A Planster's Healing Journey

And a Curation for Travel Therapy

Photo by Viswanath V Pai on Unsplash

I’m a planster.

If you’re a writer, you’ve probably heard the terms panster, plotter, and planster before. A pantser is someone who “flies by the seat of their pants,” meaning they don’t plan out anything in their story or plan very little. A plotter is someone who plans out their novel before they write it. And a planster is like an agnostic, a wishy-washy mother fucker who dips his toes in where he likes—me.

That’s not just how I craft my writing but how I live my life. Aside from my workout routine, my plans are just guidelines. If people, life, the universe (god?), an airline, governments (the Chinese, Canadian, and Spanish ones in my case¹), o lo que sea throw me a curveball… well, I don’t always get a home run, but I roll with it anyway.

Right now, I’m in the planning stage for a 3-4 month journey through Europe to promote the therapeutic effects of slow travel.

I’ve almost finished writing my outline with the main reveals and turning points I want to hit, but the characters I meet along the way can still bring my story in a whole new direction.

Just like

Mike Sowden

,

Elin Petronella

,

Brent Hartinger

,

Michael Jensen

, y El Espejo de mi Alma did to the piece you’re reading right now.

Before Mike Sowden recommended Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau, I realized I live my life like I craft my writing. This realization came at the same time my sense of home was ripped away, and the cosmic strings of a quest through Europe to the North of Sweden pulled at me like an elastic.

If you’ve ever felt a strange sense of sadness or alienation, there’s a potential way out of the confusion—just shift this feeling to a sense of purpose. It’s not all about happiness, although happiness often results from doing something you love. Instead, it’s about challenge and fulfillment, finding the perfect combination of striving and achievement that comes from reaching a big goal. Metaphorically, discontent is the match, and inspiration is the kindling. 

—

Chris Guillebeau

El Espejo de mi Alma, the woman I was going to marry this summer, was the match. Within a week, my body and soul knew she was the one. But the one for what? That was for my mind to interpret... or misinterpret.

How our wedding plans fell through is a prologue full of love, betrayal, trauma, and surprise flights across the world. However, my quest is not a chronological three-act structure but a fractured narrative with a beginning I’m not ready to reveal.

The important part for now is that I realized you can forgive and love those who hurt you when you find growth in the pain.

I was denying that growth—those cosmic strings. Then I met Brent and Michael in person, bringing our relationship behind screens into the real world where eyes bonded, glasses clinked, and Valencian diabetes-threatening drinks entered our stomachs—my empty stomach.

Just like with their writing, they filled me with advice and wanderlust, but seeing them in person brought back the elastic. Throughout the week, it pulled harder and harder until I discovered a lie that snapped me back to my quest.

I revised “Coping With Failure” to include my journey plans across Europe. This was when Mike Sowden recommended Happiness of Pursuit, and

Elin Petronella

became the mentor of this story.

Elin Petronella has been coaching me on how to find direction and make my writing business sustainable. Like me and some of you, her birthplace does not define her sense of home. That’s how I knew she saw me.

Do you long for something more? Is something blocking you from starting your quest? Can you sense that unhappiness can lead to new beginnings? Then I see you. Like any relationship or good story, my journey can be a mirror to discover something new in yourself.

Is it a hero’s journey? Or is it an artsy-slice-of-life-questionable-character-arc journey? I don’t know where I’ll end up, but I do know I’ll share everything I learn and experience along the way. And this, I hope, will help you.

Too often, I have seen complacency and comfort cause depression. We must step outside our comfort zone to grow and connect to the greatest truth—change. That growth often starts with acknowledging our dark side instead of hiding from it. It begins with connecting that pain to a greater purpose.

That’s why my stories and articles won’t just include travel tips like in “To Bus or Train Through Europe” but expand on travel therapy.

I’ve written and interviewed psychologists about culture-bound mental illnesses in the past:

Rastafarianism: Culture, Crime, and Coping

Japanese Food for Thought

Is There an Authentic Self?

I’ll dive deeper into culture-bound mental illnesses over the next few months, but thanks to

Chris Guillebeau

’s Happiness of Pursuit and

Elin Petronella

’s guidance, I know the most significant part of travel therapy is the quest.

Every quest requires a sacrifice and goal of some kind. I’ll reveal those in next week’s piece—the last article before I cross the first threshold and leave Castellon, Spain, to make my way through Eastern Europe and to the North of Sweden.

Born Without Borders is a reader-supported publication. Paid subscriptions give me the time to research, write, and deliver value to those who feel inexplicably foreign or are searching for ways to step outside their comfort zone.

You can also support this trip by doing what I’m doing to afford this trip—Home Exchange.

HomeExchange is an online platform that connects people from all over the world to exchange their homes without money (and taxes) changing hands. Plus, there’s a point system, so you don’t need to exchange homes at the same time.

If you want to use Home Exchange and support this journey simultaneously, you can use this link.

Born Without Borders will never be ridden with affiliates. I’m only including companies that I need for this journey, with or without a referral link.

Who is Nolan Yuma?

I'm a writer, educator, guiri, actor, older brother, ocean lover, irritable cabron, hot sauce enthusiast, third culture kid fascinated by cultural psychology—but mostly, I'm inescapably foreign. I was born in Santiago de Chile, took my first steps in Antwerp, Belgium, and grew up in British Columbia, Canada. And the moment I felt a deep sense of home in Vancouver, Canada, I ended up in Spain.

Want to know more?

1. By government curveballs, I mean them taking my money unexpectedly. In Canada, they suddenly told me I owed them money after COVID. I didn’t, but I also didn’t have the resources or time to fight the CRA; I emptied my checking account for them.

In China, a new regulation made it harder for foreigners to teach English online, and the company I made 80% of my money from practically disappeared overnight.

And in Spain, I pay taxes quarterly, and since you owe money as autonomo even if you don’t make any money, it’s always an adventure to see if 30% to 275% of my income will go to taxes. 275 %, you ask? In Spain, if you’re self-employed, you have to pay autonomo fees even if you make no money. In my case, that’s 275 euros.