Michael, Diego, Malik, and I have brushed the sweat off our foreheads after a long morning as engine mechanics and gotten our (mostly) gay asses to the traditional chicha celebration in Rio Cidra, one of the many island-villages in Guna Yala.

Chicha is a fermented corn drink and the name of teenage Guna girls' coming-of-age celebration. It’s a festive event—for the village, not for show—and Lisa, our host, has warned me that we are not allowed to take pictures, so I have left the camera behind on the boat to avoid temptation.

Our engine malfunctions, delaying our arrival at the party, and all the chicha has already been devoured by the time we arrive. The main street, a narrow path between large bamboo houses, is lively. Women dressed in traditional mola (meticulously hand-sewn dresses). Men relaxing in plastic armchairs outside their homes and small shops. Children running between the buildings.

The kid in me, the one raised on exotic images of foreign cultures, feels like he’s stepping into a different time and space. The grown-up knows that such a gaze creates distance and reduces the complexity of communities that are steeped in contradictions.

Like when Antonio, who picked us up at the dock, says that photos are okay if we pay. One of the guys asks a group of women if we can snap a shot in exchange for a few bucks. The proposal causes debate among the women. Some of them are notably bothered and get ready to leave when their friends concede to the request.

It gets awkward.

For a second, we’re the gringos with money and they the natives, both parties reduced to stereotypes, and everyone feels it.

Our queer kin

We’re here to meet Lisa and her friends, and village life is not a tourist attraction.

I’ve gotten to know Lisa a week earlier. She’s a local guide and takes sailors and tourists in the area for hikes in the mainland rainforest. Picking my crew and me, three cute big-city gays, up at our boat, she had pointed at the massive pride flag waving on our mast and enthusiastically noted that we’re all LGBTQ.

Turns out, Lisa was born a boy but raised a girl, as custom is among the Guna, when parents realise that their children are different from the rest. Despite the geographic distance, this makes us kin, and Lisa quickly tells me that she wants to introduce me to her group of friends.

A week later, in Rio Cidra, she meets us outside the chicha-house. For the time being, the house is only accessible to women, but Lisa grabs me firmly by the hand and pulls me inside to meet the rest of the lot.

We are, differences aside, from the same community.

And also, who cares if a gay guy walks into an all-women’s party? None of my girlfriends, that’s for sure.

Navigating the challenges of tourism

Guna Yala is one of Latin America’s oldest autonomous indigenous territories, and over the course of the last few decades, the region has been transforming at a rapid pace, with the expansion of infrastructure and tourism reshaping traditional ways of life.

Having spent the last decade researching the impact of tourism in remote areas, I have mixed feelings about stepping into the role as a foreign tourism provider on indigenous land.

In the archipelago, sailors are the only outsiders who are allowed to do business, and even then, strict bureaucratic rules apply.

I’ve taken care to play by the book, but respecting local rules doesn't automatically give me an ethical green light. The complexity of the relations between foreigners and locals in the context of Central America’s colonial history has cautioned me to think deeply about my own role as a white bro selling sailing experiences in Guna Yala.

Importantly, while as a nomad, this place is home right now, I am fully aware that I am, first and foremost, still a guest.

Being a good guest

What does it mean to be a good guest? I ask Max, who, for the time being, is my guest—on board Falkor. It’s a welcome role inversion after spending weeks in Max’s campsite on Green Island.

“For the Guna, being a good guest means offering help with whatever is needed,” he reflects. “And asking for permission.”

On Green Island, everyone is welcome, and Max is reluctant to charge. It is not the vibe he wants to create.

His beach campsite is usually full of hippies, slow travellers, and Guna families who come to spend the day. Max has built a simple hut there, with the help of a few long-term guests—travellers who meant to stay a week or two, and ended up staying six months plus.

Max’s answer makes me reflect on the lessons I’ve learned after a year of travelling through Central America. The Maya, too, place permission and reciprocity at the center of their relational ethics.

