The Return

When all your life fits in a 65 litres bag...

It's a great thing to go, but after a while, one needs to go back home. Or not! But let's say one has to... Nobody will react the same way.

Some people will need psychological help really fast. Others will get down the plane like they would get down the bus. Because there is more than one way to return.

Those friends I met on the road, like me, had the same theory. When you know the deadline, you condition yourself, slowly but surely, to the inevitable.

But comes an uncomfortable "bipolarity". Probably inevitable also. Immense joys, long awaited reunions, holy peace to enjoy. Some dark moments as well, of inexplicable loneliness, even after six months on the road... alone, of sadness you can't describe with words.

You realize the notion of "home" has changed. The ties are breaking down. That independance acquired will inevitably lead you somewhere else. After so many goodbyes, you put in perspective those links which become entangled and hold us back.

You realize you've changed. Point-blank. A little bit in other's eyes. But what really changed is not hidden in what others see. It's there, but they won't see. And they get worried about it.


Returning home is surrounding ourselves with people who won't understand. Point-blank. Without blaming them. Just because they were not there. It's feeling trapped with our memories, our new values, our reconstructed identity. And we feel at least releaved, light, to reunite with our traveling partners. Like when we reunite with lifelong friends. Because we live in the same world. We leave from the same point to get somewhere else. We are there, that's all. Sigh of relieve.

The return, it's seeing the outline of the mold, the underskirts which exceed, the steam roller that rushes fast. It's battling every day no to sink in facility, not to embrace the outline of that mold.

"You'll see, with time, everything will come back like before", I'm told.

No! I dont want to go back to "before". Because we're not "before" anymore. Because there is more ahead.

If there is one thing to understand with all those differences I saw, it's that everything is always possible.

One just needs to overcome disorientation induced by change. Wanting to do everything now, to see everything, but not knowing where to start. Realizing even more that one life won't be enough. That some choices will have to be made.

I know, that portrait of the return seems really "grey". Like a painting of a sad clown (or a painting of any clown), it may make you feel uneasy. What's great about coming from an adventure that forced us to deprogram ourselves, it's to live moments of truth, authenticity. We live moments of distress like moments of happiness like they come, without holding them back, because we learned to live day by day. And it goes away!

One day at a time, nice statement that can cure every problem. Because the past is gone, the future is stressful. Just need to know we're going somewhere.

Now on Facebook

Great news! This blog is now on Facebook. You can like the page by clicking here or by going on www.facebook.com/montourduglobe

Yes, the title of the page is in french, as the original blog is in that language. But for now, everything is posted both in french and in english on the page.

You can get the latest news, know about the latest posts on the blog, see pictures you haven't seen yet about my trip or get some hints to start a trip of your own.

The page is still brand new, so the content will keep on coming slowly, day after day.

Meanwhile, I'm working hard on translating every part of this blog so the information is the same as the one you can find in the french part. It'll take some time, but it's getting better day after day. So keep coming back to get the latest news and get the full posts about my adventures.

And thanks for reading me.

If I had to do it all over again

Sapa, Vietnam

I'm getting so late. SO late! In everything i do. Because coming back home, I trip on every line on the floor. But it'll get better. I hope! And I'll be able to restore the speed of the sand leeking in the hourglass to a rythm I'll choose.

While waiting for that to happen, one often asks me what I think about that epic six months getting further and further away in the rearview. If you had to do it all over again... they ask. With suspension points. So I can complete the affirmation.

If I had to do it all over again, I would'nt change a thing. Not a minute, not a second. Nothing! Too bad for that French tourist who thought my trip was too fast to allow me to taste the life in every country.

True that I will never be done with this world. That I still have so much to discover. But you can never regret happiness. One can't wish to go back and change the intoxication that makes him forget life's imperfections.

When I think about it, I didn't learn a lot of words in the languages I encountered. I had an upset stomach almost every day for weeks, even months. My bones did hurt for sleeping on so-called beds made only of a plank of wood and almost no soft material to make that at least close to comfortable. I had so many frustrations not being able to communicate, not knowing where I was going, having to chase visas, lost luggages, train or bus tickets. But I wouldn't change a thing. And it's not to make believe I'm nice or intelligent or full of wisdom, to look like I understood something I did not really understand or to repeat a cliché like "one can never regret happiness".

It's because I feel it right there. I know I made the best decision of my life by sailing away. I allowed myself to become somebody wherever I was, to leave a footprint that is already fading away everywhere I went, but that allowed me to get a better grip on the steering wheel that is driving me who-knows-where.

If I had to do it all over again, I would put that naivety, my fears and my lack of preparation in my big backpack. Like I did back in February. And I wouldn't hesitate to use them to give life to that canvas which would cover itself with the unknown day after day.

Twenty countries in six months, it's tiring sometimes. It's necessary to listen to ourselves. Which I did. But it's being able to compare cultures, appreciate them even more by opposing their own realities.

If I had to do it all over again, I would put the key in the door the day before yesterday and I would fly away with a big smile on my face. How could I ever regret the beauty and the extravagance of this world? Like the rice terraces in Sapa... Unforgettable.

