Our (evolving) Plan for 2019

Last Updated: May 13, 2019

What’s the Discover Discomfort list of goals for 2019?

What We Do: Learn by Living

Firstly, if you don’t know what Discover Discomfort is about, and the name doesn’t give it away… we travel immersively to places that are unfamiliar to us, learning about culture through learning languages and doing what local people do.

Any place that feels like “we see that place on the news, or occasionally meet the people, but don’t really get them” becomes a place on our hit list.

This includes all of the Middle East and Africa (every part), Central Asia, the Pacific Islands, and some parts of Asia and Latin America with which we’re less familiar.

The goal is to just live like “ordinary people”. We’ll always be foreigners, but be as well-integrated as possible: speaking the local language, shopping at local markets, eating local food, hanging out with local people.

The Plan

Here’s what we currently have planned for 2019. It’s somewhat in flux and might be modified, but this is the plan for now.

• Egypt, to learn spoken Egyptian Arabic. Done. See our final video of us speaking Arabic here!
• Israel, for work/recovery from Egypt, and learn Hebrew. Done, see Dana speaking decent Hebrew with 1 hour a day practice!
• Tanzania, to learn Swahili, (May 2019). We’re currently here!
• Kenya, to continue learning Swahili, to train in short-mid distance running (June 2019)
• Somewhere in Europe as a post-Africa pause (July 2019)
• China Aug-Sep 2019 to train in Kung Fu and meditation at a Shaolin temple (this might get pushed back)
• Australia Oct 2019 to see family and for Dana will train in ocean swimming and (re-)learn the guitar; Jo will learn the drums and do a fitness challenge.
• Colombia Nov-Dec 2019 to learn Latin dancing
• Indonesia Jan-Feb 2020 to learn Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), surf and cook Indonesian cuisine 

Here are some of our popular posts:

• The Joy and Pain of Travelling While Non-white
• Living in Zanzibar: Seven Things We Didn’t Expect
• “This Part of the World Between Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon”
• Building Hebrew’s Cultural Fortress
• The “Garbage People”: The Faces Behind Cairo’s Giant Trash Problem