It is miles away from the “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” that I’ve encountered elsewhere in Latin America. As a rebellious reaction to an impossible bureaucracy, doing things without permission might be understandable and by the looks of it, the Guna live by this maxim as well. But as a cultural rhetoric, it still rubs me the wrong way.

In Central America, asking for permission is applied in the broadest of senses: among the Maya, it is neither requested from nor granted by a state bureaucracy, but rather by the spirit world and land—through rituals or in direct interaction with the people who are affected by your actions.

The locals navigate these tensions too, and I’ve met resistance to Guna central authorities even among the public servants who are supposed to enforce the local rules. “You shouldn’t have said that you’re doing charters,” some Guna have told me. Most of them agree that the steep taxes on charter permits line the pockets of their leadership, instead of returning to the community.

The Guna, too, complain about taxes.

And from what I can tell, what they’d like the most is for their foreign guests to offer a helping hand in their veggie patches, bond over a can of beer, work shoulder to shoulder, and support their local businesses: to take part in their communities, not just as guests, but as friends and neighbours.

And maybe, if there’s a deeper lesson here, it’s this: an ethics for the good life on a planet that is inevitably shared is not just about being a good guest.

It’s about sitting down for a meal, together, realising that we’re all kin.

Out of sync

I’m a boat person now. It took me eighteen months, two continents, and a broken engine, but I got here.

Since I left Barcelona a year and a half ago, every decision that has extended this journey felt like a crossroads. Panama or Guatemala? Add another year to your trip. Guna Yala or the Pacific? Plus two.

When your itinerary is shaped by the seasons, a month-long delay almost automatically multiplies by ten, maybe more. If you expect things to run smoothly while sailing, you’re almost guaranteed to spiral into chronic despair.

But slowing down isn’t as easy as the lifestyle gurus claim.

Budgets must be remade. Work must be created or found. Longer—much longer—periods of what may feel like isolation, silently accepted. And the discomforts of living on a small, humid boat in the tropics (full disclosure: it is not always a dream) must be endured.

Going all in

In my case, the mental toll of constantly pushing through unforeseen challenges and winging it financially convinced me that if I want to enjoy the journey I’m on (I do), slowing down is a prerequisite.

If you embarked on this as a time-out from what you imagined was your real life—the life that you would build your identity and future around—turning what was supposed to be a seven-month adventure into an open-ended, multi-year pursuit can feel painful and riddled with the anxiety of “when will I get there.”

Yes, I know that going all in can be a mixed bag—it requires sacrificing an old identity—but being halfway in and halfway out is far worse. A hard pill to swallow in an age where there’s always somewhere else I should rather be, something else I should rather do.

You know this feeling. You’ve been halfway in and halfway out of something for years.

Releasing the fantasy of arrival

So this is what I’ve done: I took a pause. I put the boat on land, jumped on a plane, and went back home. I slept in a regular apartment. I rode the subway. I saw the dentist.

And I had my eureka moment.

The life I left behind, the life that’s waiting once this journey is over? It will still be there five years from now.

What changed? I realised that the timeline that I set from the comfort of my port of call made no sense anymore. I’m so deep into this adventure now that deciding to arrive in Australia within six months or six years seems like a pointless exercise. Cause a) there’s no more savings to hold on to, and b) once I’m there, then what? I have no clue.

And now, back on what I still lovingly refer to as “the fucking boat”, I’m ready for the deep dive into real boat life. The one that can only truly start when you’re not focusing on when it will end. The one that hones the rhythms of the process—of the time it takes to fix an engine, raise the money, do the paperwork, and wait for the winds to change.

First impression: for the first time in a long time, I’m able to sleep through the night.

Granted, last night I woke up worried about all the things that can go south as I prepare to welcome guests on board in a few weeks. But it was not the crippling anxiety that has accompanied me on past legs of this journey, as my cash balance has dwindled and arrival dates have been pushed further and further ahead.

