Clarissa Tan
Clarissa is a solo traveler who has been to 47 countries on the backpacker’s budget, or $30/day. Worldpackers is a global work-exchange program that connects volunteers with hosts offering accommodations, meals and local cultural experiences in exchange.
Vang Vieng, Laos
Laos was a peculiar — and somewhat accidental — choice for my first time as a Worldpackers volunteer. It’s one of the most underrated countries that I have visited. Its golden temples glitter with intricately-laid rubies and diamonds, but without the crowds of its more popular neighbors like Cambodia and Thailand.
I worked as a tour guide for a Vietnamese family who had recently opened up a resort. When I first arrived, I got lost — of course Google Maps doesn’t work in Laos. I called my host, Alice, to pick me up from the bus station and she arrived with a rumble in her beaten-down teal truck. From that day forward, I became part of the family.
Alice told me that she never planned to work in the hospitality industry. Her dream had been to become a game designer. However, running a business became her means of survival, as the revenue supports her family, provides shelter and feeds the staff.
Running a hotel demands huge sacrifices. Alice has owned hotels in Thailand, Vietnam, and now Laos, but she hasn’t been able to enjoy any of their tourist appeal. Whereas guests come for vacation, she gets none. Alice has never visited the Blue Lagoon, Nam Xay Viewpoint or Elephant Cave. As manager, she’s always on duty — every hour, every day. That’s what good service is.
Though I was only in Laos for a brief time, I quickly bonded with Alice via chats about American pop culture — i.e. Taylor Swift — late-night Google searches planning our dream trip to Norway, and a petite hand-sewn elephant keychain that is now a cherished keepsake on my backpack and her purse. Maybe that’s why she started hosting with Worldpackers — to sample a little taste of peoples’ worlds beyond her hotel.
Kampot, Cambodia
Following Laos and Thailand, I arrived at the riverfront of Kampot via a four-hour evening bus with no phone service or method of contacting my host. Luckily, word spread quickly about the new Chinese girl who didn’t speak a word of Khmer. Thirty minutes later, Pheak arrived on his rickety tuk-tuk with his tiny white poodle, Bear, to take me to my new home.
I initially applied via Worldpackers to be a bartender and party promoter. However, I quickly realized I had arrived during the off-season. Despite the torrential rains and our impassable language barrier, Pheak welcomed me into his bungalows with warm hospitality. Some of our best moments included cooking lok lak in the kitchen, “inventing” multi-layered drinks up at the bar and learning dizzying court dances under disco lights in the living room.
My time in Cambodia was heartwarming and slightly bittersweet due to the floods, filled with lots of music but not much talking. Thanks to Pheak, I learned that joy transcends language.
Tampaksiring, Indonesia
I turned up on the steps of Yoga Maya Villa in the dead of night, following a two-hour motorcycle ride through winding mountain roads in the pouring rain. After waiting outside for 30 minutes, staring into a jungle abyss with no signs of life — save for a few rabid dogs I kept away with a big stick — the door of the massive log cabin swung open. A 25-year-old Balinese shaman in a linen coat dripped with beaded ropes peered curiously down at me. He introduced himself as Evannada — or Evan, for foreigners like me.
Over the next two weeks, Evan and I spent our days meditating, practicing yoga with guests, making friendship bracelets and wandering the local market. The most important development I gained in Indonesia was my newfound spirituality, and I owe it to Evan for helping me overcome my biggest fear: death.
As we sat criss-crossed on a canoe, eating spicy babi guling — roast pig — for lunch, he shared with me two “Theories on the Universe”:
- Particles in our bodies have existed for millions of years, constantly recycled through nature. This means humans and the planet are deeply interconnected within one vast ecosystem. When I die, my physical body will return to the universe, becoming part of the Earth once again.
- Evan had his own scientific explanation for “going into the white light” and the “heavenly choir.” As we near death, our eyes begin to shut down. They stop processing the images around us. Colors and shapes fade away, leaving only white light. He says it’s the same with sound: when our ears stop translating auditory cues into comprehensible language, all the sounds condense into pink noise at a frequency some describe as resembling an angel’s choir.
As a solo traveler, it was comforting to be reminded that no matter where I’m located physically on the surface of the Earth, I and the people I care about are all connected to it in some profound way. Evan’s speech also helped rationalize some common spiritual experiences. While I generally consider myself a logic-based person, I find solace in imagining that some higher power has my back.
New South Wales, Australia
I ended my summer way down south, scouting wallabies, growing organic fruits on a self-sustaining eco-farm and watching the sun set behind volcanic caldera mountains. I had no clue what time or day it was — I was simply living by nature’s clock. The air was so fresh and clean; it was dangerously alluring to imagine a future where I never returned to my hectic schedule at Yale.
My mind was never more active than during evening storytimes in Charles and Julie’s living room, to the sound of the crackling hearth and Bob Dylan over the stereo. Whether it was owning a recording studio, forming a rock band, photographing nude portraits, installing TV antennas, living in a Thai village, navigating a Scottish ship or nursing at a remote hospital, Charles and Julie had done it all.
On my first night there, Julie told me, “The best life is having lived many. You don’t want to look back and think, ‘I wish I hadn’t been scared.’” Charles has next to no life savings, but also no regrets; he doesn’t believe in the purpose of hoarding cash if you’re too old to enjoy it.
Now, I’m not gonna go blow my savings account, but I do believe that money is simply a means of exchange to get what we truly want.
I left Australia with a much-needed sense of mental clarity — not about jobs or internships, because in the end, none of that really matters. Instead, I realized I wanted a life full of side quests, guided purely by the pursuit of adventure.