The following is a guest post and part of our “Reader Stories” series from our friend Ben Luthi. Ben is a personal finance blogger and freelance writer who is spends half of his time thinking about saving money and the other half thinking of vacations to spend it on. He spent two years living in Germany and would love to freelance full-time in order to become a nomad. He writes regularly at The Wealth Gospel.

 

June 10, 2009 – I was about to board a plane alone for the first time in my life. I was excited to reach the final destination, Tavua, Fiji, but I was also nervous to fly for hours across the Pacific Ocean. Across from me, an attractive girl was talking on her cell phone about her trip to Fiji. I had gone to some pre-summer meetings but I hadn’t met her. I thought about talking to her, but I was still terrified of girls, so I just kept to myself. Luckily for me, I was about to face my fears. Over the next 6 weeks I lived in a small house with two guys and fifteen girls.

Yeah. I know. Should be heaven, right? In some ways it was fun, but in a lot of ways, opposite sex overload is never really a good thing in the long run.

The 10-hour flight from LAX was horrible, with a lot of turbulence and about a half hour of sleep. The next 6 weeks, though, were nothing less than a dream. [Read more…]