Thread 2830457

I've never traveled outside of my mexican state and got no money, but I speak english, got a PhD in literature and im a great storyteller.

I've noticed plenty of authors I admire, e.g. Jack London and Herman Melville (he wrote Moby Dick) ran away from home and traveled far and wide during their youth. Melville literally just approached a ship at the dock in NY, asked for work doing anything and they took him with them all the way to Patagonia and back, and quite a few other places. These travels inspired him to write a bunch of adventure stories, attain legendary writer status and make a living off that for over a decade.......... then he had to work at the post office just to make end meet, started drinking hard and beating his wife (probably out of frustration for not being young and able to go out on adventures anymore).

My points are, A, life's too short to work a job you hate, even if it seems to be the only way to obtain the money you need to travel the way you want to, to travel "safely", and B, if these authors simply said "Fuck it, im penniless but i want adventure regardless" and hitched a ride overseas with a bunch of strangers (and even worse, sailors) back when the world was allegedly more dangerous than it is today, why not you and me too?

Has any of you ever tried the green hands way of traveling (just approaching a ship going where you want to go and sail with them)? If so, how do you go about it? If not, why not? What's the worst that could happen? I imagine you can improvise something once youre where you want to be, request asylum, or even residency. How is this way of traveling cheap less safe or effective than hoboing and the like?

>>2830457 (OP)
>why not you and me too?
i suspect it's precisely because the world was more dangerous, and people could just rock up to a port and get a job with no problems
now there are pesky things like regulations, training, qualifications, background checks and so on
but yeah go ahead and try it anon. report back

>>2830457 (OP)
Unfortunately, >>2830480 has it entirely right that the age of just talking your way onto any commercial seafaring vessel has been over for more than a century—in much of the world, you can’t even get into the ports very easily, to say nothing of walking right up to a dock, because they’re secured against smuggling, stowaways, theft, and other malfeasance. And crews are trained, licensed/certified, insured, often members of unions, and many fewer in number than they used to be, with increased automation of logistics systems. So pretty much no boat anywhere has a shortage of labor that an unskilled (useless) stranger can fill.

All that said, though, there are still a range of sailing jobs with comparatively low barriers to entry, if you can’t or don’t want to go through the process of actually becoming a useful, official, licensed merchant mariner.

Commercial fishing and crewing on private yachts are both comparatively accessible options. And entry-level cruise ship work in a variety of capacities isn’t much more difficult to get than equivalent customer-service or hospitality work on land.

>>2830457 (OP)
Although your doctorate is obviously not immediately relevant to the work, it’s quite possible that you could leverage it into gigs teaching Spanish, potentially at the university level, in Asia. A friend of mine is a Frenchwoman with a not-really-relevant doctorate who’s been teaching French to upcountry Thai university students for many years. It’s an enjoyable lifestyle that affords her fairly extensive time off for travel around Asia, and the workload is by no means egregious. She learned to teach the language more or less on the job, but her doctorate was enough to open the door.

>>2830457 (OP)
Young men used to be unafraid of sleeping rough. That's not the case anymore. Modern-day migrants demand four-star hotels with plush mattresses, climate control, hot shower, free WiFi, and room service. I've spent a few nights sleeping rough. It's difficult. You need to have a very strong mind to power through the discomfort. Being Mexican, you can hitch your way down into South America, smuggling goods for a living, staying in cheap hostels, finding buddies to travel with.

>>2830983
>It's difficult.
you mean in a tent? everyone does that in canada in the summer. my only problem sleeping in a tiny tent is I get claustrophobic and worried someone will stab me while I sleep

as to OP, I sympathize with your thread but can't really offer much advice on that right now. merchant marine is definitely viable but you will be working with Indians and Filipinos, and need to formally apply and go through recruitment, can't just walk up.

>>2830983
I slept rough for 4 months in the states one summer, sometimes I had a tent sometimes I just slept under the stars, it was okay, but I was 25 years old and enjoyed it
I am 36 now and would not even tolerate one night with a bad mattress or a loud environment

>>2830457 (OP)
>just approaching
friend, these days you need a resume and six references even to put gas in a truck. nobody is going to let you on their ship. if you want to travel by sea get your own kayak or small fishing boat and see where the waves take you. there was that mexican guy who did it before, ended up all the way in the south pacific or something, survived for months eating nothing but raw sea turtles. if he could do it, so can you.