It takes the time that it takes

Perhaps, the lesson is that a prerequisite for emotional wellbeing is honing the rhythms of whatever process you’re in right now. Accepting that “it takes the time that it takes”—the exact words that my psychic uttered almost two years ago, as I was planning this journey.

It took a while for them to really land.

But over the course of the last year, sailing has taught me a valuable lesson about tempo. Try to rush the process? Instant suffering. Guaranteed. Accepting the times set by your environment? Sometimes hard, yes, as expectations might need to be adjusted, but when you surrender to acceptance? Oh, the sweet relief of air in your lungs. Kinda like practicing free-diving.

German sociologist Hartmut Rosa has built his theory of happiness around the concept of resonance.

He argues that modernity operates through a structural compulsion to speed up the pace of technology, accumulation, yes, even of life itself. The problem isn’t just that speed makes us busy, as the lifestyle gurus will gladly tell. No, the problem is that it makes the world appear mute and unresponsive.

Living life at an accelerated tempo disconnects us from the rhythms of our surroundings. It makes it almost impossible to cultivate a living and responsive relationship to the world, where things actually reach you, and you reach back.

For Rosa, the secret to the good life is resonance—making time and space for a constant back and forth with our environment: with people, places, and the rhythms of life.

In other words, embracing the role you’re currently playing might just be the prerequisite for presence, and presence, as it seems, is the prerequisite for a life well lived.

Stepping into The Identity

For me, slowing down was only possible after I decided that right now, this journey is my life. There’s nowhere else I should be. There’s not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—the gold is in the colours painted across the sky. In the pursuit of a dream. In the experiences you accumulated along the way.

You know this. It’s commonsensical, I’m well aware. But we still need the reminder.

I got mine when I finally accepted that I’m a boat person now. And that even if I’m far from home, I do have a community. My fellow sailors. Free-spirited hippies and freaks who have gone through many of the same experiences I have.

Having Falkor on land in Panamarina, a small family-run establishment in the middle of the Panamanian rainforest, has offered a space to bond over broken engines, malfunctioning solar panels, delayed travel plans, financial hurdles, and impossible heat.

I’ve met a group of people who live life at a slow pace: the DIY American who’s been refitting his boat for the last two years, the YouTube couple who’s been sailing for five. In the afternoons, we’ve all come together around the fire to throw some food on the barbecue and play a round of bocce. We’ve shared stories of lightning strikes and broken rudders. And we’ve helped each other out with boats that act like whiny little brats.

It has made me realise that I’m not the odd one out, not fitting in—I fit, but in a different box than the one I belonged to before.

This journey has taught me that slowing down isn’t a lifestyle choice—it’s a surrender to rhythms beyond our control. And that the moment you stop fighting the tempo of whatever process you’re in, you stop experiencing it as a prison and start experiencing it as a life.

Where are you still halfway in? What timeline are you fighting that you set from a life and identity that no longer exists?

Where could your life dramatically improve, if only you went all in?

The first sunrays after the storm

After months of effort to ground this project and weeks of long work days in the boatyard, this weekend brought a moment of rest.

I was testing the dinghy and outboard engine on a trip through the mangroves when I decided to turn off the motor, jump in the water, and let myself float with the currents, while I listened to the sound of the ocean breaking on the reefs just out of sight.

For the first time in a long time, the weight of responsibilities was lifted off my shoulders, my mind went still, and the comments on my Instagram feed were forgotten.

And in that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: Is this a time out, or am I finally checking in?

I like to think of a family—your birth family or chosen one—as a group of souls who have decided to help each other evolve. Sometimes through friction, sometimes through support. Sometimes, it seems like we return to our families only to regress to our 15-year-old selves; sometimes, we return to notice just how much we all have grown.

Luckily, perhaps, the latter was the case when I reunited with the fam for the first time in a year.

