One could say that I’ve had what we consider a good life: A loving family, loving parents, understanding brothers and sister, cool friends and freedom. I studied what I wanted to study, I worked in what I wanted to work on and so on.
After years of working as a front end developer (fancy terminology for “making websites”), I achieved a good level of success, I had a good salary and good life, I went to music festivals, I travelled, I lived by myself… but I still felt that there was something missing. I didn’t feel what I thought I would feel when I would “achieve success”. Although I was happy I didn’t feel fulfilled. So I started a self discovery journey, searching for true inner satisfaction.
After some personal development workshops, such as the Enneagram, Sexual De-conditioning and Circling, I found out that I really love interacting with people, instead of staring at a computer monitor writing code. It was after integrating my experiences in a tantra workshop that I found out that I really enjoy interacting with other people, talking, interacting, touching, connecting. I realised I was missing this human aspect in my job, and for the first time after 20 years of being a computer geek, it didn’t feel like I was in the right place.
It was then when I “connected the dots” and realised that my life was leading up to this: at age 14 I did a Pranic Healing level 1 program and started doing meditation weekend retreats, at age 21 I visited Sai Baba’s ashram in India, at age 23 I did the Enneagram workshop, at age 34 I started doing Circling and at 35 I did the tantric workshops. It was obvious that throughout my life the universe had already shown me some signs that connecting with others was my real path in life and throughout this time it was also putting Life Coaching in front of me every few years. So I decided to commit to what I already felt inside, I decided to quit my job, take some time off to travel the world with my wife and daughter.
This post is meant to be informative for people who are looking into how much it costs to travel and spend some time in South Goa. I heard north Goa is a bit cheaper but can’t really say if true or by how much. We are traveling on a budget of 45 euro per day, or at least that was our goal. We ended up spending an average of €53.18 per day.
In total, for 12 days that we where in south Goa we spent €638.11. This is divided in:
Category
Amount spent
Accommodation
€212.20 / 16,900 Rupees
Food
€217.63 / 17,130 Rupees
Transport
€103.17 / 8,130 Rupees
Tickets/Shopping
€80.24 / 6,325 Rupees
Coffee/Drinks
€22.88 / 1,800 Rupees
Accommodation: We booked a hut located in between and around 8 minutes walk from Patnem and Palolem beach. The first three nights we booked via Airbnb, 1800 rupees p/n and once there, we renegotiated with our hosts for a better price, 1500 rupees p/n. We found a cheaper place, 750 rupees p/n for my sister who was also there for a few days. And the last day we switched to a cheaper room to save a bit of money, 1000 rupees p/n, in the same hotel where we were staying. The cheapest we found was the 750 for my sister’s hut, which was similar to our own, but our hotel/hut was cleaner, had a better communal area and the people working there were very helpful for getting transportation or information about tours, beaches, etc. Because of how helpful they were and how clean it was we stayed there and didn’t change to where my sister stayed. But her hotel had better food and wifi connection.
On the high end, you can find places for 40 euro or (much) more per night, closer to the beach and more luxurious.
Food: You will find different types of food, Indian, continental, Italian, etc. And you do need to ask if things are spicy, but you can usually find non-spicy food. Still, be wary when they say “no spicy, no spicy” it might not be spicy for them but it sure is spicy for people who don’t like spicy.
We usually spent 250 – 300 rpi per person for lunch and 300 – 350 rpi pp for dinner in a cheap place. If you want a bit more fancy restaurant, it can go up to 400 – 500 rpi pp for lunch and 500-700 for dinner. Also, keep in mind that my girlfriend is vegetarian and I eat chicken some times so if you want meat all the time, prices will go up. We also drank either water or juices all the time but you can have sodas if you want a cheaper drink. We didn’t buy water as we have a water filter with us so we just use that a couple of times a day to refill our bottles.
Transport: We paid 2000 rpi, about €25, from the airport to our hotel, it was a two and a half hours’ ride. The other times we took a tuctuc, also know as rikshaw, we paid 100 rpi to go from our hotel to Chaudi, the closest city, or 300 rpi to go from our hotel to Agonda beach, about 20 minutes away from our hotel.
Tickets/Shopping: We bought some clothes for our daughter Asami. Pants for about 200 rpi and shirts also for 200 rpi. We went for ecstatic dancing for 400 rpi a ticket (cacao ceremony not included). I needed to get passport pictures for buying the sim card, which was 100 rpi for 8 pictures. The sim card cost us 750 rpi for 90 days of service, unlimited calling and text messages (local) and 1.5 Gb of internet per day. We also went salsa dancing for 250 rpi. When visiting a spice farm we paid 550 rpi for the tour and one day before leaving Goa, we had our laundry done for 470 rpi in total, that would be for all of our laundry, my girlfriends, Asami, and mine. The way it works is they count the pieces of clothing you bring, different prices for different types, and you pay the sum of all your clothing, as opposed to the weight.
