How to pick your a** up and be a successful spontaneous traveler

Let me get one thing straight before you start buying your plane tickets: being spontaneous involves risk-taking, planning minimally and knowing how to be flexible when things don't go your way, but by all means it does not mean being stupid. So don't be stupid and use good judgement.

When I decided to move to Madrid, it was probably the most spontaneous thing I have ever done. Everyone told me I was crazy when I bought my one-way ticket without even having a job lined up or a long-term visa or a secure place to live. They were even more surprised when my trip and life here turned out to be successful. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe I went with the right attitude, or maybe it's a mix of both.

What's more, all my friends back home started telling me how lucky and brave I was to be able to pick myself up just go live somewhere foreign, and they wished they could do that too. I asked them "why don't you? " I've gotten lame excuses like, "the plane ticket is too expensive", "I can't leave my job here", "I don't have as many international friends to help me out like you do when you're abroad in their countries", "I sucked in school at learning foreign languages".

I can't control your luck, but I can give you some tips that saved me, and I am giving you now all my support and encouragement to take a chance and go for it.

Go with a purpose (so you will not get discouraged)

Think to yourself, why do you want to travel somewhere? What do you want to learn or get out of it? Do you want to learn a new language? Do you want to escape your boring current life and search for an adventure? Do you want to be reunited with someone who you are in a long distance relationship with? Do you want to broaden your horizons and educate yourself about different cultures and styles of living so that you can develop into a more open-minded and tolerant person? This is a personal reason so it's different for everybody, and it's up to you to figure it out.

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It is really important that you have an idea of what your purpose is so that you can always think back to it when times get difficult and you need some self-motivation to not get discouraged and give up. It also really helped me to have my purpose because it kept me strong when so many people were trying to discourage me or tell me that I was being silly because I had no concrete plan in the beginning (after buying my one-way ticket).

Prepare yourself at least a little bit

• Have at least 1. 000 € saved up as a safety net

I encourage spontaneity, but please don't take a plane to an unknown land with no money in your pocket. Unless you're a professional on how to live off the land or something and you know what you're doing, I just don't think it's smart to go with zero back-up savings.

Consider certain expenses in advance, such as hostels, food, transportation (bus, metro, train, a plane ride home in case of emergency), and a little extra to cover unexpected costs. Also you should roughly calculate how much time you will be supporting yourself. Whether you plan on backpacking around different countries or living in a city for a while, you should figure out what the living expenses are. If you are planning to find jobs along the way, plan for the worst and expect to not find anything for a month or two (or maybe more).

• Learn the basics of the language

You're already going to look like a stupid tourist, but have some dignity for yourself and make an effort to learn basic phrases and vocabulary so that you know how to help yourself out when you're in a pinch. When I went to Japan for a trip in middle school, I survived with the phrases "Hello, nice to meet you", "Please", "Thank you", "You're welcome", "Where is the toilet? ". The last phrase saved my life (and pants) so many times.

There are great free websites and apps to learn the basics, and they are not very time consuming, so you don't have an excuse like "no money" or "no time". I used and really liked Duolingo.

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You can use Duolingo on the computer or on your smartphone. If you want to invest more, you can take real classes with an teacher or buy fancy programs like Rosetta Stone, by all means. Do what motivates you most and what works best for you. But please, whatever way it is, just do it.

• Do some research about the city

Try to learn the map and have an idea of places to see, things to do, and where you might want to stay/live according to your budget and interests. Know what places you should probably avoid to ensure your safety. Besides learning the map, learn about the culture too. Educate yourself about what is considered appropriate or inappropriate and about what is considered rude or polite in the particular places that you are traveling to. Having an idea about the do's and don't's will help you avoid getting yourself into awkward or embarrassing situations. If you know people who are living there or who have lived there before, get in contact with them, ask for advice, and if they like you, they might even help you more than you expected. Having a native person that you trust to guide you and show you around is extremely helpful.

Don't underestimate your people connections

This was a crucial point for me, and it was the main reason for why my adventure became so successful. LinkedIn shouldn't be your only source of opportunities. Talk to people, ask questions, try to get connections. This is what helped me the most with getting my visa and with getting a job.

In April after buying my plane ticket, I started thinking about how I'd support myself financially, what I'd be doing while I'm living there (so that I wouldn't feel useless and wasting my time), and how long I would be able to stay legally if I ended up not being able to get a visa. I was searching frantically online for jobs, especially those that might provide me with a visa. All failed. I was starting to feel a little worried, but I kept looking.

One day I was casually talking with Denise, a good friend of my mom (I consider Denise a good friend of mine too), and I mentioned to her my plans to move to Madrid, but I had no plans yet once arriving there. A day or two later I got a call from her, and she was sounding really excited. She informed me that a friend of hers at the gym is a really good friend of a professor of Biology at a university in Madrid.

Since Biology was my college degree major, she thought I had better send him an email introducing myself with my resume attached and ask for an internship in his research team. I was completely horrified by the idea because I don't like to ask for favours from people, especially from people who I don't know, and this was a very forward and intimidating proposition. I didn't want to do it, but I knew I had to try, because not trying at all is worse than asking and getting rejected.

I sent this professor an email, asking if he could give me an internship position in his research team at the university, and if so, could he also write an official acceptance letter for me so that I could get a student Visa to stay the whole year. He replied to me with a prompt, simple message, saying: yes I'd be glad to have you join our team. I sat there staring at my computer screen dumbfounded, wondering, "was it really that easy? Is this real? "

I didn't even know which university it was at until I saw it under his title in the reply. La Complutense. Huh. I told my Spanish friend about getting this opportunity, and she started flipping out, being like "Are you serious, at La Complutense?! " I asked her if this was a problem, and her reply was "Are you kidding me? This is one of the top universities in Madrid, and you got an internship position there just like that? You're so lucky! " Oh. Ok. Cool. I guess I was super lucky. Or was it more than luck? Actually, this was called networking. Sometimes you get lucky with it, but usually that's just how it works.

