Today is Day 173.

And for 172 days there has been a dire need to explain the following sentence:

On February 7th, 2018, I set off for six years of solo female travel around the world.

It’s a bit ridiculous that I only just now got around to this, but until May 8th, 2018, I was a full-time university student. For my last semester I had enrolled in online classes.

I didn’t try to graduate earlier in order to receive the complete package of my financial aid. Just like the rest of my recent life, this trip will be funded by the savings from these scholarships.

It’s no excuse, but the truth is that exams and papers took up most of the energy I had for work grinds. That’s all done, so here goes.

Firstly, this trip comes with intentions:

To continue connecting with the local community and to observe cultural mannerisms via exploring street stalls and food markets.

To volunteer and work to further pick up local living and random skills, and to have a base for weeks or months at a time. This keeps my traveling—my moving around—at a sustainable pace.

To at times live abroad. Four months to eat and write and sip coffee in Saigon. Four months to do the same somewhere in Italy, and to leave speaking Italian.

To journey from Cape Town to Cairo.

To refrain from judgement of others.

To gain more medical knowledge. While I was a pre-medicine student during my undergrad, I in fact view a world trip as the true finish to my pre-medicine education.

I already forgot the reaction mechanism of a Robinson Annulation, or the steps to gluconeogensis or to glycogenolysis. I’m happier when I have patient contact and can draw from principles from both the East and the West.

So on Day One I used my American Airlines miles to fly into Buenos Aires, Argentina. Two weeks later I began my Patagonia dream that I had been holding inside of me since the Summer of 2016.

It’s a dream wrapped inside a much larger dream. For a long time I’ve known I’ve wanted to experience one long, continuous trip.

I was on a run around December 2016 when it suddenly occurred to me. Now was it. No one depends on me at the moment. I have no strings pulling me back.

Most importantly, I asked myself, when I’m old and I look back, which would I rather be?

A wealthy, successful doctor with a beautiful family and a beautiful house, saving lots of lives, who wished that I had gone for my world trip? Or a homeless, penniless “nobody” who let my MCAT score expire, was well-traveled and had fully lived my experiences in all the countries I’d walked through, who wished that I had gone to medical school?

In the cases of the two extremes, which dream did I want more?

I am increasingly interested in hearing and supporting the ideas and dreams of others because I have already found myself. It’s still hard to believe that I get to wake up every day in the middle of my biggest dream.

I’ve already surpassed my previous longest trip by two months. I don’t feel homesick because I am my home.

I have fallen in love with my life.

I say six years because it’s how long I think it will take to see a significant-ish smudge of the world. Then I want to go to finish my education and become a physician. Then I will work for Doctors Without Borders in order to continue my travels as a professional.

The plan is always of course to have no plan. To let life happen and to take what comes.

Tomorrow I may decide to never go back. I’m okay with that.

Tomorrow I may decide to go home now. I’m also okay with that.

A lot happens in five-and-a-half months. Here is a frank list of some events:

• On Day 12 while stargazing in an Uruguayan park, I was robbed with a broken glass bottle held over me.
  • For three months I was phone-less. Which wasn’t the problem. I didn’t have a quick camera, Whatsapp, Instagram, Spotify, Maps.me, banking apps, accommodation apps, a way to tell time, but I was fine and deserved the inconveniences.
• I hiked the ‘O’ Circuit in Torres del Paine, Chile with an American medical student also in the middle of his academic semester.
• I visited the advancing Perito Moreno glacier during it’s historical rupture that happens once every few years.
• I hitchhiked two-thirds of the Carretera Austral before leaving it to visit Chiloe.
• The month of April was spent couchsurfing in Bariloche, Argentina.
  • I introduced my Brazilian friends who worked at my hostel in Uruguay, to my Uruguayan hosts who picked me up while I was hitchhiking in Argentina.
  • I did many more hikes along highway Ruta 40.
  • I volunteered in La Frambrueseria, a raspberry production business and cafe.
  • I saw Los Cafres live.
  • My friends gave me a homemade graduation cap after I finished my last final exam; at midnight I made them their first mimosas.
  • My hostess drove me to my friend named Fritz and his van named Bob.
• Bob, Fritz, and I road tripped up the northern half of Chile.
  • We trekked the incredible Condor Circuit.
  • I didn’t attend my graduation ceremony.
  • Fritz drove 1,300 kilometers on Day 91 for me.
• I saw the mating dance of the blue-footed boobies on various islands in Ecuador.
• I met my dad in the Galápagos.
• I blogged for a hostel in a small fishing village.
• I updated the web page for a stunning birdwatching lodge.
• I was diagnosed with parasites after having digestive symptoms for three weeks.

I hope to be able to turn the most unique of the above experiences into posts. I am traveling so much that I will not try to cover each day, or the destinations that already have lots of details reported online by other bloggers.

I would also like to write more advice articles, as I am becoming a travel therapist. My inboxes constantly receive messages—mainly from young women—regarding help with beginning a journey, or with staying motivated while abroad.

To date, I have hitchhiked 2,899 kilometers. Sometimes with others, sometimes without.

Now I am again road-tripping with Fritz, this time through Bolivia and Peru. Between the two road trips, Bob, Fritz, and I have overlanded 3,171 kilometers to date.

I got to use my 10-year Bolivian visa for U.S. citizens that I had purchased two years ago and wondered when the hell I would ever return.

Today I am in Peru for the fifth time. I thank every person and every moment that got me here.

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I am pleased to tie up the loose ends I have on this continent that I am so emotionally attached to. By that I mean I am reaching destinations I never got to on previous visits.

In September I will fly to Turkey and begin exploring the Mediterranean and Middle East.

For the first time in my life, I am not a full-time student.

I am finally a full-time hobo.