Why Remote Year is Worth Every Last Penny

A few weeks before I left for Remote Year, I went to a ‘travel lovers’ networking event in NYC. On our name tags, we wrote our next destination, and I was so excited to talk about RY (and maybe meet an alum). Many people were intrigued by the program, but one relatively well-known travel blogger looked at me disgusted and asked:

“But why would you pay for that? You could do it by yourself for so much cheaper.”

He isn’t wrong – there are plenty of cities where booking a cheap flight, finding a shared apartment and a co-working space would definitely be less expensive than paying the monthly cost of RY. (Ahem, Kyoto isn’t one of those, but I digress.)

What he didn’t realize – and frankly, what I didn’t fully comprehend yet – was the true value of RY. It isn’t in the functionality or the ease of transport between cities, countries and continents – but in the people.

It’s three tired, drunk friends waiting downstairs for you at a three-story gaming center to make sure you didn’t have to bike home in the cold by yourself. It’s stumbling into a Western-themed restaurant with 100 Belgium beers on tap in the middle of Kyoto with a personal trainer from Los Angeles and an entrepreneur from Spain.

It’s texting friends, a mere few stories above you, to figure out how to use a Japanese washing machine. It’s deciding to order a pizza on a website, whose language you can’t read, because it’s raining and freezing outside. It’s impromptu decisions to go bowling because you run into six people in the middle of a busy street that you recognize. And working together to use Google translate to figure out how to book lanes. It’s a creme brulee doughnut placed on your desk because it’s Friday. Or the shared love for the surprisingly delicious 7/11 carton of cold, black iced coffee and pancakes that have syrup and butter baked in. It’s check-in text messages and candid photos, last calls and giggles on bikes, trains, taxis and planes. It’s 40 new WhatsApp numbers, constant Slack notifications, teamwork to buy drinks, to navigate a metro system, to figure out bike paths and to order anything off the menu. It’s the question marks that you no longer have to figure out alone because, well you aren’t anymore.

There isn’t a price tag you can put on Yugen.

On the people I’m in this journey with, who stand up and stand together through the ebbs and the flows, the language barriers, the discrepancies in comfort levels, the job losses and the job gains, the heart-to-hearts and the straight talks. It’s all of the above, more than I can put into words, nothing quite like I expected… and yet, better than I could have imagined if I tried.

Of course, traveling the globe is a life-altering experience that has me waking up every morning, wondering where in the – literal – world the day will take me. But it wouldn’t be half the ride it is without these crazy, inspiring, ridiculous, wonderful people.

So sorry dude, nearly four months in and it’s worth every damn penny.