Jane Doe

Jane Doe has spent $2500 AUD on airfares, another $1000 on insurance and clothes, sold everything she owns, quit her job and packed a suitcase.

She has boarded the plane, (didn’t forget her passport), said goodbye to her family, flown for 8hrs, had a one hour stop-over and flown for another 13 hours.

Twenty-two hours, 3 in flight meals, 7 in flight movies and no showers later Jane Doe has finally reached her destination.

For most people this sounds like a nightmare, but to any nomad who is out there to see the world, it is just the niggly beginning of an adventure that might lead them through cobbled streets in Prague, under bridges along the river Siene in Paris or onto an ice skating rink in Luxembourg.

Jane Does first big overseas trip will be pretty daunting. She’ll miss a train, run out of cash on a Sunday afternoon in an ATM free city and be yelled at by a disgruntled local. She will miss her family and friends (although Facebook and Skype will make it easier), she will come to appreciate the eccentricities of homeless people and she will learn to smile less at strangers.

Jane might go on a contiki tour, she most definitely will run into people she knows along the way and eventually she will run out of money and have to make a decision between finding work in a random country or moving home. Of course this might be dependent on that niggly piece of paperwork, the Visa. She may even have to pull off a sham marriage to stay in the country of her dreams.

She will lose friends, but will realize that some friendships are stronger than steel. She will make new friends, travel friends and work friends. She might fall in and out of love, repeatedly, and in multiple languages. Her suitcase will double in size and her Lonely Planet guide will be battered.

Only one thing is certain and it is that Jane Doe will change, maybe for the better maybe for the worse. She will learn and see things that other people might only dream of. Most importantly she will learn to appreciate the friends and family that she made along the way and the friends and family that will welcome her with open and understanding arms if, and when, she goes home.