notes on the nomadic snail-life
since leaving New York with a suitcase and a backpack, I’ve been living like a snail — choosing where I want to live, exploring new cities, and making myself at home wherever I am. I’ve learned a lot about the logistics of this way of life. namely: when you don’t have a permanent home, it’s crucial to treat your snail home well, and to discover your own way of being at home everywhere.
here are things I learned from my personal discoveries of this life.
(1) embrace being slow
one thing about living like a snail is that I get whiplash very easily from moving too quickly between places. just because I can mentally adjust easily to new environments doesn’t mean I should, or that it’s the best thing for my soul and psyche. my psyche wants to savor each place fully, and to have enough time and spaciousness to ground itself. this takes time. for me, it takes a full week just to settle in.
I just did a three week visit of three cities — and it was perfect for seeing other possibilities of places to live, but too exhausting to repeat more than a few times a year.
(2) upon arrival, locate places on the map
the primary way I travel is through creating personalized Google maps — saving places under lists, and labeling them for reference. I will locate options for each of the following categories, then based on what neighborhood I’ll be in, plan my day accordingly. the first thing I do usually is to stock the fridge, so I’m not sleepless and hungry at 3am.
places to eat
grocery store
cafes
pharmacy
things to see
bookstores
milongas
(3) experiment with different modes of being in a place
since this way of life is not a three week or three month stint, but an indefinite life choice, I don’t see it as “travel” or “holiday’” or “vacation.”
but if I only have five days in a city, I’ll prioritize absorption — seeing things and exploring neighborhoods. if I have five weeks, I’ll settle into a daily rhythm of work, and plan my absorption time on the weekends or Fridays.
(4) seeing happens through absorption, not from visiting tourist attractions
I absorb cities by walking for hours through neighborhoods, or by sitting at cafes and observing the life flow by. very rarely, I’ll visit a museum or a tourist destination, but never because it’s on a list of “must-visit” places. I know that my taste is very specific, and I don’t do things that don’t interest me. I’ve honed a keener sense of what it is I want to see in a city — living cultural experiences over artifacts, aesthetics and beauty of the streets, nature and parks, food, dancing. then, I allow each city to reveal to me what is unique and special about it; what is worth seeing.
(5) live the off-screen life whenever possible
when I first arrived in Paris, I looked in a few shops for SIM cards, and they were all sold out. then I realized that I don’t really need to be connected to the virtual world all the time, when there is an abundance of wifi everywhere. since then, it’s become a habit I enjoy — I treasure the hours of walking in a new city and focusing my attention on the environment, and not having anything on my phone to pull my attention away.
(6) prioritize snail home health
snail home health is very simple but so easily neglected — I’ll write about this in another post. essentially, it’s caring for the physical, mental, and emotional body with regular structures and rhythms.
when the environment and people and experiences are always changing, it becomes more crucial to find a sense of grounding and inner home. if anything, living nomadically has helped me be more clear about my inner world, and attentive to the sources of nourishment within.