Walk That Earth

Watching Michael Lewis on 60 Minutes talk about bonuses and Wall Street makes me recall several conversations I had this past weekend. This question was posed to me this weekend, "how much money would you need right now, liquid, to leave your job and walk the earth?"

Hmm. Think about it. Now, I'm not saying that you would never work again. In fact, you might decide to travel for a month and then come back and get back into the workplace. But the point is, how much money would you need to leave, taking everything into account, such as the state of the economy and the uncertainty of job prospects upon returning home. There are a million and one variables. The answer I gave when posed this question was about $10 million different than the answer a friend gave not 30 minutes later. I thought this was pretty funny actually and as we talked about the rationale behind our numbers I figured I had to throw this out to the readers.

Maybe it's because I did some earth-walking last summer and that I know how far a good ol' greenback can go in Southeast Asia, that my number was much lower than several of my friends' numbers. I think once you've tasted the freedom it's hard to get that taste out of your mouth and you're willing to do more with less, or at least try to do more with less. While I was on the road for only six weeks we definitely came across people who had been walking the earth for a long time. These folks, very often couples, were "next level" travelers and it was pretty apparent. They traveled very minimally. Just the small packs on their back, often hoofing it on the beach with full gear which seemed to suggest that they'd camped out under the stars all night, or perhaps just swam up Navy SEAL-style right onto the shore from some undisclosed prior location. They wore versatile clothing that to me said, "hey, may look like a sari but it's also a headwrap/hammock/towel/parachute/flaming jumprope". These folks also maybe wore a puka shell necklace or two, and had tans so irreversibly deep that even Snooki would blush. Despite their quirky fashion sense and apparent need for a good dermatological once-over, these folks by and large looked extremely happy and you could just tell that they looked at all the junior varsity travelers like myself with a sense of, I don't want to say arrogance, but knowingness. Is that even a word? Yeah, apparently it. So yeah, with a sense of knowingness that at some point my trip was going to come to an end and I'd have to do the single most dreaded thing post-warm climate vacation...put on socks. And then of course head back to Responsibilityland. But getting back to the question at hand...how much would you need in the bank to set off on your own adventure, knowing full well you would or could come back whenever. How much would you need to be able to draw down on and set off with your main squeeze, like the aforementioned earth walkers, on an adventure like that? Or forget a companion. How much to just going it alone?

Since I'm pretty sure I'll never get this opportunity, or more accurately, take this opportunity, until I'm retired that is, it's at least fun (read: kind of depressing) to think about it. Feel free to share your number in the comments section. It's anonymous. Nobody's judging. It's much better getting actual real people comments instead of Taiwanese spam.

This could be you and your new, cool, hungry, earth-walking friends. Look how happy they all are playing in the sand. Walk the earth, people. Walk. The. Earth.