The Alexis Angle – Advice Letter

Dear unlikely traveler,

So, a little birdie told me that you are thinking about taking a trip around the world. A gap year from your extremely normal, boring life in hopes of seeing the big, wide world. 

Well, let me tell you from personal experience, it is not for the faint of heart. You will eat bad food, you will stare at people like a deer in the headlights while they are trying to talk to you in Spanish and then laugh awkwardly, you will most likely have to hide any and all food from the tiny ants and not tiny cockroaches. But I can also guarantee that you will have the best year of your life. 

So let’s get to it: there’s a lot to go over before you embark on your first plane. 

The first time you hear about it, you will be shocked, baffled, astonished, and wondering if this is just a weird phase your parents are going through, like when your brother would collect nerf guns like tiny spoons. Then, you’re going to go around the house before school every morning and beg Mom and Dad to leave on gap year right then and there because school sucks. But then before you know it, school is over and you can spend all the time you want with your friends and you really don’t want to go. So you yell and scream and stomp like a baby and packing up your room consists of throwing your unfolded clothes into a suitcase, slamming it closed, and zipping it up with all of the force your anger can allow without actually breaking it. Then, what feels like days later, you’re biking to your grandma’s house yelling “yay gap year,” so basically don’t listen to any of the feelings you have the months and days leading up to your trip. 

Then, it’s off on the year of crazy, here are the tips you’re going to need the most:

1. A LOT of family time: Buckle up kiddo, because the days of hiding in your room or hanging with friends or at school and barely seeing your family are OVER. You will be squished with those that brought you into the Earth and you will probably have to at least once sleep in the same room with your sibling. There will be fights over who gets the bed and who gets the old couch, who sleeps on which bed, closet space, basically there will be no end. Also, you will find out weird things about your family that you wish would have stayed private: like how your dad has full conversations with himself and how your mom can’t quite decipher when you’re joking or not and gets offended at 90% of the jokes you make. Also, privacy goes out the window, you don’t want to pee in the same room as your brother? Well that’s just too bad.
Although this is going to be hard, your teenage instinct to go solo screaming at you, this will in the end be very good for you and your family. You guys will grow closer, spend way more forced time together than you usually do, and in the end appreciate the year that you spent with just your family.

2. Leaving your friends behind: This is hard, a year feels like five years when you’re cut off from basically everything going on back home. Luckily though, telephones were invented in 1876 and work great now. You and your besties can call, text, and gossip just as well over the phone as you can in person. Also, it’s just one year: it will feel like your friends have all moved on without you and found new friends, but most of the time that’s not true, you won’t leave and immediately get forgotten, so remember that while you lay in your room listening to the sad music playlist you made on Spotify for these 3 a.m. thoughts. 

3. Bugs: Maybe you love bugs and gross crawly things. If so, you will love your trip: ants, cockroaches, beetles, bed bugs, you name it, you will probably see it. The thing to remember is to always lock up your food, keep anything open in the fridge even if it seems like it shouldn’t go there. Would you rather eat cold chips or open your un-cold bag of chips and find a family of cockroaches chilling in there? I thought so, put it in the fridge. Also, your sponge will become your best friend, and you will just have to accept that all of the tiny black specks covering the sponge are wiped up ants, just wash it off. Sometimes, you will have to be the one to wipe up the ants and when that happens, just get it over with as quickly as possible, it’s gross every time. Also, when your parents tell you to get ALL of your clothes, dump them on a table, and learn every single stitch they have to make sure there aren’t bed bugs hiding in there: do it, you don’t want to be the reason your next airbnb or your house back home is over run with them. 

4. Food: Alright, listen up. Food is awesome, but international food is NOT American food. Burgers don’t taste like burgers in America no matter how many you eat, lays chips have flavors like seaweed, kobe beef, or “country side flavored” instead of your regular potato chip. Some things, like delicious wings you had one time or some weird type of soup you know you shouldn’t have eaten, will make you sick. It will be embarrassing, gross, and you will be thoroughly afraid to eat soup or chicken again, but you have to move past that and eat something else. Other foods though, will have you wondering how to mass ship them to the U.S. (melon pan, for example). 

5. Bathe in the embarrassment: You will, this year, be constantly embarrassed. You will stare at someone like a weirdo because they spoke Spanish to you and you can’t remember which panic phrase to use. You will miss order your food and get a really spicy dish that you then have to gulp down along with your entire family’s water. You will trip, watch your dad trip, wish for nicer clothes in front of teenagers, and make a fool of yourself more than once. But embrace it because it won’t end and you might as well enjoy the year and laugh along instead of living the year in total mortification.

6. Keep a journal (and a detailed one): I’m going to say this now, I don’t have a very detailed journal, but I make up for that with my book. You, however, may not want to write an entire novel about your gap year, so keep your journal. You may think your brain size and ability to memorize things is incredible, but it’s not, you are not physically capable of remembering everything about your trip, so save your brain the trouble and you the impending sadness and just keep the journal. 

7. Embrace the change: I don’t know what kind of person you are, but something that I can say with certainty about this year is that I changed. I have seen poverty, lived in tiny Airbnbs, and come to realize that happiness doesn’t depend on what you have or how much money is in your wallet. And while this has been one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned: it comes with a downside of feeling guilty every time you “want” something. So I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to want, everyone wants things, but don’t let that trump the lessons you learned. Learn the difference between wanting and needing something. You can want that new shirt, but you would survive without it. Keep what you learned forefront in your mind the rest of your life and if you don’t change, come on man. 

8. Fast, slow, regular, that’s how my year went: Everyone and I mean everyone will ask you if this year went fast or slow. Most likely you will not have a fast or short year. If you’re like me: the first months will feel like they’re inching by, but by the time your last month has rolled around you’ll be shaking your head wondering where all that time went. So when someone asks you that question, just shrug and say “you tell me”. That usually shuts them up.

You got this, I know that it feels scary and daunting and it still will half way through, but you’ll grow to love it, and I can assure you that it will be the best year of your life. 

Sincerely, 

Your very well experienced a year-world-traveler – Alexis