Coffee/Drinks: The cheapest coffee we had was for 50 rpi. Tea is a bit cheaper at 40 rpi and milk coffee was usually a bit more at 60 rpi. Fresh juices go from 80 to 140 depending on the fruit in most places.
So that’s about it. I mentioned already that we are on a budget so we tried to go to cheap places with good food. “Karma cafe” and “Woodo cafe” were the two places we went to the most, and the last day we found “Sea view” (i think) which had great food, good service, good view, and good prices.
M ost resorts in front of the beach had higher prices, some of them not so much higher but some of them were very high. You can check the menus in each and then choose the one that fits your budget best.
The apartment is empty. Empty after taking all of our things out, some were sold, some were given away, some we are keeping and some we threw away. And now it sits there, empty, but filled with memories, good moments and experiences we lived in the last 2 years and 9 months.
It has been a process, well, moving is always a process but I’m not talking of a normal move from one house to another, no, this is moving from one house to NO house, to being houseless, to be free to come and go as we please.
“And so, the journey begins!” Those were the words I found myself saying while we looked at the empty space. Even though the journey already started a while back. Just getting the plane tickets, organizing the visas, packing, quitting our jobs. All of these things are part of the journey. So it began already a while ago. But more than packing, more than quitting our jobs, more than talking with people about our world trip, leaving our home feels so much more final, like a big milestone, something that breaks our story, the before and after.
So now we are staying at my girlfriend’s parents’ house for a few weeks. It’s a nice transition, it’s made this process easier because we had to force ourselves to organize so many things already, not specifically about the trip (though we did keep it in mind) but just going through all the things we own and deciding if it’s something we want to keep, if it’s something that we are actually using (or will use) or if it’s something we are holding onto for whatever reason. We have gotten rid of many things that we had just because we had space where to put them but not really fulfilling any need or having any purpose.
Every time I got rid (gave away, sold or threw) something I would have this feeling of lightness, of letting go of something that I don’t need to carry. The famous “Getting weight off of your shoulders” feeling. I could go into coaching mode and tell you how we are often carrying things around with us for so long that we don’t even feel them anymore, it is our “normal” now. And that we have to let go of many things we don’t even know we are holding onto. So that we can be more present, more free, more happy, more alive or more in the moment, but I don’t want to bore you with a “be better” speech right now.
The point is that having this transition of having our own place, to moving out but not starting the trip yet has made the experience of letting go more present and it has made our stress levels lower because we don’t have to do everything at the same time, we have more time to deal with things as they come. First, get rid of stuff we don’t want/need, then move out and store a few things we still want/need and then, do a check-up for the things we still need for the trip and finish packing the bags.
So we bought the tickets. Now it feels like it’s actually happening. We’ve been talking about doing this for more than a year and a half and for all this time we’ve spoken about it as something that has been decided, no as something that we would like to do some day or wish to do but don’t see how it would be possible. No! we always spoke about it like something that was final, something that was happening no matter what.
But, besides talking about it, and buying some clothing or small things thinking on the trip, we had not really taken any action. The things that we bought were things we would buy anyway even if we were not going on the trip, it’s just we bought a different model or better quality thinking of the future usage we would give it.
Now, actually spending hundreds of euros to pay for the tickets, choosing a date for flying, it really makes it feel like it’s something way more present and real. Now we don’t have to say a general date like “January” or “The beginning of next year”, no! Now we can say “The 21st of January!” having this set date helps manifest it and set it in reality. And after having the date set, now we can go ahead of book an AirBnB for the first days we will be there. One thing connects to the other and more things start happening, the ball starts rolling.
Being in the final days of my job as a front end developer, I find my patience with problems short and my frustrations while debugging bigger. Im not sure if it’s always been like this and I’ve been putting up with it while not really giving it the importance that it warrants. Or maybe it is a new thing that is happening now only because I know that in a few days more I will not have to do any more coding and now that I know this I just don’t want any more if it. I’m not really sure which of the two options is the real one but in the end it doesn’t really matter, the effect is the same and changes are being made, decisions being taken.
So many times in our life we don’t see what is really important to us because other things are occupying our mind. Take a moment to slow down, look at your day/life from a different perspective and feel into what you are really doing.
The last years have been a period of transition, a period when a transformation has been slowly happening. I do not think of the same things anymore and I am not attracted to the same activities, what kept my mind busy in the past barely crosses my mind now a days and the things that I considered important now feel like naive dreams or distractions. I have now a stronger sense of purpose and a greater desire for fulfilment.
I can’t keep on going in the same direction I have to reevaluate what I do and how I spend my time, hell, even how I make a living.
This new focus forces me to renew myself, to find myself, to heal myself, to leave behind what I have been doing for years and start a new life, a life of helping, of service, of support. To be there for others, bring wisdom to those who are in need or searching for it and to just be, to feel and exist. Ultimately to be happy.
To be happy in a life where the standard is higher, where the stakes are bigger and where actions have real life consequences, for me and for those around me.
I have started a life as a relationship design coach.
