Writing a quickie during my plane ride jetting from Bangkok to Taipei. Today is one of those marathon travel days. I started in the morning in Chiang Mai, 5 hour layover Bangkok, 3.5 hour flight to Taiwan, and then an 11 hour flight to San Francisco.
I’m quite rusty with my long flight routines. Outside of attempting to sleep I haven’t figured out the most satisfying way to use my time. In an idealistic world I would do some serious meditation, alternate between reading good fiction and non-fiction, write some fiction, stretch, and write this blog. Baby steps… I’m writing this blog at least.
This flight back is the finale of my 10-day trip to Thailand, but it seems like it is going to be the start of my voyage back into nomading again (on a side-note digital nomads and that whole arena has become as embarrassing to be associated with as cryptocurrency, but nonetheless I’m a part of it). I previously lived in various parts of the world for nearly a year, and enjoyed it although I felt certain parts of my life were missing. At the end of my last nomadic experience I wanted some stability in income and location, and happily settled in Silicon Valley. Ironically I never did end up taking a job even though I moved to one of the most expensive areas of the world. The experience and environment was exactly what I needed though, and I got to the final interviews at the biggest tech companies which I could easily jump back into in the future.
If I wanted stability and a job I would go back in a heartbeat, but for the time being those aren’t what I’m focusing on. I’m embracing the fact that the crypto economy has the potential to solve many of the problems that have bothered me for a long time (one of which was how to get governments to not manipulate the monetary system: it turns out we don’t need gold to do it!), and I feel uniquely qualified to make a dent in the industry. I’m still in the exploratory/educational phase of absorbing everything, and I don’t need to be in the Bay Area to do that. I really enjoy Machine Learning and especially neural network algorithms, and I plan to keep up with weekly digests/Twitter so I have a feeling for what’s going on, but there is “lower hanging fruit” for me to handle in the crypto world. Crypto also is very technical, and my coding/critical thinking skills should only strengthen.
When I get back tonight (I’m traveling back in time being more than a half-day ahead) I’m going to fill out my 30-day paperwork to move out, and begin the firesale of my furniture/extra items. Coming from two vacations though of course I also need to crash-diet to get some semblance of health and self-respect for myself back, as well as get deep with crypto like I was previous to my trips. Also on the agenda is to spend some time with everyone I met in the past year + that I liked (some great, great people in Silicon Valley/SF). The people and nature are what I’ll miss most.
Where am I off to next? Good question… The current list of strong contenders for the spring are: Colombia, Bali, Thailand, Vietnam, and Mexico. This list is likely to change, and hopefully in a week or two I’ll settle on something. For me it’s not a huge deal as it’s only a 2-3 month commitment, but of course I want the best all-around experience possible. The big thing for me in this next phase is getting to work instantly. I don’t want to settle into a country going out to eat/drink/hanging out for 4 weeks before I start to do anything serious with my time. Of course there is time for that weekly, but it can’t be the focus. I also hope to have family/friends visit and give everyone an excuse to try out some new places.
About to touch-down in Taiwan, so that signals the end of this installment!
This is the entrance of nice temple that I hiked to in Chiang Mai. It’s close to Chiang Mai University, highly recommended if you’re in town.
Andrew Manser 