My Last Minute Trip To Malaysia

Traveling solo is incredibly liberating because you can be as spur-of-the-moment as you like. One of my closest friends has been planning to meet up with me for a while and we finally decided on Malaysia for the end of August. I was in Kenya when I made these plans and I was pretty much done seeing everything I wanted there. I thought, why don’t I go to Malaysia now and volunteer while I wait for my friend. After 10 mins of debating with myself, I went online and booked the first/cheapest flight to Malaysia leaving the next day. Then I did some Googling, found a farm that was looking for volunteers; a few email exchanges and 48 hours later, I’m sitting in my new home, a few hours outside of Kuala Lumpur, writing this blog post.

The flexibility of solo travel is amazing if you remember to be open-minded and let yourself have fun in whatever situation you end up in. On my first day at the farm I learned that there was no internet or hot water. Two other new volunteers arrived the same day as me and left in a few hours because of this. Like I said before, it’s important to be open minded. After my first day of working on the farm in the hot sun, the LAST thing I wanted was a hot shower. I wanted ICE COLD. Also, I find not having internet to be a meditative experience in today’s time. Instead of mindlessly browsing the internet, I can reflect on my day, myself and enjoy my surroundings. I spent the rest of that first day getting to know the other staff members, playing with the farm animals, enjoying nature and brainstorming projects to work on during my stay.

Things won’t always go smoothly and THAT’S OKAY. I didn’t know I needed proof of departure for Malaysia to get my boarding pass at the Kenyan airport. Thank god for technology. In a few minutes, I was able to buy a cheap ticket via the Kayak app to another country while standing at the airport check-in counter. Things happen and it’s impossible to know what you don’t know you don’t know. Don’t stress when things don’t go smoothly. Skip the stress part altogether, go into problem solving mode and life will become a lot simpler.

-Agi