A Nomad in the USA
by Ricardo
At first I was a little worried that returning to the States for six month would be not only colossally expensive, but boring—if not disconcerting. You see, California is “home” for me; and the reason I became a Nu Nomad back in 2001 was to live within more affordable, unknown, and exotic places—to get away from the maddening traffic jams of L.A. (to say little about distancing myself from a culture that prides itself on over consumption and excessiveness on nearly every level ). However since I had to return (for personal reasons), and once I got it into my head that I would be simply Nu Nomading in yet another (yet familiar) country, I immediately got turned on to the whole idea of being in the USA again. And, since I still had many friends here, I would at the very least be enjoying their company, their stories—their luscious California wine!
On May 22nd I touched down at LAX. A young friend of mine, Lotus, who visited me with her (now) husband in Southern Thailand was waiting for me at the airport’s arrival area. A half-hour later, I was decanting recent travel stories and gossip about shared Thai friends with Lotus at her place over a glass of long missed tequila. She was the first to ask what my plans were. Aside from meeting up with current and prospective new business clients, maintaining my current work load, and co-authoring a book on Nu Nomading (with fellow Nomad, Carmen Bolaños), I told her that I’ve always wanted to see much more of the American Southwest. I would turn this long commitment of time in America as an opportunity to travel my country. (And as happenstance had it, I would be joined in September by a good friend of mine from Thailand—a French expat. It had been Dao’s life-long dream to see America’s great wonders, like the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley—and Route 66! Soon Dao and I would be together again, but on the other side of the world, where we would soon embark on an American road trip.) Lotus offered a thumbs-up on plan, then pointed me over to the fold-out sofa where I could begin to put the 20-hour airplane trip behind me.
Task number one, the following morning, was for me to get my mobile office in order. Lotus took me to an AT&T store in Los Angeles which sets people up on wireless communications. I chose the “Pay As You Go” plan which permits one to make calls at ten cents per minute, check and send emails and view web pages. I did not, however, choose the “tethering” option—which is their form of GPRS service (the ability to interface mobile phone with a notebook computer via Bluetooth). Though GPRS would have made it possible to access the Internet anywhere there was an AT&T mobile phone signal, the price was just too steep and the bandwidth insufficient for most working professionals. Anyway, since being in America means being around a lot of Wi-Fi hotspots, I knew I’d be able to get onto the Internet to do my work (I’m a website designer) nearly whenever I wished to. So, now with my new SIM card in my mobile phone, I began making calls. One of the first calls was to a client—one who eventually became a reliable friend.
For years Ludie had been traveling vicariously through me, reading my postcards and Facebook entries—and listening to my stories firsthand whenever I’d come to L.A. for quick business visits. She knew I no longer had a permanent home here, so she had offered-up to me the use of her guest room. The guest room is actually like a little apartment next to her swimming pool; it has everything one could want in an accommodation, including Wi-Fi. Yup, one could do a lot worst. Anyway this permitted me to now work on the crucial number two task, that of transportation.
When one is in America for any length of time, they will need to have a car. (The exceptions to this rule may be New York, Chicago and San Francisco—but definitely not Los Angeles.) Having known this coming in, I had set aside 3,000 USD to buy one since renting a car for six-months would be cost-prohibitive. After scanning Craigslist.com and the Auto Trader magazine (on-line), I found a second-hand 1996 Toyota Camry for only $2,200. And after putting in another $1000 to get it into tip-top-shape, I then had a reliable vehicle to set out in. First on my agenda—if only to get it out of the way—was to show some face time to all my clients; the second was to head to the State of Arizona to see some friends and to research my road trip to come.
[End of Part 1. Read Part 2.]