Landing in the cold, windswept coast of western Norway after finding myself walking barefoot through Central America showed me what my family has meant. And it made me question some of the assumptions I have carried about my homeland.

Norway is a society shaped by the egalitarian relations of rural communities.

Coming home to the cold shores where I learned to sail allowed me to reflect on how the open farmlands battered by the North Sea, the steep fjords and snow-covered mountains that rise behind them, and the introverted and well-mannered people who live here have shaped my family and me.

Norwegian Utopia

Growing up, I thought of Norway as the epitome of the modern world: a model society where people are equal, solidarity is institutionalised, and common folks have a real say in how their society is governed.

But during my short family visit last month, something had changed. Perhaps it was the time spent away from home that taught me to see what I'd taken for granted.

Travelling has made me reflect on how family, in societies where the state is there for you when things get hard, is often reduced to a project of self-realisation: something to get or have but not to rely on.

We moderns mostly agree that independence is something to strive for, but what happens when a society becomes so fixated on every man being an island that we forget how to show up for each other? What do we lose when family is reduced to its ceremonial function? To a set of background actors in our holiday pictures?

My modern family

In my family, we have often pushed each other to grow through friction. It has often felt challenging and lacked the feel-good component that you might wish for.

Usually, the friction is expressed in those small details charged with meaning.

You know exactly what I’m talking about: your brother scowled at you when you asked them to pass you a loaf at the table, or your dad made a comment about a recent global event that didn’t land well. And the truce is broken.

This time, it was about access to the car, but not really.

Really, it was about being seen—about having different needs acknowledged, about being allowed to take up space, about feeling supported. The car was just a placeholder for pent-up emotions, released in the form of a verbal duel of “you did this” and “you did that’s.” Sound familiar?

Once the dust had settled, we did something that we hadn’t done before. We had what I can best describe (in contemporary healing lingo) as an “integration circle.”

“Maybe our ‘thing’ as a family is that we never give up,” my mum commented.

Maybe my mum is right. There’s value in trying with intent, at the risk of getting stuck in old patterns that hurt. This journey back home, however, showed me that while we might still trip over the same stone, we have also grown.

In the past, we might all have fended for ourselves and expected the rest to do the same. Or perhaps, we have been so busy with our own struggles that we have failed to see the things that are going on in the lives of the rest of the lot.

But over the last year, our family has come together in a way that feels meaningful and new. We have supported each other in the face of adversity, and for the first time in a long time, we have felt like a team.

Old patterns are hard to shake off, but lo and behold, something has softened.

Collective individualism

During a moment of quiet reflection in the icy sea breeze near my brother’s home, I reasoned that some of the friction must come from the mixing of two worlds: of Latin American passion with Northern European pragmatism.

And I remembered something I learned as a student of anthropology: that Norwegian society is structured around something called collective individualism. With a strong state bureaucracy that fulfills many family functions, Norwegians rely less on each other for safety.

Bluntly put (and I might get some pushback here), if you’re broke and lonely in Norway, you don’t go to your family for support—you go to the doctor for antidepressants and social services for financial assistance.

This system, which Europeans refer to as the welfare state, is often seen as a utopic ideal that all modern societies should strive for. And don’t get me wrong, I do not envy the people who live in societies where a hospital stay is cause for bankruptcy.

But it has also made family optional. It has reduced family from necessity to preference and outsourced care to institutions.

It has made us lonelier.

Relying on each other

The biggest lesson from my trip back home was this: no amount of bureaucracy, welfare solutions, or policy interventions can replace the bonds with family members who, for better or worse, are here to help us grow.

We might not have figured it all out, my family and I. But for the first time in a long time, we're trying together. Maybe that's what solidarity actually looks like—not a policy, not a principle.

Just this: not giving up.

Over the past five years, I’ve sailed from Norway to Panama, exploring different coastlines and documenting how people live with and through their environments.

Of all the places I’ve travelled, Guna Yala stands apart.

