Explorers and Settlers

I had coffee – a big fat, 16 oz. French press coffee from Starbucks that left me shaking with a caffeine high for the next three hours – with an ex-pat here in Manila today. As is often the case with me these days, our conversation at some point turned to the idea of “settling down” – I wasn’t even the one who brought it up, I swear! – with her stating that she was impressed with how I was still traveling around from place to place after having been a nomad for years already. Only 24, and basically an ex-pat ingénue, Caroline was already tired of moving and was ready to try life in one place – albeit one that was different from her home of Spain.

The discussion reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend of mine in LA before I left for this trip (it seems like ages ago already!) Kelli is a good friend, a former co-worker, and a seasoned traveler. She earned her nomad merit badge early, having spent a year during high school in Singapore and a year in college in Japan. Over dinner, we were discussing the fact that we felt there were really two types of people who travelers who left home. Those who liked to go and see new places, and those like ourselves – aspiring ex-pats who were more interested in living in different places throughout the world than just visiting them.

The truth is, there is a big difference between the two personality types. Many people are self-professed travel lovers. A week on a beach, two weeks in Italy, a honeymoon in Japan – these can all be appealing. Yet the majority of people would be hard-pressed to just up and move their life from a place they are comfortable and familiar with to somewhere new, foreign, and unproven. This is the mindset of an ex-pat, or at least, myself and Kelli. We are not just curious about other places, but are intrigued by understanding them – and, more importantly, enamored with the idea of being able to belong in them.

I can’t speak for Kelli, but for me community is hugely important. It’s tied to things I’ve touched on briefly before; making new friends, feeling comfortable in my surroundings, knowing my way around. One of the things I love most is the air of familiarity I can develop with people that I run into every day in a new place. Getting to know the servers at my neighborhood restaurant in Taipei, hanging out with the personal trainers at my gym in Beijing, being an adopted language-student of the security guards here in Manila – this is what I enjoy most about spending time somewhere new. I get a kick out of the fact that basically anywhere I go, I can find some sort of common ground and camaraderie with the people around me, and, if given enough time, that I can likely turn these interactions into more meaningful relationships that really can help me understand the ways in which others think and feel.

This is what separates travel from living. While it’s possible to gain insight into a place in a few days or an otherwise short-stay, it takes much longer to begin to understand it, fit in it, and belong to it. Travelers are far less interested in doing these things, and more interested in immersing themselves temporarily in a world they haven’t experienced before. In essence, they are explorers, whereas ex-pats are the settlers – more interested in laying down roots, building a life somewhere, and returning there over and over. It’s not that one is better than the other – they are just different.

The crazy thing is that I have always considered myself a traveler, an intrepid explorer – or thought I did. As I found out today though, as Caroline was congratulating me for continuing to travel even as I approach my 10-year-first-flight-abroad anniversary, I no longer do consider myself a traveler. I’m a settler, a root-layer. I just need to find a place to settle.