After the ocean crossing, I noticed something had shifted. I trusted myself more in unfamiliar situations because I had seen that most things become manageable once you’re in them.
I carried that mindset into the next phase of travel: Central America.
Travel there is fairly accessible if you keep things simple. Buses connect most places, routes are well known, and it’s easy to adjust plans along the way. Days often followed a loose pattern. Move, find a place to stay, explore a bit, repeat. Nothing complicated, which made it easy to stay flexible.
I was traveling with my partner at the time. Sharing the road changes how you experience places. Decisions get discussed instead of improvised. You move at a slightly different pace. There’s someone to share things with, I appreciated that.
It wasn’t a constant highlight reel. There were long transport days, missed connections, rooms with scorpions in them, and plans that didn’t work out the first time. But that’s normal travel friction.
What stood out more to me was how I felt compared to being at home. On the road, expectations felt lower and simpler. No one asked about five-year plans. No one measured progress. Days were judged by whether they worked, not whether they advanced anything.
Over time, though, it became clear that we were starting to want different things.
My instinct was still to keep moving and exploring. She was thinking more about stability and settling down sooner. Neither of us was wrong, our timing just didn’t line up anymore. We talked about it openly and eventually decided to go separate ways.
After that, I traveled on alone for a while. I did feel a bit lost and lonely to be honest. I had confidence in my ability to function on the road, but not clarity about what came next.
At times, I wondered whether all this traveling had simply been an escape. An easy way to postpone decisions or avoid committing to something more permanent.
And maybe sometimes it was. But it wasn’t only that.
Most of the time, I wasn’t trying to run away from something specific. I was trying to experience a different version of life than the one I had grown up around.
When that stretch of travel ended, I went home without a clear plan. I tried settling back into normal routines, but the restlessness wasn’t gone yet. That’s when something unexpected showed up: a random job posting for a ski season in Japan.
If you’re considering a similar trip and you are not sure what to pack, check out this guide.