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There’s an old Hebrew saying that goes something like “How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans.” I love this saying, because it points out how little control we often have over how our lives play out. When traveling we are ceding even more control of our loves to the random, chaotic, and sometimes serendipitous nature of the universe. Life still throws you curveballs when you work the same job and live in the same house for your whole life, it throws you a full compliment of curveballs, sliders, knuckeballs and fastballs up and in when you are traveling from place to place not knowing the language experiencing new things all the time (lots of American specific baseball metaphors there.

Sorry. Somebody put in the appropriate cricket analogy in the comments section.) My favorite part of travel is when some option completely new comes up, some serious detour off the schedule, or maybe a whole new adventure that requires you to jettison any understanding of what the future holds. However, sometimes the spontaneity of travel is not always a good thing. Those are the times when you really need to be able to roll with the punches. No less of a philosopher than Mike Tyson once said, “everybody has a plan. Until they get hit in the mouth.”

Letting go of control and being calm in the midst of chaos is a great, and educational, part of travel. That being said, it’s important to have some sort of safety net underneath all those chances and risks you’re taking. I can’t recommend travel insurance enough. You never know where you’re going to be, and you never know what kind of healthcare system you might find yourself governed by in the event of an accident.

Or just what your options are if you are mugged and left penniless somewhere.  There are lots of options for travel insurance, some covering specific dates while you travel, or specific areas that you travel to. These aren’t the best, because like I’ve been hinting at, the best adventures are ones that lead you off preconceived maps. You don’t want to worry about going somewhere because your travel insurance doesn’t cover it. That’s why its always worth it to buy worldwide travel insurance. And for the love of God, if you’re traveling with your family, get everybody covered with family travel insurance.

I am temporarily living in Medellin, Colombia. In this post I am going to give you a breakdown of what it’s like, from basic costs to what I do all day. If you find this kind of information interesting I also wrote about my daily life in Tel Aviv, Israel. And more recently about living in London. I am of course supporting myself through my three businesses described here.

Sample Daily Routine:

Below is sample of what I do each day. Of course I don’t do these things every single day at the exact same time. Sometimes I skip salsa class and other times I work more hours or completely skip a day of work.

• 11AM: Wake up naturally without an alarm
• 11:00AM-12:00 AM: Shower/drink coffee/read emails

My Office

• 12:00AM-1:00PM: Work (Process ecommerce orders, respond to advertisers, email clients)
• 1:00PM-1:45 PM: Play tennis one-on-one with Pacho, a private instructor at La Unidad Deportiva de Belen
• 1:45PM-2:00PM: Order lunch from downstairs restaurant/shower, La Esquina de Basco
• 2:00PM-2:50PM: Eat a full lunch/watch TV/browse internet
• 3:00-4:00: Take private salsa dancing lesson
• 4:15PM-7:00PM: Work
• 7:00PM-7:45PM: Cook/eat dinner
• 8:30PM-1:00AM: Meet friends for drinks at a bar on La 33, Parque Lleras, La 70, etc.
• 1:00AM-2:30AM: Browse Internet/Watch TV
• 2:30AM: Sleep

My Home:

Rather than my previous plan to live by myself in a beautiful, expensive apartment, I chose a different option. I settled on a furnished 5 story, 12 bedroom/8 bathroom apartment with 10 others from Colombia, UK, Australia, Germany, Argentina, Switzerland, and other countries.

My particular floor looks like this.

And my bedroom looks like this.

View from my bedroom window

What I like most about living her is that it is located right next to a huge park with basketball courts, tennis courts, archery, a swimming pool, outdoor gym, track, and soccer fields. But I won’t lie. i only use the tennis courts!

View of the park from my balcony

Costs: US$

Rent (furnished bedroom, wifi, utilities, etc.): $266

Lunch (soup, meat, rice, side dish, juice): $3.50

Private Tennis Lesson(45 Min.): $13

Private Salsa Lesson (1 Hr):$8

ATM: a shit load of cash

Like most places Colombia is a cash society. All I can tell you is how much money I have spent in total.

Total Costs $3,400 for 49 days = $69/day

So obviously I am spending money on a lot of dumb stuff like a coffee maker, tennis racket, vacations to Bucaramanga and Don Matias, bottle service at clubs, imported swiss cheese and turkey for obscene prices, etc. I also have a girlfriend which in Colombia means treating her to meals, bars, etc.

Still, I wouldn’t say I am living like a king here. Just a nice lifestyle.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Every Friday evening Bogota’s main street shuts down replacing busy traffic with an equally busy market and street performers. It is my favorite time to wander the city as you will see in this video I created.

Driving through the Andes is a series of highs, lows, and nothing in between. Take this ride through Colombia’s coffee growing region as an example.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The scenery is lush with bright green mountains and coffee plants growing like weeds. But the bus slows down to a halt and you realize you are no longer moving. Instead, a road crew is removing the rubbage from a land slide, meaning only one side of drivers can pass for the next 10 minutes. Repeat this process every 10 miles.

Just as the movie ends that you avoided watching in favor of viewing the unique scenery, the sky turns dark and the bus attendant will have no intention of showing another movie. Now you are bored out of your mind until you remember you brought an mp3 player.

After a few minutes of silence the guy sitting next to you will start up conservation and you end up making a great friend that winds up showing you around his city the next week.

But because you have hours on the same bus the two of you eventually tire of talking and decide to get some rest. Only rest is impossible because you are riding through the Andes, a two lane highway, with sharp curves every eight seconds. It is therefore impossible to fall asleep because you are gripping the seat in front of you so you don’t keep banging into your new friend.

That’s when you snap your head up and press your face against the window while you cringe because you begin to notice your bus passing the slow trucks in front by swerving into the wrong lane into oncoming traffic.

The next high is when you realize how exciting this ride has become. You grab a bottle of fanta orange soda you bought at the rest stop hours before and chomp away on a tub of dulce de leche or arrequipe!

Sooner or later you notice the sun rising and you have been on the same bus for almost 15 hours without sleep. That’s when you blurt aloud, “Fuck me, this was not worth it!”