IRINA TRAVELING - Official Web Site - Interview with blogger, writer and traveler Maxim Vlasov.

Maxim Vlasov, a writer and traveler, talks about what prompted him to exchange ordinary life and comfort for a tent and a sleeping bag, and about all the hardships of a budget trip. One day he sold all his property and set off towards the unknown.

Tell us about yourself, what is your name, how old you are, where are you from . How did you start traveling? Were there any difficulties? How did this decision come about?

Hi, my name is Maxim. I am a traveler from Russia. And it seems that he was already born this way – with thoughts of travel. It happened 34 years ago in the city of Volgograd, known to the rest of the world under its old, Soviet, name – Stalingrad.

I grew up in a poor family and could not even imagine that I would ever be able to travel. Firstly, because there were hungry nineties outside (a difficult time for Russia), and secondly, the culture of travel was practically absent then – after all, the “Iron Curtain” had recently collapsed.

When I was ten years old, my parents decided to move from a millionaire city to a small suburb. Around this time, I read one book, I don’t remember the author and what was the meaning of it, but its main character, a child, lived on a farm and hitchhiked around the neighbors. I really missed my friends who stayed in Volgograd and decided that at the first opportunity I would definitely go to visit them and certainly hitchhike. It never happened, but …

Once, when I was already eighteen, I met two Germans who were riding their bicycles through all of Eastern Europe and Russia. It was at that moment that my desire was fully formed. I decided that I would definitely go on a trip. For a very long time and for sure – hitchhiking.

On September 1, 2016, I left my rented apartment for the last time and went to catch the first passing car. The trip around the world was to begin with her, which I planned to complete in 3.5 years, but which continues to this day.

Of course, I just couldn’t have dared to do that. Life itself knocked the floor out from under my feet. You can say that by 2016 I became a failure – I had no job, no family, no money. It was from this despair that I decided to run away virtually to nowhere. I had no specific plans, nothing – only an ephemeral desire to accomplish something grandiose. And also a Chinese visa in my passport and 1200 dollars – all my cash that I managed to save.

What booking services do you use?

I mainly use a tent. It’s free and mobile. Less often I use the Couchsurfing service, which helps to find free housing in any city in the world. Even less often, when everything is really bad: it is raining outside or snowing, or I am very tired and have not washed for a long time, then I rent a bed in the cheapest hostel, using Booking for this.

Are you preparing for a trip or changing locations in advance, for how long, or do you like spontaneous decisions?

My trip has been going on for more than 4.5 years. Was I preparing for it? More likely no than yes. Am I preparing now for my future movements? Only roughly. Usually the best advisers are local people, from whom I learn about interesting places and adjust my approximate plan on the spot.

What was your first solo trip?

When I was 17, I failed my university exams. I got drunk out of grief and together with my friend we decided to hitchhike to a neighboring region to visit the grave of a singer. Of course, we could not go far – only ten kilometers from the city, but the adventure turned out to be very fun.

Catching airline stocks or making budget complex assemblies?

I have no money to fly often. I only use airplanes as a last resort. For example, I looked all over Central America without a single flight, and even got from Panama to Colombia by land: a friend from Russia and I walked for ten days along the jungle with a machete – through the Darien gap. Alas, in 2020 the borders were closed and you have to fly, but these are always the cheapest flights to neighboring countries: Colombia-Ecuador-Peru. Chile will most likely be next, if only because there are the cheapest tickets.

How do you make money while traveling?

Sometimes I work part-time in expensive countries, yes. But this does not happen often. I have worked in factories in South Korea, in the fields in Australia and on a construction site in the USA

What are your favorite places?

I don’t like going back to the same places: what’s the point if the world is so huge? But still, there is one place that I really love. This is Lake Baikal, Russia.

What was the funniest travel experience ever?

Once I was supposed to fly from New York to Panama, but the day before departure, I learned that the place of departure on the ticket is not New York at all, but Los Angeles, a city that is located in a completely different part of the United States. I urgently had to buy the cheapest ticket to Latin America and the cheapest was to Guatemala. I thought that I would hitchhike to Panama on the ground, but at the very first border with Honduras they did not let me through. A year earlier, I had been to Honduras, in the wildest places, in the Mosquito region, where there are only swamps, and I also came out of it along the ground. Legally, with a stamp, but the fact is that my passport with a stamp from Honduras was stolen in California, and their system did not indicate that I was leaving the country. I had to buy a new plane ticket from Guatemala to … Costa Rica. From Costa Rica, I traveled by land to Panama.

What was the most embarrassing experience?

Exactly a year ago, on March 19, in Colombia, they tried to rob me and wounded me with a pistol. I fought off my backpack with a machete in my hands, but now a small piece of Columbia still lives in my body – the same bullet that was never pulled out, because it was on those days that a pandemic began, panic and doctors simply refused to operate on me.

Do you usually have a clear plan or are you improvising?

I improvise on the spot.

Is there a language barrier problem? Do you easily adapt to new conditions, culture? Do you study something in advance?

I do not study anything, but I have long been accustomed to changing cultures, language and food. I spoke Spanish after arriving in the first Spanish-speaking country of Cuba 2 years ago. All these constant transfers from place to place have been going on for 4.5 years. They are my whole life, my everyday life.

What is the purpose of your travels – to see the world or to change the way you look at the world?

I try not to think about sacred things or the metaphysics of my actions. There is no deeper purpose. Once upon a time I just ran away from myself. I ran away and enjoyed it. After 4.5 years, in this sense, probably not much has changed. I just run forward, and if I see something interesting, I look around and run further. It turns out that the main goal is not to see the world, and even more so to change the view of it. The goal is just to move, and all the metamorphoses that take place along the way, all the interesting places I saw are just side effects.

How do you manage to stay connected all the time?

I have a powerbank with me, but even without it, the phone in autonomous mode keeps a charge for 4-5 days. This is enough for navigation, photos, videos and writing notes. And in civilization there is always an opportunity to recharge, in any house, cafe, shop. I rarely buy local SIM cards. A public WI -FI is usually sufficient.

What advice would you give to novice travelers?

A long trip is not a panacea and it is not as romantic as it seems from the outside. Moreover, it breaks a person and makes him even more closed, less socially organized being. If you know for sure that you need it, then dare without hesitation, do not wait until you earn money, give birth to a child, or retire. It doesn’t matter what you have now: a brand new Volkswagen or a bag with holes; millions of dollars or a couple of cents – it will always seem to you that this is not enough, but it is enough to take the first step. And you don’t need more – the first step is the most important and difficult.

Your blog has some very engaging posts, don’t you want to write them into a book in the future?

In books and)