Even in a time of recession, living the life of a globetrotter is possible.
“If there’s a will, there’s a way,” Matt Hamilton said. “There’s always work to be found. The work may not be glorious, but in places like Thailand and India, the Canadian dollar can go further.
“You just have to be creative.”
The 35-year-old Ottawa resident knows, because he did it.
Years ago, after graduating from Queen’s University, Hamilton fell into an insurance job. Unhappy with life, he decided to get out.
Without having planned so much as where he was staying that night, he bought a one-way ticket to Glasgow.
“I made a decision to travel the world,” he said. “I didn’t know whether it would take two months or two years.”
Ten years later, he’d crisscrossed Europe, been to Greece, the Czech Republic, Austria, Spain, South Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
He stayed in a cave, a brothel and a five-star condo, and worked odd jobs, once finding himself the unwitting employee of a notorious British gangster.
“It was definitely a different environment from growing up in Nepean,” he joked.
Hamilton recently documented his travels in his first book, Through Travel and Error, and has been giving readings across the city since. Already working on a sequel, he doesn’t expect he’ll ever run out of fodder.
“I think I’ll be travelling for the rest of my life.”
