When Travelling >> Life In Limbo
I always thought that packing cubes were bit of a gimmick, a way for companies to squeeze a little bit more money out of you while adding no real benefit: I was wrong. Packing cubes were the single best addition to my backpack on my trip last year and on every trip since. They’re such an easy and effective way to keep your backpack organized when you’re on the road. You don’t need many, I’d recommend one large, and one medium-sized. Most of the time I use the big one for all my shirts and the smaller one for socks and underwear, but you can of course customize their use depending on what you prefer. I have two of these Eaglecreek packing cubes that are incredibly lightweight and take up literally no space when they’re not being used, but they have totally changed the way I pack to travel.

2. Headlamp

It might seem a bit extreme for a backpacking trip, but if you’re staying in hostels, a headlamp can be your best friend. Most of the time your schedule won’t match up with that of the people sharing your hostel room, so sometimes by the time you get home, an early bird may have already turned off the lights for the night. While some of the more modern hostels now have individual bed lights, many do not. Take it from me: rummaging around in your bag in the dark trying to find your toothbrush while not making any noise is a nightmare, and you should never be that person who turns on the overhead light after everyone else is already asleep. The flashlight function on your phone will work in a pinch, but I tend to prefer having my hands free.

3. Smart Phone

Top 5 Most Useful Things I Pack When Travelling >> Life In Limbo
Having a device that can connect to Wi-Fi makes any travel experience that much smoother. While I was travelling in Europe I used my iPad mini for almost everything: finding directions, reading books, booking hostels, sending e-mail, blogging, FaceTiming, storing photos and navigating new cities. Of course it doesn’t have to be an iPhone or an iPad, but something that can connect to the internet and has helpful apps available for download is a tremendous help while you’re traveling.

4. Quick-drying towel

These might seem more suited for a camping trip and are not the most fashionable items on the market, but they are worth their (not very significant) weight in gold. There is nothing worse than carrying a damp towel around in your backpack, especially if it’s also big and bulky. Look for a towel that is close to full-sized, folds up small and doesn’t weigh much. This is the one that I used on my backpacking trip. You can hang these out on the end of any hostel bunk bed and they’ll be dry by morning. Bringing your own lightweight towel is also wise economic decision because although you can rent towels from almost any hostel, the cost of renting them quickly adds up.

5. Combination lock and/or suitcase lock

I very nearly left my lock at home, thinking that any hostel with a locker would also have locks. I’m so glad I brought it though, because while many hostels have lockers, they don’t always have locks, or they charge you to rent them, which again can add up. I carried both a classic combination lock and a smaller suitcase lock with a key, and was glad I had both. If you only have room for one, I’d probably recommend Samsonite Luggage 3 Dial Travel Sentry Combo Lock, Black, One Size“>a good combination suitcase lock as some of the lockers in European hostels are very small and some can’t even accommodate a classic lock.

Top 5 Most Useful Things I Pack When Travelling >> Life In Limbo

Honorable Mentions:

Collapsible water bottle: This was such a lifesaver on my trip. It saved me a lot of money by not buying bottles of water, and collapsed down as it emptied so it could fit in my purse most of the time.
Ziploc bags: I bring several. Smaller ones to hold things like memory cards and pens, larger ones to protect books or journals from possible water damage, and even bigger ones for damp bathing suits or dirty laundry. I adore Ziploc bags.
Earplugs
Diva Cup (for ladies): once you get the hang of using one, there’s no going back. Easy, clean, lightweight – perfect for travellers.

What do you make sure to never leave home without? Is there anything that you’ve packed on your travels that have made your backpacking life easier?