Graduating at the University of the World

This Graduating at the University of the World is written on Let's be Nomads.

I am almost reaching the end of my Masters, a year about love.

What did I learn? Am I giving every poor guy at the side of the street all of my love? Am I hugging trees everywhere I go? No, but I did find a certain balance in giving and receiving love. A balance between becoming more aware of the energy inside myself and becoming more aware of the energy I’m giving to the world.

Some days we lose sight of the energy we can give to others, those days we only care about our own happiness. We choose the things that give us instant gratification and see it as a priority above everything else.

Some days we just give all the energy we’ve got to other people. We do what makes them smile and don’t worry about receiving energy ourselves.

Some days we don’t feel like giving or receiving love. We block the energy we could give to others and we even choose to ignore the love that is given to us through a simple smile.

My favourite days are the ones where we don’t have to think about giving and receiving energy. When all the puzzle pieces fall into place and we feel a burst of adrenaline. The kind of energy we can’t ever imagine do disappear. Those moments are the ones created when we live in the present. When we not only feel and act according to our own level of energy but also synchronise effortlessly with others.

Even though this balance feels endless at some point the beautiful unison gets broken. We start to live in the past again; we regret decisions that have been made; let the past intervene with our future. Or we lost our balance on a personal level by not taking care of our bodies the way we should. We prefer the instant gratification and forget that our body is the vessel of our soul. We stop listening to the signals our body has been clearly giving to us and we forget to listen to our intuition. But, all we actually ignored is love. The love we should give ourselves by listening to our heart and doing what feels right. Or the love we should give to others, those who need our energy to find their balance. To those who get their life battery charged out of our smile. This love, given or received is endless; it’s waiting for us to trust it and most of all to be aware of how and where it presents itself.

I am now 23 and have been traveling the world for five years. My soulmate has been wandering along my side for almost three of these years. He joined me during my master, my most inspiring year yet in which I learned more than I ever could have imagined. I guess that’s what a master at university is supposed to be all about: getting to the core of the subject you’re mostly interested in; which for me is the subject love.

I started at the University of the world to find a cure for my restlessness, to explore the content of what I called the undiscovered world and to find answers to all of my questions.

I did not find all the answers I was searching for and some of my initial questions will probably stay unanswered for a while longer, but I did find answers to most of the questions that I started asking myself along the way.

As to the exploration of the undiscovered world I found out that the content is no more than our own perception of what is true and what is false.

I even found the cure to my restlessness; by accepting who I am I created a home within myself. A home that will go with me wherever my feet take me.

And what about love, the main subject of my master? As long as I trust my instincts, love will come in abundance. All I have to do is let my intuition guide me, let the journey of love unfold in front of my eyes and know that whenever I am in the present love will be at my side.

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How cheap can you walk the Camino? Eight tips to save money on the Camino de Santiago.

This How cheap can you walk the Camino? Eight tips to save money on the Camino de Santiago. is written on Let's be Nomads.

In our last post we talked about the amazing journey that is called: the Camino de Santiago (or the Way of Saint-James). In this post we want to share some valuable tips with you on keeping your costs as low as possible and how cheap you can actually walk the Camino. Earlier this year we managed to walk the 32 day Camino and stay within our budget of 9 euro per person per day and this is how we did it:

1. First of all, buy or borrow a tent, a good sleeping bag and a sleeping pad. If you are going to walk in the summer, you can skip all of the above and even sleep outside. If on the other hand you like some comfort, some good camping gear is highly recommended. The number one reason for sleeping in a tent is that in general, a night in an Albergue will cost around 5 euro pp, except for the Donativo Albergues where you can donate an amount of your liking. This means that in our case more than half of our budget would go to Albergues (hostels) and would leave us with only 4 euro per day to eat, which is possible, but hard and probably not the healthiest.


2. Use the Couchsurfing network, not only can you save money on sleeping costs, but a lot of the times the hosts will provide you with a dinner or show you around town to the best places to eat tapas. This won’t work in every village along the Way, but it is a very handy network, especially in the bigger cities like Burgos, Leon, Oviedo… The downside is that it drags you away from the “real” Camino experience: sleeping with other snoring pilgrims in old bunk beds. No, seriously, eating, sleeping and walking together with other Pilgrims is a very important part of the way.


3. Buy your food for the next stage at the supermarket the night before. A lot of the times you only pass by small villages without a supermarket and the only other option to get food is a bocadillo (sandwich) at 3 euro or more.


4. Buy local fresh fruit and vegetables, they are cheap and very tasty. We also bought some canned fish and local bread.


5. Knock on the door of the locals and ask if you can buy some food from them, most of the time they’ll give it to you for free or even invite you in their house for some coffee and cake in return for a nice chat.


6. Try to wash your clothes together with some other pilgrims. A washing costs about 4 euro, drying 2 euro. It is always nice to split the costs.


7. Don’t buy a pilgrims-direction-book; the way is overly documented with yellow arrows and shells. And if you want to read about the wonderful things you need to see, you can always borrow one from another pilgrim, everyone has one (except if every pilgrim would read this post of course).


8. The same goes for medicines and second skin, most of the pilgrims carry them around and are very happy to help out if you are in urgent need.

Buen Camino!

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