Located on the northern shores of Panama, it is an autonomous region made up of hundreds of small coral islands, where the Guna continue t…

Read more

I’m back in Europe after a year of sailing, biking, and travelling for a brief pause before journeying on with Falkor and crew.

Back in Barcelona, with the Barcelona gays, my old tribe, my dysfunctional family, my very human community.

Read more

When I set sail across the Atlantic Ocean, I imagined the Caribbean as a natural paradise full of postcard beaches where Falkor, my 34-foot sailboat, would sway under the sun.

Instead, I’ve encountered challenging weather, polluted co…

Read more

On his fourth journey to the Americas, Christopher Columbus spent weeks battling harsh conditions in the areas that lie between the Bay Islands of Honduras and the Cape on the Nicaraguan border.

Easterly trade winds, complex currents, and treacherous reefs ma…

Read more

Guatemala. Who would have thought that I’d fall head over heels for this country and its people?

I will try not to romanticise, but it is going to be hard. Firstly, because I’m a hopeless romantic. Secondly, because G…

Read more

You can talk yourself up or you can talk yourself down. You can focus on all the parameters by which your life is a failure, or you can focus on all the incredible gifts your life has brought you.

This is …

Read more

Dear reader,

The holidays are coming up, and I’m doing something a little different this time.

Instead of sharing an update from the last weeks, I’m honouring the spirit of Christmas by taking a moment to thank all of you who have read, liked, commented…

Read more

The cavalry has arrived! A few days ago, I got new crew on board Falkor, and weeks of lonely frustration over mounting repairs were finally (or partly) interrupted by friendly support and stress-release through one of late capitalism’s finest inventions: venting.

My own bluntness around the so-called midlife cr…

Read more

In the last few days, I’ve met many people who have told me that I’m living the dream. My replies fluctuate between “I know that I’m living someone’s dream” and “If you had your own boat you would not say that, you would say I’m sorry for you”.

I might be living someone’s dream. Or perhaps just what seem…

Read more

In October, I finished my gig in Las Vegas and jumped on a plane to Mexico City. There, I suddenly realised that my journey would take me through Oaxaca, the region known for the country’s most vibrant and elaborate Day of the Dead celebrations.

There was only one problem: I didn’t have a place to stay, and hotels were sold out months ago.

So I did what I’ve gotten accustomed to doing on this trip. I decided to manifest someone to stay with.

I know that when you manifest, you’re only supposed to use the power of your mind. But I’m not quite there yet, and instead, I’ve designed my own manifestation technique. It’s simple: I write down what I want, taking a few steps in the right direction, and trust that the universe will meet me halfway.

So I sent a few texts to my Mexican friends to see if they knew anyone in Oaxaca, and immediately went out to have tacos.

And it worked: the guy standing next to me at the taco stand happened to have the same hand tattoo as I do, and after a short chat, he told me that he was going to Oaxaca for Day of the Dead and that I could stay with him and his friends. And people claim magic isn’t real…

First lesson: Death can be joyful and just fucking fun

I spent the first few days of the celebrations in Zipolite, a small nudist beach town on the Pacific coast. There, I was invited to stay at the family-run hotel Budamar, where Miraceti and her family hosted a pageant to honour Catrina, the lady of death. Not to be feared but rather to be befriended.

Unfortunately (but deservedly), I did not win.

But I did get my face painted in an impressive collaborative work of art, and I got to flaunt my look next to a few naked penises. Which felt like a win: for me, death will from now on always be associated with the dick of a cheerful German tourist with a flower painted on the crown of his head. And that beats a lot of other associations.

I should know. I’ve accompanied my partner to his death. My associations are both profound and difficult. But not joyfully absurd.

Second lesson: Grief feels lighter when it is shared

After Javier’s death, I’ve remembered him on the anniversary of his passing. And on his birthday.

