For the next 6-ish weeks I'll be living in MedellĂn, Colombia.
Some friends asked me why, so here's a short post explaining my thinking.
Why 6 weeks?
I graduated college a few weeks ago. I could've taken vacations in Europe or road trips across the US. That's what many of my friends are doing.
What I had in mind couldn't be fit into a week or two, though, because I wasn't planning on taking a "vacation".
In its conventional sense, a vacation is a break from the daily structure of life. People dip into their savings to splurge on a getaway to an exotic island in the Caribbean and â most importantly â forget about their 40-hour job for a whole week.
My trip was designed to be a bit different. The closest term I've found for it is a "mini-retirement". It's a term that I borrowed from The Four Hour Workweek, the book that inspired this entire trip.
A mini-retirement is a small period where I'm not giving up my time to structured institutions like colleges and companies. I'm not taking a 'break from life'; rather, I'm taking a break from how most people live life.
It's perfect for the phase of life I'm in right now: a summer-long gap between two structured paths: college and full-time work.
It's also long enough to try a different lifestyle and meet some of my personal goals (more on that below...)
Why MedellĂn, Colombia?
MedellĂn is a great choice for my mini-retirement.
It's known as the "city of eternal spring" because the weather is pleasant all year round. That also makes it easy to travel light: I only packed a few polos, t-shirts, and shorts with me.
Living standards here are extremely cheap. I can take advantage of "geographic arbitrage" to get better housing and food for the same price as I would've paid in, say, New York City.
But affordances aren't just limited to food and housing. I plan on taking daily Spanish and Salsa dance lessons here, and they're both quite affordable. What would've been a $50/hr dance or language lesson in the US is only $5/hr in MedellĂn.
Bit more on the lessons: To keep boredom away, I'm filling my days with one activity for the mind (language) and one for the body (dance). Both let me jump into Colombia's culture. And both are great for meeting new people. Languge learning forces you talk to ne people. And salsa, by design, is a partner dance with social events where you rotate partners every 5 mins.
I do have other goals for this trip, but they're location-agnostic. I want to read books on Economics and Psychology, improve my writing, and follow the Slow Carb diet. Being in a new, distraction-free environment is a great way to reset and meet these kinds of goals.
Written by Aryan Bhasin