If I had to do it all over again, six months ago, I wouldn't change a thing.

If I had to do it all over again now, with the experience of the last six months, I would go without a deadline, purely improvising, a one way ticket in my pocket, half of the clothing in the checked-in luggage. I would choose a first destination and I would go with the flow, would trust the travelers I would meet. I would explore the small villages to appreciate each country for what it is.

Because that is what the experience of a trip around the globe allows : having the time to take our time with the confidence in ourselves to know we'll always get where we are supposed to be.

The Nomad's Rest

During all my adventure, I published a story about my trip every two weeks in the weekly newspaper La Tribune. Here is the translation of the assessment I wrote for the Saturday August 18th edition.

Source : CUSTEAU, Jonathan. « Le repos du nomade », La Tribune, Saturday August 18 2012, p. 10.

The friendships we make in a trip like this are way stronger than we can imagine. They leave you pensive, always a little sad after each goodbye, and put you in a loneliness you never feared before, like here on Mykonos Island, in Greece.

The Nomad's Rest

Allow me to have a lump in my throat. Allow me to be dizzy, drunk of these six months that went by. By going through the door of Pierre-Elliot-Trudeau Airport, Wednesday, the book closed itself in a deafening noise. I went all the way around the circle, ended six months of traveling around the world. Put the sail away. Went back home. And I still don’t want to hear the alarm of the daily routine knocking at my door.

After six months of sailing from discovery to discovery, I’m still trying to land. I will surely miss that freedom of waking up every morning in a different country. In a country I had chosen.

I will miss those friends I met randomly, those citizens of the world who get their fuel at the same place I do, who understand without asking questions. I will miss that intoxicating feeling I get by pretending I’m Chinese, Greek or Portuguese, acting as if eating at the nearby café, taking the metro, were part of the routine.

I will miss that magic moment where you stop being a tourist to navigate comfortably, being able to find your way in those towns you made yours.

I was told I probably wouldn’t come back exactly as I was before. That I would become a better man. Do we get better because we leave far away for six months? We get more maturity, more wisdom, more madness maybe. But is that making us better?

Six months around the world, it’s far from a hippie trip to smoke weed and grow dreadlocks.

Six months of travel, it’s trying to seize the uncatchable more and more every day. It’s stopping time in every second dripping between our fingers. It’s letting soak some images we might, sooner or later, forget.

It’s accepting to die a little bit more day after day with those moments that will never come back, that we will never be able to describe or explain as they really were. The paradox is to collect so many unforgettable moments that we will probably end up forgetting some of them. And we hate ourselves a little bit for that.

I smiled like an idiot at the back of a tuk-tuk in Cambodia, simply with the satisfaction of living in the moment; I opened eyes that big when I got to see Australia’s coasts; I found unexpected peace in Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan. But up above all this, I will remember those people I met that now define the countries I visited.

In all of those faces, I saw the World! Way more than in those pieces of land or in those ruins all older than the previous one. I’ve found friends for life!

There are actually some moments where you want to stop it all, hug those people so hard so they’ll decide not to go. Because they made us feel at home in this other land, because we would build a house right there, each day trapping in a big bottle that instantaneous happiness.

I found much more in each word I shared with a foreign friend than in each kilometre I went through between here and there. Those friends make you smile, steal a tear from you when it’s time to say goodbye, make you think way more than the wisdom you acquire with this time that, in the end, only can go by. I will miss all these people for whom, in so little time, I became somebody.

Those six months were full of innocent happiness, spontaneous laughter which allow to dig in the children in ourselves to explore, experiment, take risks, stop asking questions and stop worrying about consequences…

Because the more you learn, the more you understand you know nothing. The more you travel, the more you understand you’ve seen nothing. And yet, yet, after 20 countries, 72 cities, 28 planes, 58 hostels and more than 16 000 pictures, one could wish for an illumination or two. Nothing! Nothing but the feeling of wanting even more.

I could disappear again in one week, one month, one year. Hard to stay in place when there is a whole world, out there, that is left to explore. I also want to realize so many other dreams, surf on the vibe I got going.

Six months around the world, it’s also learning to let go. Let go of what you can’t control, of course, but accepting to live knowing you leave each part of happiness behind day after day. You snatch yourself away from those places you like, those people you would like to stay with a little bit longer. One needs to accept it, that’s all.

Six months around the world, it’s living at all costs. Living instead of surviving. Because that life has no price.

Allow me to have a lump in my throat when it’s time to end this trip of a lifetime. Allow me to have a lump in my throat when it’s time to write these last lines that will definitely turn a page I refuse to turn. And forgive me if my head is still in another time zone sometimes…

Pictures Time!

Because I didn't get to post as many pictures as I thought I would during my trip, I take the time to upload a couple of them from the last days of my adventure. Stay tuned. This blog is not dead.

Malecon, Havana, Cuba

Calle San Miguel, Havana, Cuba

Iguazu Falls, Puerto de Iguazu, Argentina

La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina