Throughout the last 11 months of my life, I’ve been incredibly privileged to travel from Asia, to Africa, and now, all too soon, I’m wrapping up my final month in South America. If I could tell you one thing about my journey around the world, it would be this: it was nothing like I thought it would be. The last 11 months has been breath-taking, exhausting, exciting, disgusting, terrifying, fulfilling, and a truly, truly unique experience.
For those who’ve been on the World Race before, or who are experiencing it with me, you know what I mean. For those of you who haven’t, my teammates and I have compiled a list of things that will provide a little glimpse into the life of a World Racer, and how you can more easily identify them in the future.
You might be a World Racer if…
Hearing a stranger speak English with an American accent is the most shocking thing you’ve heard in months.
You’re walking around wearing only one sock because there’s no toilet paper.
At least once a day someone in your inner circle says, “What is my life?!” or, “Where am I right now?”
You’re ecstatic about seeing a toilet seat.
You’ve ever eaten a four course meal for less than 2USD.
You find an American coin and at first you don’t know what it is.
You’re surrounded by the Himalayan mountain range and still the most amazing thing you’ve seen all day is someone walking into the house with a giant pack of toilet paper.
You hear the words “feedback” and “team time” every single day.
You think any and every setting is an acceptable atmosphere to talk about poop (and you feel it’s truly necessary to include every detail from your location at the time, size, color, smell, consistency, what you wiped with, and whether or not it included any recent meal particles).
Your response to learning you’re going to be on a bus for 12 hours is, “Oh, that’s not so bad.”
You feel like you’ve grown more in the last year than you have in your entire life.
You’ve taken a walk down the road from your living quarters and actually had to be concerned that locals might emerge from the jungle and attack you.
You’ve seen 3 wonders of the world in the last year.
You can pack up your entire life in about 20 minutes.
You think anything exceeding 5 USD is an outrageous price to pay for a taxi, and along those lines, you can’t see any reason whatsoever why you shouldn’t be allowed to cram up to 6 people into a taxi (in addition to the driver).
You’ve gotten your own feces on your hand and only freaked out a little bit.
You can more easily identify a month by the country you were living in at the time than by the name of the month.
At this point you just start making stuff up when you don’t know the answer to a question on your visa application.
You hoard extra napkins and toilet paper from anywhere and everywhere because you know the likelihood of the next 50 restrooms you visit having toilet paper is slim to none.
You’re so used to cramming into vehicles that your first instinct is to climb into the trunk even when there are plenty of seats still available in the front.
You “always have a place to stay” in at least 3 different continents.
Someone compares crossing the road to playing Frogger at least once a month.
Every stranger you meet asks you about Donald Trump.
You see 100 dogs each day, and rarely ever can you identify a recognizable breed.
On travel days, you choose dehydration in order to avoid public restrooms or holding it for hours on the bus.
You dream of and/or pray for hot showers with good water pressure.
You’re willing to take the risk of getting a parasite if it means you get to eat some vegetables.
You’ve formed deeper friendships in just the last year than you have in your entire life.
Sometimes you get excited about a 24 hour bus ride because it means you get to spend a whole day with all your friends.
There is video documentation of the last 11 months of your life.
To my N-Squad family: If I’ve forgotten something, please feel free to make your own additions in the comments below!
