When we left home in October, we flew into the unknown. I thought I’ll be vagabonding, living in my tent all the time. Cooking cheap rice or pasta meals, trying to survive on our tiny $500 per month budget. Trying to survive the dangers of South America. I simply didn’t know what to expect from this trip.

Now, almost 6 months later, I’m a little bit wiser and much more used to the travel lifestyle than I thought.

First, I am experiencing true freedom. I don’t have to make hard decisions, work or go to school. I chose to travel and the hardest decision of the day remains to choose where to go next, whether it’s going to be the nature, city or beach.

Travel didn’t get boring so far. Each day, there’s something new to explore, new people to meet, something beautiful you’ll see. Each day is exciting. For me, it is living my long time dream.

Sure, there are bad days too. You get shitty beer or end up in an awkward night club, you see no ride while hitchhiking for the entire day, you are terribly bitten by mosquitoes on that dream-like beach or you just can’t stand the same taste of food. These days, I take time to commemorate my homeland, the Czech Republic, for its excellent beer, tasty food, hot girls, beautiful nature and rich history.

You discover funny paradoxes. For example, exotic fruits for us is most common here plus really cheap: this includes avocado, banana, yuca (or mandioca), passion fruit or papaya. What is common in Europe like apples or pears is exotic here, a luxury. Interesting stuff!

I learned that traveller doesn’t equal tourist. Actually, these two are quite contradictory. As a traveller, you cannot afford most tourist things. Say goodbye to the expensive hotel, fancy restaurant, shopping or tours.. You need to live cheap, live like a local while seeing and experiencing as much as possible. I ultimately think that our low budget made this trip super interesting and unique. We met a lot of local people, many of them because we hitchhiked; explored the nature on our own, at our own pace, hiking and camping; ate great food where locals eat… It is for the people, culture and nature that we travel and low budget enables you to experience all of it in a very authentic way.

Yes, I miss my friends and family. I miss my country. But I know I will see them all, just not right now. But there are always enough great people keeping good company that I never feel lonely or like coming back.

Travel is vacation. No! It’s more like a full time occupation! You have to watch out all the time aka tener cuidado. I mean live the experiences as well as watching out for danger. Before you go to sleep, you write something in the diary, upload the photos, write this blog post, edit videos, find where to go next, read one chapter in the book, get drunk with new friends, repair your clothes, write someone… It’s definitely not lying on the beach doing nothing (only sometimes haha).

You need to buy a lot of things before going on the travel. Hell no! While I packed only what I already owned, I still took too much. Camping gear is worth it if you want to do some trekking, but completely avoidable if you only want to do day trips or stay in cities. Northwest South America is affordable and you can stay in cheap hostels. Minimum clothing (look at gear). Don’t overdo the electronics. I would be happiest with just my phone and a paper book since you don’t have to watch out as much once you have no camera, kindle and I don’t know what else. Also, after we got robbed of all our belongings in Argentina, I was really happy they took my old phone, camera and not something I just spent a lot of money on. We’ve seen a lot of people with 90L backpacks plus 30L daypacks, completely full!! What the hell?? Why do people want to carry that much shit around and look like exots. We have 60L backpacks with 40L of stuff and you can surely take even less.

Life on the road is perfect. You’re sipping on the coconut laying down on a beach, have exotic fruit for breakfast, take a siesta in the hammock… I would just say not always. A lot of the instagram posts are fake and I still feel like we constantly undermine what we have back home. You don’t have to “getaway” to experience life.

It’s exciting to meet people from all over the world all the time. Some of them are super boring tho! They follow the classic meet-new-traveller scenario and ask you in the same order where you come from, how long you’ve travelled for and how much longer you plan to travel, where you’ve been… then the conversation kinda dies out. The introduction monologue. I hate it.

Be less of a gringo by learning Spanish. Really! It helps a lot in South America and if you know a little bit already, you’ll quickly improve. You won’t get ripped off as often, you can have more meaningful conversations with the locals than body language and you’ll feel much more like at home than at a hostile country. I am very grateful for paying a little attention​ during Spanish classes at high school.

Live life!