It sometimes feels lonely. His family is usually far away, and I feel compelled to spend time in solitude to honour Javier’s memory. Talking about him feels like imposing my grief on others. And when you lose a partner in your thirties, you often feel like you’ve been condemned to grieve alone.

In Mexico, Dia de los Muertos showed me what I already knew but sometimes struggle to feel: that I’m not alone in experiencing grief and loss.

Remembering Javier alongside a sea of people who were also remembering their loved ones felt… comforting. It relieved the burden of having to mark the date in my calendar. Of having an obligation to step out of my everyday routine to honour my partner, since there’s already a day for that. It felt lighter.

Third lesson: Relationships don’t end with death

And yes, seeing how the Mexicans remember their dead stirred something in me.

Their relationship to the dead isn’t abstract. It isn’t just a thought. A fleeting memory. A faded picture.

No. The Mexicans spend weeks preparing. They carefully and intentionally create altars in their homes. They make small offerings to the people they have lost. They decorate and visit their tombs—they eat lunch and dinner at the graves. They play live music. They talk to the dead. They share stories. They meditate. They drink, sing, and laugh. They spend time with them.

Walking through the graveyards and seeing how these places came alive was a powerful reminder that relationships based on love are never-ending. Even when the other is gone, we keep them alive in the countless conversations we have with them in our minds.

The sign

Seeing so many people go to such lengths to pay tribute to their dead inspired me.

At the graveyard in the center of Oaxaca, I decided I would search for a grave that said Javier. Apparently, it is not a common name in Mexico, cause I could not, for the life of me, find any.

So I kinda gave up on the idea.

“It can say Romero as well,” I reasoned—Romero was Javier’s last name. And as soon as I had finished that thought, I saw it: a tomb that said Romero. “Wow!” I laughed to myself, “That was fast.” And then, tears, as I looked closer and realised that the grave I had found belonged, indeed, to Javier Romero.

There he was. Waiting for me. Comforting me. And impatiently demanding that I pay attention to our encounter: “If you’re gonna be worrying about practicalities, I’ll leave,” he said, as my mind drifted.

And that’s how I knew it was really him.

Leave a comment

Spirituality for consumption

In September, I travelled to Las Vegas to build the world’s largest lantern festival (at least according to the Americans).

For three weeks, my Guatemalan friends and I ate dust for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and parked thousands of Range Rovers, Hummers, and Cybertrucks (there were some normal car…

Read more

It’s been 15 years since my first biking trip through southern Chile. Since then, I’ve dreamt of hitting the road again.

But there’s always an excuse, innit?

I don’t have the time; I don’t have the money, I don’t have the gear; I don’t have the company (in my case, they all a…

Read more

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to sit down and write something that makes sense to myself—much less others.

Not to be confused with a period of stagnation. The last month has been one of tremendous growth and expansion.

Read more

This week I attended a made-for-gringos fire ceremony led by Tata Búho, one of the Maya shamans who live on the shores of Lake Atitlán.

Why should you care? Because it reveals how the West is finally beginning to listen—and what we do with that listening will shape our spiritual and ecological future.

Búho invited us to make offerings to the 20 nahuales …

Read more

This text is based on my PhD on happiness and the good life in the outdoors. To learn more about my research, check out this post where I share the story behind my journey.

This week I had one of the best days in a long time.

Not because I accomplished som…

Read more

This week, I visited Santiago de Atitlán, a town across the lake from Lomas de Atitlán, where I’m currently in an artist residency. Santiago is known as a spiritual center for the Tz’utujil Maya and home to the syncretic figure Maximon—Saint Simon, or “the grandfather”—an ambiguous spirit blending Catholicism and Maya beliefs. His effigy is kept in priv…

Read more

What happens to a society when all the grown-ups suddenly decide to quit their jobs and pursue their divine purpose? Over the last year, I have journeyed down the rabbit hole of YouTube self-help gurus and spiritual teachers. I have binge-watched videos about inner child work and played online tarot readings for “the collective” to exhaustion. It is kin…

Read more