Contents of this newsletter:
My time & places
What I’ve learned
What I’m thinking about
My time & places
august in sunny diego
I spent August at home, got a couple surf & climbing sessions in, spent some time with friends & family, and started making plans! Living at home offered a great moment to take stock of my belongings & what I wanted to do next, and I’m very appreciative to have this home base!
I left near the end of September for Pittsburgh.
weekend in pitts
I flew to Pittsburgh and stayed with Vance, a friend from VFA (he was part of the camping trip in Shenandoah, the only time we’d met each other beforehand). He hosted 6 others and it was a weekend full of new friends, many drinks, a LOT of German culture and walking around. Pittsburgh is a beautiful place!
It’s weird to think of Pittsburgh and Philly as being in the same state. They have hills and rivers, hiking in the city and a culture that’s way more “whatever floats your boat.” I’ve been told they have some industry rivalries, and I believe they’re 100% more committed to the clean energy game than Philly is.
month in philly
There are a few things that describe my experience out here in full:
🛋️ Couch surfing: I’ve been averaging around 3 nights at each place I’m staying. I keep a small profile (a work backpack, clothes bag & groceries bag) and make sure to feel the vibe for hanging with people (if they seem to want their space, I make sure they get their personal space. They like hanging out and talking? Then I do too!).
There were a few times I moved with *much* more than those 3 bags, which was probably the thorn of the experience. I set up several bags that made it easy for me to take a bag and live out of it, rather than needing every bag as I moved homes every few days.
Shoutout to the people holding my belongings while I move in and out of their areas! I owe you all so much for your hospitality and shared space 💞
🎁 Gift giving: My love languages are physical touch and quality time, the latter being an awesome part of couch surfing (I get to spend time with people in their natural habitat!). Gift giving has always been a quality I’ve needed serious time and thought to make happen (I rarely want random items from people unless it is meaningful), so it’s been good to have additional practice. Gifts so far include old postcards of the Philly skyline for a photography enthusiast, an at-home paint set for a rainy-day lover, books, and as much food as I can convince them to let me buy them.
If anyone has fun gift suggestions they’d recommend as a good house gift, message me! I’m really trying to get better at this and could use all the gift-giving experts out there.
💙 Seeing friends: It’s fun to see how many people are down to randomly meet up on shorter notice. I still have to pencil people into the calendar, but people are down to hang out on a whim more than before. That’s a big perk of being here a short time (although sad to leave them again 😢) — people are ready to see you since there’s little time as a whole.
This month was a LOT of social interaction, staying with people, and sharing space all the time.
quick week in dc
🛌 I drove my friend’s car (as part of our longer road trip) to DC and spend the week at Sam’s (a USY friend), where we would talk all day after work until we fell asleep and start right back up as we woke up. The last time I visited him was exactly a year ago, so we had lots to catch up on!
🚩 I visited the Indonesian embassy with my friends from VFA and watched a very impressive dance & music group show off their talents! The food at the embassy wasn’t Nadav-friendly but the music was well worth the time and ticket cost.
🆕 I tried Filipino food for the first time (I think)! Shoutout to the Purple Patch in DC for making really tasty tea & food that I could eat 🤤
weekend in north carolina
It’s weird to think I’ve now purposely traveled to NC 2x while skipping out on so many other great places, but the Appalachian farm we stayed at is magical.
🍂 Tyler, Nat & I drove 9 hours over 2 days to arrive, stopping in an Airbnb next to UNC Chapel Hill where Nat showed us all the hangout spots. Our hosts moved from the east coast to Israel then California and finally the south, which was cool to hear about.
🐻 We stayed at Valley Bear Collective, a farm started by USC students (that’s South Carolina students for you Western folk) that’s host to a waterfall hike, a beautiful meadow, a backdrop of colorful trees and brings in awesome music groups. The music festival brought new people (but unfortunately without my Philly friends joining 😢) and amazing foliage. Excited to go back in June again!
We drove to Charlotte, where I took a flight CLT>LAS>SAN. I’m sitting in LAS airport while writing this (although I’m now a frequent flyer of Frontier’s overnight LAS layover, this is the first time I saw the shops open & got food! 🍌)
my next plans
👶 I’m home for Kobi Mualim’s bar mitzvah!
🌉 I’ll head up to SF to see some friends (if you’re out there, get stoked and reach out!)
🍁 I’ll fly near Victoria, BC to see my now-married college roommate
🦃 Back home for Thanksgiving and Noa’s engagement party (with a potential stop in SB for friends)
❄️ Fly to Philly for a company holiday party, bus to NYC to see Sarina & meet up with Idan, drive to Boston to see the many friends who now inhabit the Northeast, then drive up to Toronto until New Years.
🏂 Head home and relax until Justy & I drive out to Utah for our ski trip!
My next opening is from mid-Feb to mid-March, and I’m thinking of heading out east for the majority of it — let me know if you have any better ideas for me!
What I’ve learned
Couch surfing and travel have helped me rethink some lessons I’ve been taught. Although it’s been a short experience so far, I wanted to highlight these now and keep track of lifestyle changes I’ve taken so others can learn before trying it out themselves.
