#methodsoftravel

[kollected]

Moving Somewhere for Your Next Job Because You Think Your Crush Might be There as a Method of Travel

(April 10, 2018)

Back in the last month of living in Alaska, September 2017, I met a handsome fellow at a bar on his birthday and he asked me if I wanted a drink. I normally would say no to that, but I was very attracted to him just upon meeting him. It was simply magnetic. I loved his eye-contact and openness with me. 

He and I chatted for about 6 to 8 hours on his birthday, and then we saw the northern lights pop out. It was pure magic. The only problem was that he had a girlfriend he was supposedly breaking up with the next day, so I really didn’t want to get involved with that by making a move on him. 

He gave me his number and Facebook information, and we’d message each other for the next coming weeks. I had no idea where I was going after Alaska, but  I remembered he told me that he was last in Salt Lake City, UT before being dedicated to traveling the USA with this girlfriend for 3 years. I was running out of time to find a winter job and I for sure didn’t want to be living with my parents for 6 months. I hated living in the suburbs and driving through the neighborhood school traffic every day. Literally anywhere within a 20 mile radius, there was a school, and there were so many freaking cops that pulled people over for going 5 miles over the speed limit. Living there stressed me out so much that I broke out in eczema for the first time in my life when I came back from Alaska. 

I searched Coolworks.com for a ski town near Salt Lake City, and I found tons, but none that sparked my interest like Alta. I found a charming, family-owned lodge that claimed to be like the original ski-lodges of the 1920s. When I interviewed with the General Manager, I knew I would feel at home there because he claimed there were no televisions or gyms or elevators because guests and their families have been returning for generations to ski. I wanted to work somewhere where that was more of the expectation rather than somewhere ritzy where the guests can constantly be entertained by never leaving the lodge. 

After a month of being in Alta, I told my crush where I was. He said that he used to work at the ski resort nearby, Snowbird. I had no idea. He said that he’d come and visit, but he never did. First he went to California to surf, and then he went to Indiana and Ohio to see his family. He kept telling me a later date that he’d appear, until suddenly he never did, and last I checked he was back in Alaska. Never told me why. 

It seems to me that his purpose in my life has already been fulfilled though. He sparked my interest in Utah, and I ended up working at the best job I ever had with great people to work with, great guests, and probably the highest standard of living I’ve ever had with the least amount of stress. I was single the whole season, and I never found love like what I originally wanted, but I found love amongst myself and the people I worked with. I’ve never felt so valued. I’m going to hold my level of respect in the workplace to a different level now because of it, and I probably wouldn’t have learned that if I worked somewhere else. 

[kollected]

Pretending to be a Flight Attendant as a Method of Travel

(April 9, 2018)

Before the breakup, I was already wanting to escape. I  wanted to escape serving in restaurants, escape my parents, escape my boyfriend, escape all my bills by not paying for my credit card, and escape going back to school. I wanted to become a flight attendant because that was the #1 job I could think of that I didn’t need a formal education for and it still had great benefits. 

Whenever there’s something that I don’t want to do, I think of really creative solutions to get around them. Probably the top things I hate paying for are rent, accommodations, higher education, gas, and food. And I love paying for entertainment, art, and travel. The only thing is, I could be making money off of the things I love instead of paying for the things I love. So I decided to apply online to multiple airlines. 

I scored an in-person interview to every single airline I applied for which meant free flight to a new interview destination, and sometimes free hotel room. All that was required of me was that I attend the interview and present myself the best way I could. I often made it to the final decision room where they tell the applicants if they are “invited” to go to a 3-4week flight attendant training. Not once did I ever get the final “yes” because I had no emergency or crisis experience. I could charm my way through the entire day, but in the end, I was not meeting their standards for what was the most important. 

People that did get invited were often recently out of a relationship as I was, escaping the boredom of every-day life, and were very adventurous and brave. I decided I’d give being a flight attendant another shot one day if I ever did something brave enough, but before that I still need to learn how to stand up for myself and not let people get underneath my skin for the slightest of annoyances. Crying in the sky (trapped on a plane with 100 passengers) isn’t gonna fly. 

What I did get out of the interviews was that I’m a great candidate on the surface and it’s super easy for me to score free flights because I can easily just “act” like a flight attendant. I’d highly recommend applying for an airline that’s hiring because there’s nothing to lose, you might make great friends because of everyone having to act like their social in the waiting room, and if you make it to flight attendant school, you might learn how to deliver a baby and do martial arts. 

[kollected]

Getting a Job Far Away from Everything As a Method of Travel

(April 9, 2018)

After quitting my job at a restaurant where I made a lot of money, I didn’t really see myself making much money or meaningful friendships at the new restaurant. In fact, I just didn’t really see much room for growth for myself at all in suburbia with my parents, living in the same neighborhood as the ghosts of my memories of so many people. At this point in my life (May 2017), so many things in this town had left me already, so it was time for me to leave as well. 

Naturally, being my extreme and over-dramatic self, I picked the furthest place I could go to where I knew nobody from my past would follow me. I went to Alaska. I found a website on the internet that provided job-listings from out-of-state towns that were usually tourist-friendly and hospitality-centered. I wanted to go somewhere with beautiful nature. I think my recent head-shaving prior to choosing Alaska opened my eyes to how much I wanted to cleanse myself of the old me. I wanted to be erased.

Much to my surprise, many others in Alaska that I met were also running away. I didn’t have such a unique story after all. Running away from the law, from past lovers, from responsibility and growing up. For me, my main motivation was “where can I go where I might find people more like me?” I wound up in a village full of J1 visa students and self-titled outcasts. Every person I met there had a great story to tell, and they were all relatable. I never felt so instantly impacted by someone’s story as frequently as I did there. It was all special, even though working in that lodge was hell. 

I worked in restaurants back home in the Carolinas, and I worked in restaurants in Alaska. The only difference that made Alaska better for me is that I felt as if I was amongst so many people like me, and I loved feeling freedom when I went outside. So many of my best days there were spent simply wandering in a forest nearby and eating wild berries and mushrooms, drawing the nature around me, and occasionally meeting interesting people wandering on their own themselves. 

I liked it so much knowing that whatever hell I needed to endure in my job, it was all going to end in 5 months anyways, and then I could move somewhere new again. In fact, I’m in the last week of my second seasonal job that I chose to work in Alta, UT. I thought I would lose all the weight I gained in Alaska from not having access to healthy food or a grocery store nearby by learning how to ski. I thought I could immerse myself somehow with the athleticism of people around me, and that I’d be inspired to be just as fit and active, but instead, I was too cold and wanted to paint more often than ever. It wasn’t too much of a loss, I don’t think.