The Road Less Traveled: The Health and Happiness Potential of the Nomadic Lifestyle
By Serena Weil
For many, travel seems to be a lofty, unattainable dream of a resort vacation or a visit to the Eiffel Tower. But what if it was actually healthier and more enjoyable to travel the world on a dime instead of working overtime for a week or two of vacation? A rejection of the capitalist ideals that make many people unwell, the nomadic lifestyle promotes holistic health and healing. Nomads replace the excessive materialistic goals of Americans and other people in high-stress, money-driven societies with basic needs and thus learn to find joy in the “little” things like meeting new people, waking up to a different schedule and circumstance each day, and exploring new cities and the great outdoors, often with ample time to do what they enjoy and find personal methods of healing. Traveling can remove financial stress and add nature and exercise into one’s life as they become enriched with the novelty of seeing the world and all of the personal growth, learning, and healing that comes along with it. Ultimately, the lifestyle places focus on enjoying the journey rather than arriving at the destination, freeing nomads from the chains of capitalistic society to live “the good life” while creating their own exploratory definition of what that means on a personal level.
With only one-third of Americans owning a valid passport, it is evident that international travel is not a priority or even a possibility for most working Americans. In her book Post-Growth Living, Kate Soper points out the “discontent about the affluent lifestyle” ripe with “the excesses of consumerism” and “the problems of time-scarcity and pollution along with the stress and ill-health of consumers and their lament for pleasures that our work-and-spend mode of existence has eroded or supplanted altogether” (Soper 4). Slowly, more and more young Americans are discovering the value of travel and the nomadic lifestyle as a better replacement for the consumerist lifestyles that many are raised to buy into. With #vanlife trending on social media, false “promises about what will happen after you go to college and get a degree” have generated “a sense of hopelessness in [this] generation, in terms of jobs” and shown that “it’s cheap to live in a van” (Monroe). The opportunity to travel freely, even while working remotely, has inspired countless couples and individuals to make the switch to the van lifestyle, driven by nomadic desires and an opportunity to live in accordance with nature. The pull that a nomadic lifestyle has on physically and mentally dissatisfied young people is not a mystery.
Not only is the nomadic lifestyle fun, it has the potential to provide healing from both personal and societal issues. When I was eighteen, I graduated from high school, saved up every penny of my barista and pizza shop cashier money, and set out to spend ten months backpacking solo through Southeast Asia and Europe. I had dreamed of taking time off before college to travel since freshman year. Four months into the trip, I fractured my spine in a cliff jumping accident in the Philippines. In an instant, my dream was over, and so were the prospects of empowerment, freedom, and inspiration I believed I would find during my journey. After three months of healing in bed at my mom’s house in suburban Pennsylvania, it became clear that my journey had not ended, but it had morphed into a greater quest for healing. The mental health struggles I experienced prior to the accident as an anxiety-ridden, somewhat depressed high school student were magnified by the PTSD, OCD, and chronic pain I had developed. My parents pushed for me to start attending college that fall, but the issues I was facing with my mental, spiritual, and physical health had other plans. I restarted an around-the-world adventure to discover if and how I could possibly heal and become a better version of myself than I had ever experienced before.
My international quest for healing follows a long tradition of travelers. Nomad-ing did not start with this generation, as a drive to nature dates back to the days of Thoreau’s musings on Walden pond and more recently, the hippies of the 1960’s. Similar to the discontent of today’s youth, the breakup of hippies and traditional society “was not just rebellion; the entire hippie movement was born out of a need to break away from industrial-capitalist America which had come to dominate every aspect of life” (DeCleene). Furthermore, “the hippie movement may have appeared hedonistic, but at its core, it was about creating new ways of living” (DeCleene). While my friends settled into their college course loads each semester, I embarked on one journey after another, each providing me with fresh insights on how to live better. And while a travel-based lifestyle may seem purely fun, the rise of digital nomads in the past ten years has proved that traveling is not only for vacation. Tom Stevenson’s Medium article discusses the details of international digital nomad life, pointing out that “the first thing you realize about being a digital nomad is an overwhelming sense of freedom. It’s hard to describe, but when you wake up in the morning, you realize that you can do whatever you want” (Stevenson). The empowerment of choosing novelty and agency over monotonous routine and being a cog in the machine of capitalism is unmatched. The magic is apparent when I recall how trapped I felt in high school compared to the immediate realization early on in my travels that I had the power to be as happy and healthy as I wanted to be.
Whereas in college every decision is geared towards the future, nomad life gave me autonomy while forcing me to constantly stay in the present, regardless of what I was facing at the time. The fifteen countries I traveled to post-accident exposed me to new cultures, helped develop my spirituality, blessed me with exciting passions, and relieved me from the physical and emotional pain I felt trapped in experiencing. The first place I visited after my injury was South America: I began in Chile, exploring the other-worldly Valle de Marte, the place on Earth most similar to Mars, followed by Bolivia’s impeccably beautiful Salar de Uyuni salt flats that reflect the sunrise like a gigantic mirror, ending in Colombia, joining local dance classes and meeting friends from around the world who I still keep in touch with to this day. My return to nomad life started off with a bang, finally allowing me time in nature and for creativity, on less than $25 a day. Even if I was still scared and in pain, I began to open back up to the world and its possibilities.
I flew to Paris next for a month-long ballet intensive, hoping I could fix my core strength and posture while learning in the birthplace of the art form. While ballet school proved rigid and reminiscent of feeling controlled in high school, which deterred me from wanting to make an effort, I made discoveries on a new plane of health: nutrition. In most countries, it was clear that the stereotype of enormous American portion sizes has a lot of truth to it, but seeing how the French prioritized and elongated mealtimes, even with tiny portions, was enlightening. Moreover, travelling outside of the United States allows Americans to nourish our bodies with fruit that tastes like fruit and other foods that are not processed toxically: simply comparing nutrition labels for the same snacks between the US and any European country exposes the excessive ingredients in American foods. For instance, in the United States a Dr. Pepper soda contains “36 grams of sugar per serving, significantly more than the 22 grams the same product contains in Germany” (Dwyer). And in France, sucrose-sweetened Coca-Cola tastes different than that of the high fructose corn syrup variety in the United States because of capitalistic decisions the US made with disregard to the health of Americans: “using HFCS as a sweetener in the early 80s because of government subsidies to corn producers, an import tariff on foreign sugar, and production quotas on domestic sugar” (Bell). From nutrition facts to finance, the United States has caused its own obesity epidemic and influenced the mental health crisis as well by utilizing addictive chemicals in commonplace foods and beverages. I decided I would stay away from the States as long as I could.
Still struggling with chronic pain and accompanying mental health issues post-back injury, I headed to India, the birthplace of yoga, and joined an ashram in search of enlightenment, of course, but mostly a yoga teaching certification in order to continuously discover new ways to heal my fragile spine and devastated core muscles. I found what I was looking for and more. Learning about ayurvedic medicine and becoming a yoga teacher enabled me to develop a newfound mental and physical health balance. Yoga taught me to stay in an even more present moment: the breath. Presence is central to yoga and important in detaching from outcomes, a cornerstone of yogic belief. My practice allowed me to release unnecessary worries about how my back would support me in 20 years and whether I was doomed to be slouched over in pain forever. Not only was the content of yoga school extremely helpful to my healing, the people I was surrounded by and their wisdom made a massive difference.
When you travel, a central fact of hostel conversations is that everyone has a story. And most people are eager to tell you theirs, how they ended up expatriating to a new country, quitting their job, or following their long-held travel dreams. Americans love these conversations especially, because to them it is such a rebellious concept compared to the expectation of settling down and putting all energy towards working. While I met people from every continent in all of the nineteen countries I visited and enjoyed listening to various perspectives, attending yoga school in India was a new level: With fifteen people of all ages and backgrounds living, eating, meditating, and learning to teach yoga together while pushing spiritual and physical boundaries for a month, the circumstance gave way to a lot of openness and storytelling. A man in his twenties from Georgia often raved about how he cured his cancer through meditation, but my favorite piece of knowledge came from my new friend, Romy. A businessman from New Delhi, he was the only Indian in our class of foreigners, and taught me the phrase “sab kuch milega,” which roughly translates to “everything is possible” or “you will get everything [you ask for].” In India, the phrase is more often shown than said. On the holiday of Shivarati when it’s traditional to gather and drink bhang lassi but can’t find any on the local menus, you should simply ask the waiter and more than likely it will be possible for them to make it for you. Somehow, the special ingredients will arise and in moments you will have what you asked for and believed would not be possible. And if you’re attached to one version of yourself, forget it, because there are many more possible incarnations of yourself still yet to be. While many cultural beliefs from around the world impacted me greatly, “sab kuch milega” left an undeniable imprint on my mind and changed how I approach both life and the possibilities of healing I was and am still yet to find.
