What’s next

As the year radidly draws to a close, I’m sure some of you are wondering what I’ll be doing next.  Me too!  :)  The original plan was to spend 3 months in four different countries, volunteering in each place.  Since I left the US in early January, that would put my return a few months away.  Of course, I’ve also maintained that if I found a place that I fell in love with while traveling, I’d be open to staying longer.  That definitely hasn’t happened.  And part of me is really ready to return to the US.  But returning isn’t all that straightforward for several reasons:

1) Where to live:  I definitely don’t want to return to DC.  And I also want to avoid my San Francisco experience where I moved somewhere where I didn’t know anyone.  At the same time, I’m also tired of big cities, I’d like to be near water (ocean, river, lake, something), I want a place with relatively low-cost of living, and I want a place where it doesn’t get too cold.  Unfortunately, I don’t know of anyplace that fits all those criteria.

2) Work: I had hoped my time away and my volunteering would help clarify what I want to do for a living.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t.  I still have no idea.  I’m tired of spending 40 hours a week at jobs that don’t inspire me, that leave me wondering what else there is.  

3) Money:  Before I left, I made the mistake of bragging that I could travel for about 7 years without working.  Me and my big mouth!  Unfortunately, about 25% of my savings were in a regular savings account and the rest were in mutual funds.  Which if you’ve been paying attention at all, you know that the stock market (and hence my mutual funds), have been going down, down, down.  I definitely didn’t expect this.  Who did?  I still have plenty of money left.  Just a lot less than I expected at this point in my travels.  And since I have no idea where I’m going to live, what sort of work I’m going to get, how much I’ll earn, how long it will take for me to find a job, etc,  I’m a bit leery of returning.  I could go about 4-6 months without work before my regular savings would be gone and I’d need to start selling my mutual funds at a loss.  Which I definitely don’t want to do.

4) Health Insurance: Right now, I have travel insurance which costs about $40 a month.  It covers me for theft as well as any sort of health emergency.  Unfortunately, the second I return to the US, my travel insurance is no longer valid.  And with my history of cancer, there’s no way I can purchase my own.  So until I get a job, I’ll have no insurance.  

Honestly, as much as part of me wants to return to the US, this just seems like a bad time to return given what’s happening with the economy.  For now, I plan on being in the Philippines till mid-November.  After that it’s possible I’ll return to the US.  But I’ll have to give it considerable thought.  The other option I’m considering is going somewhere to teach English for a while and rebuild my savings.  Unfortunately, the places where the money is the best aren’t places that appeal to me.  The Middle East, Korea, Taiwan, or Japan.

May be time to flip a coin….