Aloha my friends,

Writing to you today from a coffeeshop in Honolulu!

I'm Jonah Baer and this is the Baer Necessities - where I share what I’m learning, working on, and the journey along the way. 

You might be wondering why I'm in Hawaii! Here's the backstory:

Over the last couple months, I was following along with some of my Venture For America (VFA) friends who were co-living and co-working remotely in a house in San Diego (with COVID precautions in place, of course). Naturally after leaving San Diego, many of the folks there decided to head to Hawaii for a month. I was jealous and ready for another adventure, so I decided to join the fun and co-live / co-work in Hawaii for a couple weeks! 

Now I'm in Honolulu in an Airbnb right next to Wakiki Beach with 5 other 20-somethings (two of which I was friends with before through VFA) before heading the Kauai for an extended period tomorrow.

Why did I decide to come?

Well, not that I need much of a reason to want to go to Hawaii and recognizing how lucky I am that I was able to come, here are my primary driving factors for coming:

• Ready for some adventure and travel: After spending most of my time in Memphis during the pandemic, I was definitely ready to travel again. Also, I've never been to Hawaii (or any Pacific Island) and wanted to see what all of the hype was about. It's been a blast so far - we already did the toughest hike in Oahu and had quite the adventure of almost not making it out of the hike before dark.
• To de-plug from social media and technology: The irony is I had to use my computer to write this email, but I'm still aiming to limit it as much as possible. I'm doing a full digital detox (no computer or phone for a day) once we're in Kauai and social media fasting as much as possible.
• To experiment with true digital nomadism: I'm taking off work this week but working from our Airbnb next week. I've been fascinated with the idea of being a digital nomad for years, and the pandemic gave us this opportunity to really test it out at a massive scale. I see this trip as a good opportunity and experiment to see if it's something I'd actually enjoy doing for the long-term. Traveling is fun but working while you're traveling is a completely different story.
• To experiment with Co-living / Co-working: Co-living with small groups of other ambitious, mindful 20-somethings has become more and more popular during the pandemic, interesting enough (see Launch House for a good example of co-living). For me, transitioning from living with my family this past year to this co-living experiment - AKA living in an Airbnb with 5 other people (who were largely strangers except a couple people) and another group of 13 people just down the road in Kauai - sounded like an opportunity I might NEVER get again. If you’re more curious about co-living and what it's like, my friend Bryant Istre (who is here in Hawaii with me!) wrote an amazing summary of his experiences co-living and co-working in San Diego last month. 

But what about COVID, Jonah? Luckily, Hawaii requires negative COVID tests before your flight. And then you have to quarantine for 72 hours and take another COVID test before being able to go to any other island. So it doesn't get much safer.

Anyways, I’ll have a LOT more to tell you in the next couple weeks when I write a post about my trip.

That’s it from me! I only have 1 link to share with you this week (since I haven't been consuming much content this week) and it's a 2014 podcast episode from Tim Ferriss that I come back to time and time again for travel:

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🎧 Rolf Potts on Travel Tactics, Creating Time Wealth, and Lateral Thinking (Tim Ferriss Show)

If you love travel and want to just listen to one Tim Ferriss Show episode, this might be the one. I listened to it again right before I left for Hawaii, and it's EXACTLY what I needed.

Rolf Potts wrote a book called Vagabonding around 20 years ago that's focused on longterm world travel, how to think about travel, and why you shouldn't plan out every minute of your trips. It's a way to experience the world on your own terms.

This quote from Potts in the episode sums up vagabonding and the purpose of it perfectly:

"[Vagabonding] is six months or two years, or six weeks that you make for yourself to travel in earnest, not as a consumer experience, not as a vacation, but as a more deeply meaningful life experience, and as a way to actualize your wealth of time.

And I think this is an idea we’ll come back to a lot, and it’s something that you write about, as well as me, is the idea of time wealth, the idea that you’re experiences are more valuable in life than the things that you accumulate, the things that are always being touted as the most important things in life. So travel is a great way to cash in on your time wealth. And vagabonding, just by definition, is a more meaningful way of travel. It’s a way of slowing down, and really discovering parts of yourself, instead of just buying a lot of experiences, which we’ve sort of been conditioned to do as American consumers."

Listen to the full episode: Rolf Potts on Vagabonding and Travel

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And if you have any recommendations for Kauai or Honolulu, I'd also love to hear them. As always, let me know if there's anything I can help you with - would love to hear from you!

I hope you have an amazing rest of your week!

Until next time,

Jonah

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