Material possessions: I’ve walked from one house to the next with 5+ bags and only needed 1 bag-worth of items, carrying everything at a sloth-pace. Having everything you may need is not the same as being prepared for all situations. Reducing the items you carry around helps you focus your time from items to experiences.
Goal state: Have a single backpack for clothes & work items, along with a smaller tote for groceries (if moving around frequently). Be comfortable moving around without lugging all of my junk!
Personal finances: I’ll start this one by saying that my finances are unique in the sense that I don’t have large medical costs, have no dependents (including animals), or have activities that require my physical presence (outside of optional sports I enjoy). I also spent a month at home (with parents who would pay for many of my daily costs).
If you compare my finances from having a lease to traveling (something many people agree on), I’m spending less net money (even though I’m spending more on travel & gifts to my short-term couch-lord friends). The cost of having a lease is more than the rent associated with it. It includes:
The material items you buy to fill your home,
The shopping therapy that helps make life more dynamic,
The dinners you pay to spend 2 hours with friends, and so on.
Moving away from a cost-centric lifestyle is the cornerstone to reducing your personal finances & not playing the capitalist game we’re conditioned to accept.
Other options you can use to reduce your personal finances, if you’re tied to (or just want) a physical space:
Thrift. Stop buying expensive items for your house and get cheaper equivalents with more personality. Even better, get a smaller home so you can’t accidentally start holding too many things. It wouldn’t take long for me to clutter my tiny room last year, which helped me keep the essentials & sentimentals without the extra baggage.
Once I have a better sense of how my costs compares in a few months, I’ll try to share financial projections!
Pace of travel: I’ve been a firm believer that longer stays in localized areas are the calmest and most meaningful way to experience a place. I’ve been doing a bad job of that recently with several 3-night stints on my friends’ couches. Here’s what I’d recommend here:
If you can find a cheap airbnb in an area for a month, the cost is worth the time and anxiety produced by moving frequently. I love living with my friends, but the shortest time you take should be 4 days to a week with a friend. If they’re not able to do that, you better be living out of a carry-on (or smaller) and moving around for other reasons (like seeing new friends in other places).
That being said, it’s been fun to experience Philly from different areas. A 0.6-mile change in location led me to find new shops & views to explore! I walked further up the Delaware than I had before, found a coffee shop where they’ll keep a tab (so you don’t have to pay each time), found a pierogi festival, and got to the climbing gym more often than I had before.
Tips for staying in a friend’s home:
Gifts: Remember that your friend just saved you from a $50+/night rental. Share the love by giving gifts freely & reminding them that nothing is a hassle. Your friends will open their homes again and your bank account will be just fine.
Keys: Find a way to get a dedicated or shared key. I spent 2 hours locked out in the morning by accident, which could have been solved by having my own key. If your friend has a lockbox, this is a great way to have access without keeping track of everyone’s daily logistics.
Having local, early-open coffee shops makes this easier!
Moving bags: I know I’ve harped on this already but if you’re dealing with a lot of bags, it’s great to have a friend who’s willing to be your home base & keep some items in storage. They should be easily accessible so you can pack a short-term bag for a week or two, and come back to repack as you need different items. I was repacking a big duffel bag each time I moved homes before realizing I could do this.
This makes it easier to move around frequently without carrying bags (or cluttering your friends’ homes). Moving with the least amount of items possible also makes it easier to focus your time on experiences over items.
Shoutout to Max & Aracely for being my dedicated homes this time around 💗
What I’m thinking about
🍄 Using fungi to clean up oil spills (people have been researching this since 2014 but little has been done!)
📚 Finished Walden recently, some thoughts:
Much of the reading is slow & about his experience on the pond, but ties to a larger recognition that the only thing that matters is our perceived experience. If we spend our time fascinated by a pond’s ecosystem, we can be excited by even the smallest creatures which share our spaces.
Take on work that makes your life meaningful, and stop there. Having the option to do more work is not an opportunity, but a distraction (assuming you have a base job that pays your life — a big assumption — are you working to live, or living to work?). Get the work done that gives you happiness, and avoid work that provides you with little life improvement. Thoreau uses food to explain this:
Instead of working each hour to grow 100 crops and sell them for exquisite goods, grow 10 crops that provide you value & nutrition and reduce the goods you need to live. The time you’ll gain is way more valuable than the belongings.
Read the Pareto Principle for a better understanding.
☸️ I also just finished The Teaching of Buddha, a collection of stories and learnings from Buddhism. I’ve learned about Buddhist structure & principles but never from direct teachings, which was cool to read. There's plenty of overlap between Jewish belief and other lifestyle frameworks, and brought a lot of mindful activity to my attention!
Other random things
🐶 My friend’s dog Scooby recently had an unexpected $6500 surgery to fix his leg, if you can share with dog lovers or share a few dollar dollars that would mean a lot! Here’s the GoFundMe link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/scoobys-leg-surgery
🧠 Escape Team: Escape puzzles you can print at home and do with friends (for free I think!).
🤸 Handstands. They’re so fun. I’ll try to share some practical guide at some point from others on how to pick this up, but it’s lots of fun & requires no gear except for confidence and a strong-ish body!
🤔 A 40-question checklist to ask yourself each year. Very easy to ask yourself & a great way to be intentional as time flies by (I’m already 23.749!!)