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Road Tripping, Part 3: The Ultimate Trip

© Nathan Myers

Leaving everything behind to search for waves is not for everyone. Then again, the spirit of this type of adventure, should be a mandatory part of everyone's education.

Travel, that is. Nothing educates better than experience, and nothing pummels you with experience quite as much as traveling. Traveling is a learning experience that expands your inward experience even more than your outward experience. The more you know of the world, the more you will know of yourself. However, in order to fully benefit from the traveling experience, you must BECOME the traveling experience. You must live traveling until it is traveling that lives you.

And surfing! Surfing is the just the frosting on the perfect cake of traveling experience. Surfing keeps your trip focused. Instead of listless wandering from tourist attraction to youth hostel to bar, your search gains purpose; a search for something perfect and fleeting: a search for waves. Okay, I guess I'm starting to sound like Loa Tsu with a longboard. I'll stop.

Creating a travel scenario that works for you is the hardest, and most vital element of setting off on the ultimate trip. Let me just offer you some possiblities and suggestions as examples, but ultimately, you must combine the skills and knowledge you've learned from countless day trips and numerous extended trips, to form your own master journey.

ROUND THE WORLD TICKET: One year, seven destinations. These tickets have been many a surfer's ticket to freedom. Go to work everyday and start saving your money. Pick your top seven surf locations in the world. Do a little research to figure out what each one costs, when the surf is good, and what you'll need to surf there (i.e. shots, passports, reservations or maybe nothing at all). Then, start planning your trip. Rough planning that is, leave things loose. Living fairly frugally, you can do this trip for around eight to ten grand (the more the merrier, unfortunately). The round the world ticket will cost you around fifteen hundred bucks. Not bad at all. You may want to consider what will happen when you finally get home, you may not. Whatever. Life works itself out.
Just imagine a year spent traveling the entire globe in search of waves. Seems like something only the pros can do right? Not true at all. And the amount you will learn is incalcuable. Not just about surfing, and not just about traveling, and not just about the world we all live in, but about yourself, and where you fit in to this big cosmic web of life. Your life will change from worker-drone to water-guru in one short year. While you're out there, you may want to consider the possiblity of never coming home.

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