I believe that a big part of my healing during my travels has to do with having the time to replace one horrific, traumatic experience with plenty of new, reassuring ones. That single tragic day in the Philippines pales in comparison to the places I fulfilled my dream of seeing, the kind people from all over the world I met along the way, the lessons I learned, the knowledge I attained, and the sheer amount of challenges I managed to overcome on my own. The gripping months of PTSD I went through dissolved more and more with each beautiful place and soul I encountered. The effects of novelty have scientifically-proven benefits: “The hippocampus and amygdala are linked to SN/VTA activity through memory and learning. There seems to be a straightforward motivational boost to explore our environments, to take risk and learn something new, in search of rewards” (Jordan). And according to psychologist C. Robert Cloninger, “novelty-seeking is one of the traits that keeps you healthy and happy and fosters personality growth as you age” (Tierney). I would agree with both of these statements, and even when living in one place I intentionally seek out new places and experiences as if I were traveling.
On the very last day of my travels, I woke up with the sunrise in Antigua, Guatemala, to take on my greatest challenge yet: hiking seven hours uphill to camp overnight on Volcan Acatenango, watch the neighboring active Volcan Fuego erupt through the night, and reach the summit by sunrise. After hearing countless travelers rank the Acatenango hike as the absolute best thing they did in Guatemala, Central America, or in their travels overall, I was intrigued. For weeks I struggled with my anxious fear of volcanoes, imagining myself buried in a Pompeii situation, and debated whether or not I was physically ready since I still could barely carry my backpack for more than ten minutes at a time. A new friend of mine joined me at the last minute, a friend who insisted on hiking at the very front of the group. And I kept pace, and we made it up the volcano first. And all of the things I never thought I would be able to do again, I did. Hiking Volcan Acatenango was a major milestone representing the healing and strength I had found traveling post-injury. The lessons I learned in my travels post-injury and the benefit they had to my physical and mental strength carried me to the summit. My nomadic experience led me to a peak state of happiness and health, granting me memories and an approach to living that can never be taken away from me. I am forever grateful for my travels allowing me to live “the good life” as I know it, and perpetually recommend long-term traveling for others to discover the same balance. If more people considered implementing the nomadic lifestyle and celebrating the merits of novelty, we would become a society filled with free-thinking individuals empowered with the knowledge that staying and working in one place is not the only way to live, and be happier and healthier for it.
Works Cited
Bell, S. M. (2013, January 1). Why Coke tastes better in France. je parle américain. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://jeparleamericain.com/2012/01/22/why-coke-tastes-better-in-france/.
DeCleene, J. (2018, August 7). The 1960s hippie movement and how it gave rise to Silicon Valley. Medium. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/the-1960s-hippie-movement-and-how-it-gave-rise-to-silicon-valley-b0c54090792e.
Dwyer, L. (2015, October 2). Soda has a lot less sugar if you're not in the United States. TakePart. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/10/02/soda-has-lot-less-sugar-if-youre-not-us.
Jordan, M. (n.d.). Novelty keeps your brain healthy. CIIS. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.ciis.edu/ciis-news-and-events/blog/novelty-and-brain-health.
Monroe, R., Hessler, P., & Paumgarten, N. (2017, April 17). Vanlife, the Bohemian Social-media Movement. The New Yorker. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/24/vanlife-the-bohemian-social-media-movement.
Soper, K. (2020). Post-growth living: For an alternative hedonism. Verso.
Stevenson, T. (2020, April 28). The digital nomad lifestyle isn't as great as you think. Medium. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/the-digital-nomad-lifestyle-isnt-as-great-as-you-think-110bca215619.
Tierney, J. (2012, February 13). What's new? Exuberance for novelty has benefits. The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/novelty-seeking-neophilia-can-be-a-predictor-of-well-being.html.