I retired at 53 and have been slowly traveling the world with my husband for almost 2 years. Last month, while we were renting a villa in Bali, everything next to it usually went quiet at dusk. That’s when there was a knock on the door. “Tomorrow night there will be a party,” Kadek told
This essay as told is based on a conversation with Koyo Murata, 25, founder and operator of Villa ASO guest house in Taiki, Mie Prefecture, Japan. His words have been edited for length and clarity. I grew up in a quintessential rural town in Japan with about 8,000 people. My elementary and middle schools only
This essay as told is based on a conversation with Gu Yichen, a 31-year-old Chinese national living in California. After being laid off by Google, he returned to Amazon, where he works on an H-1B visa. His words have been edited for length and clarity. I spent my sophomore year of high school as an
This essay as told is based on a conversation with Sara Wilczynska, founder of Swil Arts Studio. She left her job as a software engineer at Google, spent a year traveling with her partner, and discovered watercolors in Thailand. His words have been edited for length and clarity. I was born in Warsaw in the
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Renee O’Drobinak, director of marketing and communications at PMKConsult, a construction and project management consulting firm based in Dubai. Her words have been edited for length and clarity. Loading audio narration… I’ve been in Dubai for about a month, and my husband and I are really