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So I had the visa problem taken care of thanks to my mom's friend's friend's friend. Next I still had to figure out the problem of making money there, because the internship at the university was not going to be paid. I continued searching for jobs. On the day before my flight, I got an email for a part-time English teaching position asking for a Skype interview the next day. Just hours before my flight I had my skype interview with them, and they asked for a follow-up interview in a few days, which I did after arriving in Europe. Got the job. Wow.

My favourite "lucky" experience was yet to come. I had been working a couple of weeks at this school, but since it was part time, I was looking for more work. One day as I was coming out of the metro near my street, a guy was passing out fliers to learn English at an academy. I was just about to toss out the flier when the address on it caught my eye.

The academy was located right on my street, a one minute walk away from my flat, and I had no idea it existed before. I walked by it to check it out. And then an idea crossed my mind. Learning English is always high in demand here. Maybe they need English teachers. A little voice in my head told me to go inside and ask them if they had a teaching position available. The other voice in my head was telling me to forget it and just go home to stay in my comfort zone. After about 5 minutes of experiencing a mental battle and hesitating outside the door, I held my breath, walked down the stairs and opened the door.

The fancy secretary lady inside asked me if I was interested in taking English classes, and I said no, actually I'm a native English speaker, and if you had any availability I could teach classes here. She glanced down at the academy's schedule, and told me that yes, they need a teacher for the Tuesday and Thursday evening class, and I could start the following week. I stood there blinking with my mouth open like a dumb fish. She didn't even do a formal interview or ask for my resume. All she did was talk to me for a couple of minutes to make sure I knew English and seemed normal, and that's it. How was this happening to me?! I had never felt so lucky in my whole life.

Teaching there ended up becoming one of my favourite experiences in Madrid because my students were really great, and it wasn't hard to teach there because the academy provided me with the teaching materials, so I didn't have to create my own lesson plans (although sometimes I liked to be creative and do my own thing to make the class interesting). I bonded really well with the students, who ranged from ages 18-55, and I still keep in touch with two of them.

Is it clear? Do you understand my advice now?

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Get out of your comfort zone! Ask people for opportunities! They won't just come to you if you do nothing.

As my mom always says: "Si tu ne demandes rien, tu n'auras rien. "

Translation: "If you don't ask for nothing, you'll get nothing"

Have low expectations, and just enjoy your experience.

Basically just expect everything is going to turn out terribly wrong, and you'll be pleasantly surprised when it's not. Also don't expect your Erasmus experience to repeat itself, because it didn't for me. It was totally different and I'll admit, not as cool as Erasmus (yes, I'm slightly disappointed on that point, but let's be honest: The best experiences aren't repeatable); although, it was still better than staying at home in my comfort zone, not living independently, and not seeing or doing anything new.

Try to be conscious of everything that happens to you and why, and learn something new when things go wrong.

Be safe and don't trust everyone too easily

It's a great thought to be a free-goer and hitchhike and couchsurf and all that, but I would be very careful if I were you. I've only couch-surfed once when I went to Germany, and it was fine experience because I carefully chose my host and I went with a friend. But please be wary and have good judgement! There are very kind and generous people in the world who will be willing to help you out (I admit I am in debt to some strangers), but there are also malintentioned people. I know plenty of people and friends who have been robbed and/or have been in unsafe situations while traveling.

When I first came here and I had all my luggage and money and passport to juggle, I kept all my money and passport in a pouch strapped under my shirt directly to my body. Then, after settling down in my new flat, I didn't need to use the pouch anymore because I could keep my passport at home, and obviously I didn't carry all my money with me everywhere.

Keep your money, phone and valuable things safe. Basics include: phone and wallet should not go in your back pocket, but in your front pocket. If you have a purse, get the kind that crosses over the front of your body. Likewise, when at a restaurant or cafe, don't leave your valuables lying on the table or behind your chair. It's not uncommon for a pickpocket to come and swipe them in a split second.

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Pickpockets only love tourists? No! Great news: they actually love everyone! They'll go after anyone, even in non-touristy places.

I really recommend (in colder weather) using jackets that have good zippers to keep your phone and wallet on you, rather than in a bag or in an open pocket. One day, I had just left my apartment and I was walking to the metro to go to work. At the time I was living in a safe, comfortable and well populated area, and my apartment was right in front of a primary school which always had children and parents around, so I never felt unsafe. As I was walking down the street that day, I could feel someone walking really close behind me. I felt the person was too close for comfort, literally on my heels, so when I turned to look back, I saw that it was a guy trying to put his hand in my jacket pocket where I had put my wallet. He couldn't get to my wallet because the pocket was zipped up and he was fumbling with the zipper.

Thanks to my zipper, and he didn't have enough time to rob me, and I obviously flipped out at him and told him to get lost. Thankfully nothing happened. I was just so shocked that someone even tried to rob me in broad daylight, on my street outside my apartment where I always felt so safe. Anything can happen, so never let your guard down!

I also recommend in general not going out with a ton of money on you; try to calculate the right amount that you'll need for the day and just take that. I think it's a good idea because in the event that you lose your wallet or it gets stolen, you don't risk losing so much cash. It's also a good strategy to keep to a budget and prevent you from over spending!

I hope these tips were helpful; if you have any questions, don't hesitate to send a message and ask!

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