Introducing Dope Days Only
Hello everyone, happy launch day!
I hope you are as excited as I am for the big reveal! It’s been quite the journey; one I would like to share with all of you as I reflect on it myself.
Exactly five years ago, I celebrated my 20th birthday alone. Every birthday before this one was spent alongside my twin brother. But this year, he was on the other side of the world, and I was sitting by myself at a café in Indonesia.
This was the path I had just recently chosen—to work and travel abroad, independent from a school or organization for one year. After finalizing my leave of absence from university, I was waiting for my Australian Work and Holiday Visa to be approved. I was moving to Melbourne, a city I knew nothing about, in one week.
That day, I was introduced to the magic of traveling alone. I call this magic “kismet” for two reasons. One, because in Arabic “kismet” means fate. Which, I like to think, is what the magic of life boils down to. And two, the café I found myself in was called Kismet.
So, in Kismet café on my 20th birthday I was seated next to a South African man with long dreadlocks. He was not someone I would normally come across in college… We talked about topics I had never heard of before—Bitcoins (crypto-what?), a festival in the middle of the desert called AfrikaBurn, the legality of magic mushrooms in Bali, but most importantly, a full moon party happening that night.
“Want to come?” the mysterious South African asked me. “Uh, sure,” I said, just not wanting to spend my birthday evening all alone. And with that, I hopped on the back of a motorbike (to my mother’s certain dismay) and we were off to a party hidden in the middle of rice paddy fields.
We arrived to the party, which was a ‘Sunday Sauna’ session by a pool, next to a fire, and under a thousand stars. Everyone at this party had a story. One was a famous Japanese fashion designer. Another was an Australian yoga instructor who traveled the world. The next, a professional ski instructor in Canada. I was shook. Professions like that exist? People like this exist? It was my first exposure to a life outside of the white breadbox hometown and college I had grown up in.
It was fascinating to hear about how these people were following their passions in life and doing what made them happy. This was so opposite to the “get good grades, go to school, get a job” life path I was always told to follow. I’m sure many of you can relate. I knew I wanted to build a life of passion and fulfillment for myself, too. But how?
I searched, and I searched. That year, and the four following it, I traveled to all the places I thought I would meet passionate people that could help me find my own. I tried new things, learned about niche communities and asked questions. Then I traveled some more, and met more people, and asked even more questions.
And you know what I found?
I’ll save you the corny BS, and instead share a quote from one of my favorite books, Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues:
“Not aimless. Not in the least. It's just that my aims are different from most. There are plenty of aimless people on the road, all right. People who hitchhike from kicks to kicks, restlessly, searching for something: looking for America, as Jack Kerouac put it, or looking for themselves, or looking for some relation between America and themselves. But I'm not looking for anything. I've found something."
"What is it that you've found?"
"Hitchhiking.”
So, five years later here we are. When it comes down to it, the act itself of meeting and learning from passionate people, exploring alternative places and sharing them with others is what I found I’m passionate about.
Dope Days Only’s mission is to help you find a bit of “kismet” in your own life and travels. Being in the right place at the right time, to meet the people that change your life the way this birthday changed mine.
Guides are organized by theme and destination. Each theme comes from a local friend who was kind enough to share their passion with me, and now, you.
Destinations are all hip, authentic and alternative neighborhoods, cities and places. They are all accompanied by a list and map of Google Map pins, to help directionally-challenged people (like me) navigate and get around. You can click on any of the locations in bold, to take to you Google Maps in a pinch. The first destination at the top of the page always links to the full list.
I know that travel is not accessible for everyone. Which is why all of the guides contain external links in italics, to interesting follow-up articles, virtual experiences, or where to find the suggestion in your hometown, so everyone can go outside of their comfort zone, without having to go far.
So without further ado, allow me to officially introduce Dope Days Only.
After the homepage, feel free to check out the About page for a definition of a “dope day,”and a quote from the one-and-only, Kanye West.
And of course, you can also check out each of the first three guides individually:
I hope you enjoy the website, and maybe get something out of it. Let me know what you think by replying to this email.
If you’d like to show support for this passion project, feel free to follow @dopedaysonly on social media, share with your friends, and stay subscribed to receive monthly updates like this one. Donations are accepted to help keep the site running, and are very much appreciated (venmo: @dopedaysonly).
Thank you for your time; I hope you all have a dope day.
Michaela