I am officially six weeks into my RTW trip and it’s time for an update on my state of mind.

Things are good. Really good. A few factors contribute to this:

Experiencing new things. My mind is constantly engaged and stimulated by new surroundings. While this might become tiring down the line after several months of extended travel, right now it feels refreshing. I grab one of my five cameras (DSLR, iPhone, point-and-shoot, underwater camera, GoPro) to capture every new thing I encounter. I can’t wait to edit and share them all on here.

I gets lots of sleep. My body is so happy about this! After decades of less than six hours of sleep a night, now I get around 7-8 hours plus several naps on the Stray bus every day. I am absolutely less stressed out than I was in Los Angeles. The dark circles under my eyes are even disappearing! It’s like those few extra hours of sleep are turning back the clock and I love it.

Activities. While I’m not getting traditional exercise, there are physical activities every day. Yesterday I went horseback riding and today I scaled a waterfall. Everyday I drag my luggage to and from the bus and my arms notice the difference. It feels invigorating to work out my muscles in different ways.

There are also two concerns I want to address going forward:

Food. This should not be a surprise given all the meal photos I’ve posted! When my friend Allison was in New Zealand we splurged on things like pizza, pasta, and dessert. Not your everyday diet indulgences, but fun for vacation. I anticipated snapping back to a more regular diet once I began traveling with Stray bus, however this has proved difficult. Here’s a sample of my average daily food intake:

• BREAKFAST: peanut butter & jelly sandwich
• MORNING SNACK: a latte and a granola bar or banana
• LUNCH: a large sandwich (usually with chicken for some protein) plus a pre-packaged pouch of chips
• AFTERNOON SNACK: ice cream and often another granola bar
• DINNER: a burger with fries or whatever the hostel group meal is (usually a BBQ — meat, salad, rice)
• DESSERT: chocolate bar

Despite the daily activities (see above), I still spend many sedentary hours riding a bus throughout the day, so those calories aren’t burning as quickly as I’d like them to. And while I’d like to be more proactive about cooking healthy dinners at the hostel, it’s not really practical. Carrying food around from place to place is tiring, veggies get squished during travel, and refrigerated foods don’t hold up well after a day on the bus (I’ve been carrying around pre-packaged turkey for days and just now tossed it for fear it’s been away from the fridge for too long). Plus there’s cooking supplies like olive oil, seasonings, and sauces that aren’t always available and I don’t have the space to carry many of those staples. I can buy dinner out (and often do), but food here is expensive. Salads are even costly! In many cases a burger is cheaper and I’m usually eager for the protein. But a burger comes with a bun and, most often, fries — which are hard to say no to.

My plan of attack is to cut out the PB&J sandwiches for breakfast and have the granola bar or banana instead. Then only have a latte as a morning snack. (Lucky me — the Stray bus typically stops for coffee around 10am so I haven’t had to give up my latte habit.) I’ll keep up with the large sandwich and chips for lunch. The afternoon ice cream HAS to stop, or at least be reserved for one day a week. For now I’ll stick with the dinner scenario but try to pull back on the amount of carbs consumed and instead focus on the protein and whatever veggies I can get my hands on. Unfortunately I can’t cut out chocolate for dessert — I draw the line there! But I can limit it to a small bar (or half a bar) and pick dark chocolate instead of bars with “the works.”

The bottom line is that just like with my life in L.A., I have to make good diet decisions or I’ll notice consequences.

Balancing work and a social life. I struggle to find balance between being social and keeping to myself to edit photos and write blog posts. I’m an introvert by nature so socializing takes some effort — I love people, just in small groups or one-on-one where it’s easier to connect and communicate. In larger groups (which is often the case on a Stray coach bus that holds 45 passengers) I feel overwhelmed. And in those cases it’s easier for me to bury my nose in my laptop than attempt small talk with the eight people sitting closest to me. But when we’re doing add-on activities like horseback riding or dining together at the hostel BBQ, it’s easier to meet people. A lot of the passengers are my age or younger and it’s nice that some of us are in our later 20s. I’ve met a lot of travelers who are on a career break like me. It feels good to share our stories and compare notes; plus I’ve accumulated a lot of great suggestions on how to shape my Australian itinerary based on input from others who have just come from there.

As a tangent to better balancing work / social life, I also want to make “me time” a priority — until last week I hadn’t watched a single episode of Scandal or Nashville, two shows I downloaded entire seasons of before my departure. Every time I turn on my computer it’s to edit photos or assemble blog posts, so going forward I resolve to carve out a little time each day to do something just for me. I have a few books waiting for my attention too. After all, what’s the point of being “on vacation” if you can’t enjoy down time every once in awhile?

One more miscellaneous thought:

I’ve met all of four Americans so far. A guy from Arizona in my hostel room at Rotorua, a very kind girl from San Francisco at a hostel dinner in Taupo, a guy named Tiger kayaking in Abel Tasman, and a new fellow Stray bus traveller named Michelle from Missouri. The other day our bus driver asked everyone to raise their hands when she called off the name of their home country, and she didn’t even bother to say the U.S. Where are all the Americans on the Australia/New Zealand backpacker circuit?! My British friend Emma said there’s a perception that Americans love their country so much they don’t want to leave. I have another theory — if Americans plan to travel abroad for a length of time, it’s usually when they are studying abroad during college (pre-“settling down”) instead of a traditional Gap Year like many Europeans take. And if they spend most of their time confined to the university, that only leaves a limited period to explore the backpacker destinations. Either way it’s weird to be the only American either on the Stray bus or in social situations. It makes me uncomfortable on two accounts:

1) I don’t want my fellow travelers’ perception of America to be based on what I say or do. If that’s the case, they’ll think all Americans are uptight for refusing pot (which I’ve declined three times so far) or that people from the States only listen to show tunes. Ha!

2) People from other countries talk about the U.S. a lot in many different contexts, particularly in regards to politics and culture. I often overhear travelers compare notes and the subject of the U.S. comes up even when there’s no American in the conversation. Sometimes it’s in a positive light and other times it’s not. The biggest question lately has been, “What’s going on with America?” with follow-up questions about the Boston bombing and Sandy Hook school shooting. There’s no easy answer and it’s weird to be a spokesperson of sorts.

I hope Gap Year or career break trips become more common in U.S. culture so that our population of twenty-somethings can interact with our counterparts in other countries. There are stimulating cultural and political conversations to be had but we’re missing them because we haven’t made it a priority to travel to the table.

There are lots more thoughts to share but I’ll stop here for now. If you have any reactions, I’d love to hear about them the comments.