🔎 Guest: Being Brave: Travel without fear as a solo female nomad
🔎 Guest: Being Brave: Travel without fear as a solo female nomad
Meet Anca, Head of Marketing at Pluria.co and a travel writer since 2009
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Meet Anca Serban, Head of Marketing at Pluria and travel writer since 2009. Anca started to be nomadic when the pandemic began in 2020. Instead of quitting, becoming a freelancer, selling her house for a sabbatical, or any other option, Anca convinced her boss about keeping her full-time job and changed how she worked at Pluria: remotely, from any country or continent, in different time zones and in a asynchronous way.
Four years later, Anca still has her same job with more responsibilities and has managed to live and work on six continents! She recognises she has grown much more professionally as a full-time remote worker than what she did in her previous jobs, where arriving each morning in an office building and being physically present in meetings were paramount.
Besides visiting her hometown in Bucharest for Christmas or a few weeks in the summers, she travels for long periods (4 months to 1 year) to any continent, be it Asia, America, Oceania, Africa, or Europe. She has spent the whole last year traveling in Latin America and is writing her first book about it!
Furthermore, Anca has a unique view of traveling solo as a female nomad:
“As a woman, I never believed that traveling alone was something different or potentially dangerous or that I needed a man to guard me or keep me company. In my childhood, I loved the books of Jules Verne, and I daydreamed of adventures in exotic places, exploring jungles in Africa, or meeting dinosaurs in The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Being able to recover some of the innocence from back then makes me happy, and I try to share the joy of exploration with other people, regardless of their gender or past experiences.”
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🫶How do you take care of yourself when nomading?
This part is trickier. I was never burned out before, but last year, while in South Korea, I began to experience signs of it, and I came back home earlier than planned. I was feeling exhausted because I tried to do everything at once: working, visiting places, and writing my blog. At the end of the trip, I was so tired that I needed to break the journey and understand what was happening to me
Now, I have some rules and boundaries:
I never work after 10 PM.
I take everything more slowly (I don’t need to visit everything. I always leave some places outside of my route.)
Sometimes, I book more comfy places to relax without the pressure of always visiting something.
I prefer cozy studios booked through Airbnb rather than hotels because you can feel at home in a small apartment.
I try not to forget that good doctors exist everywhere in the world!
For instance, I changed my reading glasses in Paraguay, had a medical appointment in Bali, and visited a dentist in Playa del Carmen and Cusco. I always keep travel insurance now because I’m a former patient with serious head trauma from a terrible car accident in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. While I spent almost four weeks in three hospitals there, in the end, I understood what other people learned through dramatic events: fate never warns you.
There is no warning or sign that everything can end the next second, so you must live when you are alive, not postpone anything.
Another lesson is that most people are good. From many years of traveling and a few of living anywhere, I have experienced that people want to have good interactions with other people, they want to help you, and they do that without asking for anything in return or just offering spontaneously. You must take care of yourself, but living in fear of other people is unnecessary.
✴️ How do you find community as a nomad?
I’m not interested only in tourist attractions and living in the most beautiful places in the world because there is more than that in the world. I want to see how people live and their reality in their countries. Reading books or watching documentaries can show you parts of this reality. Still, it is a different experience to be there yourself, to talk to people, and to try to manage your life in different cultures.
I am in love with Latin America because I understand Spanish well and can speak it at a basic level. I like to have conversations with the local people, the simple ones, not the guides presenting you with a faked reality. This greatly differs from other countries where you struggle with Google Translate to understand something.
Meeting other nomads like me happens more and more often, as many people want or have already started a similar journey. Sometimes I don’t meet new people in Romania, as I’m rarely there. Still, I meet Romanian travelers in Ubud, Hanoi, or Ushuaia. People I was connected with on social media without meeting in real life, but we happen to be in the same place in various parts of the world. I love this and being able to help somebody to start the experience of living and working from anywhere.
🌱 How do you consider the planet and minimise your impact?
In these four years, mainly living abroad and in the previous ones traveling, I saw unique places. I started to value the nature we have on this planet, its biodiversity, the stunning places everywhere, and the fantastic culture people have.
I travel alone, independently, and slowly compared to my former vacations, but relatively fast if I compare myself to others. Usually, I spend between one month to 2-3 weeks in a country, depending on its size and the places I want to visit. From August 2020 to today, I have traveled and worked remotely almost continuously, except for Christmas visits to see my family. I spent half a year in Europe & Morocco in 2020, a year in Latin America in 2021, and 10 months in Asia and Oceania last year. I came again to Latin America this year, a region I deeply love.
As a slow traveler, I prefer to:
Live in homes or rooms managed by local people, not in big hotels or resorts.
Buy from locals and eat what they eat, even though sometimes I have no idea what I buy. I find it a humble way to support "mercados" (local markets) or small family restaurants.
Stay closer to nature. Big cities are interesting, but I find them tiresome and too noisy.
However, when it comes to transport, I'm not the best example. I have many flights frequently and prefer saving time rather than spending many hours on the road. I wouldn't say I like long bus journeys and crossing borders because it can be complicated by car or bus.
>>>> Anca’s perception on solo traveling: "Don’t take anything for granted” and ”question everything.”
In short, think for yourself, not through other people’s eyes. See the world and learn something that can help you grow. It will be the best money spent in your life! In the end, we don’t take the cars, houses, or regrets with us. We are on this earth for a short time, and what we make of our time here is the only thing that matters.
🔗Connect with Anca Serban via Facebook, and Instagram.
🔗 Want to read another #DigitalNomadStory? Meet Juliana 🔗
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